Review: The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

“Misunderstanding a culture’s symbols is a common root of prejudice.” –Robert Langdon in The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

I used to be a book snob. Still am to some degree. As an English major, I felt I should only spend my time reading what I considered good literature—good story, good character development, and most important of all, good writing. Then I entered a graduate publishing program and realized that my English Lit background did me little good there. I may have known Faulkner, but Faulkner is dead and I had no idea what people were actually writing and publishing today. So I swallowed my pride and began venturing out into the world of popular fiction.

Today I finished reading Dan Brown’s latest thriller, The Lost Symbol. Having read and seen the movie versions of The Da Vinci Code and Angels and Demons, the common protagonist, Robert Langdon, was much more concrete in mind while reading his most current offering. In fact, Langdon was Tom Hanks. But there are far worse things than having a figure as comforting and familiar as Tom Hanks in your head for a few days.

The Lost Symbol is another strange mix of history, science, and religion, of fact and fantasy. The characters range from the fanatic to the realist, the scientist to the priest. My favorite character was Langdon’s newest female sidekick, Katherine Solomon. She’s beautiful and rich so you want to hate her, but she’s also real, smart, and ingenious, so you admire her.

Once again, one of Brown’s antagonists is an odd-looking man who likes to hang out naked (remember the albino?). Not titillating naked—scary naked. It made me wonder about Brown’s penchant for bad guys who walk around naked. But then, as an English major, I’m sure I could come up with some critical explanation for it. Let’s go with something about the villains hiding nothing about their evil natures from us.

It’s a lengthy novel, of course. And the resolution was a little long and redundant. It took fifty pages for Brown to wrap things up after the climax. Even in a book this long, that accounted for 10% of the book. I found myself skimming the end because I already knew what happened in the end (and that’s the point of a Dan Brown novel, finding out what happens next), and it was repeating a lot of the same ideas that had been presented throughout the book. But the chapters are short, and the narrative moves quickly, so it’s a fast read.

If you liked Brown’s other novels, The Lost Symbol will not disappoint. It’s full of twists and turns that range from predictable to surprising, but they’re all fun. Though he was a little melodramatic in some places (“The bowl contained one inch of thick crimson liquid. ... The liquid was _______’s blood.”), there was one major plot twist that I can honestly say I didn’t see coming. Of course, I can’t tell you about it or it would ruin the book.

The Lost Symbol is great escapist literature. And considering his popularity, a Dan Brown novel may one day grace the syllabus of an American Novels course.


The Lost Symbol
By Dan Brown
Doubleday, 2009
$29.95