Book Review – The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

The book comes with a special book mark courtesy of MPH

The first Dan Brown’s book that I read, predictably, was the Da Vinci Code. It was the combination of conspiracy theories and the mystical world of ancient symbology that got me hooked to this book. Apart from reading this world-wide acclaimed epic book that eventually made its way to the movie, I have also read his other books Angels & Demons, and Deception Point. I particularly like Angels & Demons, and having visited the Vatican City plus the fact that I know some background information on Christianity through my association with some devout Christians (although I’m a Muslim) has helped me to comprehend most of the elements mentioned in the book.

Understandably, when Dan Brown’s latest book the Lost Symbol was released, I was very eager to lay my hand on it. The sad thing is, in Malaysia books tend to be rather expensive and a hard back copy of this best seller would set me back RM 99.90. I had to put on hold my yearning for the book till either a paper back version was released or till I could manage to borrow from somebody who’d bought it.

The US Capitol where the story started, 'as above so below' indicated by severed hand of Peter Solomon that led to the discovery of the Masonic Pyramid

Then finally somebody at the office told me that he had the precious book and was willing to let me borrow. How wonderful....!!!! The book, all 509 pages in total, again revolved around our hero Harvard Professor Robert Langdon rush against time, this time to solve an ancient puzzle called the Masonic Pyramid in order to save his mentor Peter Solomon from a certain death at the hand of a lunatic named Mal’akh. The background of the story, the US Capitol and the area of Washington DC, was my playground during my university days making the book that much easier for me to understand. Having read his previous books, the Da Vinci Code and Angels & Demons also helped me to follow the intricate details about the mysterious world of the Freemasons brought forth by the author.

The House of the Temple, a Masonic temple where the book reached its peak of the action

Unfortunately, despite the immense build up of the story including the thought provoking elements of Noetic Science and Langdon’s near death experience in drowning, the book ended very philosophically with the villain idea of total transformation was to kill himself, while the secret he was after, referred to as the Lost Words, was no secret after all. So with 50 pages to go the bad guy was already dead, unfortunately not in the manner he had hope to achieve total transformation to acquire God-like power, the rest of the book took me on a dwindling ride of discovering the true secret that the Masonic Pyramid was hiding, and as I said it was really no secret.

The Washington Monument where the secret was revealed, with the US Capitol at a distance in the background

I still say the Lost Symbol is a very good book and I still think Dan Brown is a genius in writing such a book with elaborate details on seemingly true ancient world of symbols and conspiracy. However, Angels & Demons still ranks as my No. 1 favourite and I’d highly recommend even for those who have watched the movie.