Review of the Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

Brown has stood up to the great expectations by his readers with this thriller of his. The adventures of Professor Langdon have created a stir once again after Angels and Demons and Da Vinci Code. You simply cannot deny being overwhelmed by the mysteries that are revealed in this gem of a work. You get to learn about the Freemasons and about their secrets and their origin. You encounter Noetic science as represented by an important character in the book, Katharine Solomon. When you are done reading, you would have soaked in a lot about the ancient mysteries and the truth concerning the adepts who have transmitted secret knowledge from Ancient Egypt to the founding Fathers of the American Constitution. This novel is following the footsteps of `Da Vinci Code’, a work that was condemned by the Vatican. Rome even denied permission for the filming of `Angels and Demons’. Brown is highlighting another powerful and ancient sect in the `Lost Symbol’ – the Freemasons. He is not trying to explain to us the secretive or bizarre rites of the Masons but he is interested in explaining their symbols and how they and the `Illuminati’ are shaping and controlling whatever that happens in the capital city of the most powerful nation in the world, ever since George Washington laid the cornerstone for the Capitol building in a Masonic ritual. Brown is certainly inspired by Steven Spielberg and his character Indiana Jones when he moulds his own Robert Langdon. He replaces the narrative and the galloping drive with fascinating pyramids and treasure maps and mythological archetypes and all those secret codes. In his books, just like Langdon needs a sexy companion to add flavour to the mystery thriller and its narrative, there has to be a deranged and demented lunatic villain. In this work, it is Mal’akh, whose eyes are shining with `feral ferocity’. With this book, Dan Brown has unleashed an unmistakable attack on all false assumptions that coat the thinking of the Western civilization. I, for one, have started to feel after reading Dan Brown’s books that our understanding of history has been manipulated and brainwashed and is perhaps based on deliberate suppression of ancient truths. In the Da Vinci Code, he had shaken the whole world by questioning and rattling the pillars of Christian faith. In `The Lost Symbol’, he points out that modern culture is suffering from a lack of understanding of competing world views; one that gives rise to the primacy to faith doctrines and the other, to logic and rationality. The reader gets a comprehensive tour of everything great and sacred in the unique city of Washington, District of Columbia. You feel that you have explored the hidden areas behind the great architectural monuments in this city, as you experience the agonising pursuit of the artifact by Professor Robert Langdon and Katharine Solomon.