The Lost Symbol

Tuesday, May 24th, 2011

I finished reading Dan Brown’s book The Lost Symbol yesterday. Having read his previous books, I thought I knew what to expect. But it was 2005 when I read them, and as I was reading The Lost Symbol, I found I couldn’t remember if the other four had lectured at me as much as this book. If they did, I was more interested in their subjects - plus, they were shorter books.

Weighing in at a whopping 670 pages, the Lost Symbol made me feel like I was sitting through the longest History lecture of my life. Dan Brown has certainly done his research, and he wants to tell us ALL about it. Even worse, the book’s major conflict was resolved on page 605, meaning the rest of the book was really just a tagged on epilogue.

Three years ago, I read that Dan Brown was taking longer than expected to write his follow up to The Da Vinci Code. I wonder now if his publishing company were so relieved to receive the manuscript, they didn’t bother to edit it properly because they were anxious to get it out on the shelves. And of course, 670 pages gives a book a big spine presence on book shelves.

So I wouldn’t recommend The Lost Symbol to anyone. There are much better thrillers out there that won’t weigh you down so much. But if you’re really stuck, may I suggest my old History lecturer’s book on the Magna Carta. At least in that book, the bad guy sticks around until the final chapter.

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