Book review: The Lost Symbol

I'm going to try to write more book and movie reviews in 2010. We'll see.

Anyway, I read The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown over my vacation. My book club selected it for our next meeting. I'd read Dan Brown's earlier books (Angels & Demons, The Da Vinci Code) years ago - for another book club - and remember enjoying the first one but thinking the second one followed the exact same formula. Like those earlier ones and the movies that have been made from them, this was a fast-paced action thriller starring symbologist Robert Langdon, who is brought to Washington, DC, under odd circumstances and finds himself embroiled in a mystery regarding Masonic legends and a box he's been asked to hold onto by his mentor, who is the Director of the Smithsonian or something powerful like that. Beyond being interested in the locale, I did not enjoy the book at all. I felt like it was at least 100 pages too long. Literally, some of the chapters kept saying the same things. Even once the bad guy was caught, there were another like 40 pages before the book ended! Who needs that? Some of the symbology and science (the Director's sister studies Noetic science) was quite interesting but even that seemed to get shoved down your throat in an almost condescending tone. The book almost seemed like an advertisement for Noetic science. And the major "reveal" about the villain was so obvious that I can't imagine that anyone didn't see it coming from a mile away. I'm sure the movie will be much better, as they'll be able to edit out all the crap and make it into a more streamlined story. So my suggestion to all is to wait for the movie!