Well of course it isn’t as grand as The Da Vinci Code, but it is a worthy sequel to trouble Robert Langdon from the confines of Harvard. Dan Brown’s novels, especially The Da Vinci Code, dabble with people’s doubt and feed them a page-turning storyline with mouth-watering pieces of, usually historic, information. And such quality indubitably exists with the latest release, The Lost Symbol.

America’s clandestine, undying accounts of certain doings of the Masonic brothers have gone beyond their shores. Evidently, ancient stories of their involvement in the shaping of American history are popular ‘over-the-coffee’ discussions, auditorium-worthy talks, even for non-Americans—if it weren’t, Doubleday wouldn’t have published The Lost Symbol internationally and National Treasure would’ve crashed and burned in cinemas outside American soil. Yes, The Lost Symbol toys with the same line with National Treasure, but in an entirely different arena—more convoluted and pleasurably vexing.

A madman, whose entire persona is deeply immersed among the characters, will try to unravel the secret of the Free Masons. His audacious plan is not to reveal a thousand-years-old mystery to the world but to digest its surreptitious totality and greedily destroy and obliterate its existence. Definitely a madman, but wise enough to know that he does not know how to decipher and find reason, logic, meaning with the enigmatic messages ‘hidden in plain sight’. His solution is to find someone who can, dragging Robert Langdon in the middle of the CIA, the Free Masons and possibly ending the world as we know it—a famous theory about an apocalypse in 2012.

Brown once again throws, or rather re-throws, a concept debated between the most intellectual believers and skeptics—the power of thought, the use of the brain’s untapped potentials. Langdon’s viewpoint in all this is one of a skeptic who plays along with the madman’s belief, aiming to save Peter Solomon, a friend and a Mason—and proprietor of the key to unlock the bridge between science and faith.

Though it is nowhere near the achievement, attention and reception that The Da Vinci Code got,—but I don’t think it was intended to surpass its predecessor—The Lost Symbol is a thrilling read in its own way. I finished the book in three days because it was hard to put down.

Brown ends chapters with undeniably effective cliffhangers. His brand of storytelling is clear of confusion on whose eyes are you seeing from. He starts paragraphs with the name, or in reference to the character, of the person who will be joined by the audience, adequately placing the reader as part of the scene.

Authors will have a formula that they are comfortable with. Brown is not an exception. But this time, the equation is quite different from Angels and Demons and The Da Vinci Code. Good news right? Perhaps adding up to the novel’s unpredictability, a change in formula but not with pace.

And, as usual, the book is well-researched, from the facts amidst the fiction, down to the minute detail of architectural masterpieces in Washington D.C. vividly described for a more precise imagined tour, or better yet, reader experience.

I honestly started reading The Lost Symbol with much skepticism—but I did keep an open mind as the pages I’ve read become thicker. Moreover, I felt like a fortune-teller attempting to spoil the rest of the plot by identifying Dan Brown’s foreshadowing and habitually muttering a turn of event before I get to the next page. I owe this behavior to my reading of Angels and Demons first then The Da Vinci Code which is how I noticed Dan Brown’s formula. And the same observation from another book lover, who has read Digital Fortress and Deception Point, did not mitigate such attitude.

Well I am still a skeptic when I finished it. But I did question certain ideologies that the book divulged and even researched them, quite a desirable trait for a novel, to make readers more interested with history. More importantly, I was only capable of spoiling insignificant bits of the storyline, except for one essential part—but I leave that to the reader’s eye.

In a nutshell, Dan Brown’s formula has changed, for the better. And his dexterity in writing remains nifty and inventive, resourceful would also be an appropriate appraisal. With a gripping storyline, and a fascinating perspective on Noetic science and, again, biblical role, The Lost Symbol is definitely the sum of a desirable reading equation—an enjoyable read ‘not’ hidden, and in plain sight.

image courtesy: alvinkh.blogspot.com

This work, unless otherwise expressly stated, is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 Philippines License.

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November 26th, 2009 by Edgewire Graduated from FEU in 2009 with a degree in Nursing. Former Managing Editor of the FEU Advocate. And did a bunch of stuff for the publication. "'Wag kang masiba kung nilibre ka lang" www.livewire-edge.blogspot.com