Book Review – ‘The Lost Symbol’ Dan Brown

Title – The Lost Symbol

Genre – Novel, Fiction, Thriller, Mystery, Crime Fiction

Series – Robert Langdon #3 (Standalone)

Publisher – Doubleday (US), Transworld Publishers (UK)

Length – 1,93,440 words

As the story opens, Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned unexpectedly to deliver an evening lecture in the U.S. Capitol Building. Within minutes of his arrival, however, the night takes a bizarre turn. A disturbing object–artfully encoded with five symbols–is discovered in the Capitol Building. Langdon recognizes the object as an ancient invitation… one meant to usher its recipient into a long-lost world of esoteric wisdom.

When Langdon’s beloved mentor, Peter Solomon–a prominent Mason and philanthropist–is brutally kidnapped, Langdon realizes his only hope of saving Peter is to accept this mystical invitation and follow wherever it leads him. Langdon is instantly plunged into a clandestine world of Masonic secrets, hidden history, and never-before-seen locations–all of which seem to be dragging him toward a single, inconceivable truth.

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A thriller, yet another wonderful book by Dan Brown. The famous author that provides a good amount of ‘infotainment’ through his deeply researched book, wrote another gripping tale about none other than, our familiar hero, Robert Langdon. Robert is a professor at Harvard University teaching his students the subject of Symbology, and this is the reason we can say, ‘wherever there is some code or symbol, there is Professor Langdon’

The books starts with a good pace, when Robert is summoned by his beloved mentor, Peter Solomon, at Washington D.C. But on his arrival at the told place, he senses somthing’s wrong, and guess what? Very much is wrong. Peter Solomon, has been kidnapped.

To rescue the life of his beloved mentor, Robert follows the trail laid down by the kidnapper, our antagonist, Mal’akh. And this is how the story slowly and slowly unfolds the plot, and all the obstacles that comes in our hero’s way. To save the life of others, Langdon has to unlock the lost symbol, that has never been revealed before!

The book starts with a good pace. You’ll get amazed at your speed of flipping through the pages, I think that’s just the way Dan Brown writes, you get immersed in his writing. And one more interesting thing is, every page holds some mystery and reveals the previous one, so you don’t feel like things are being dragged. So, in the terms of pace, and reading speed, it’s perfect!

All the characters are amazingly crafted. I personally liked the character of Katherine Solomon (sister of Peter Solomon) She is a noetic scientist, a science that is focused on proving the existence of God, and spirits. It’s really interesting, if not for anything, I suggest you to read this book for this topic. You’ll definitely like it.

Dialogues are really good in this novel, it felt like a smooth conversation. And as always, the descriptions. Dan Brown has this unqiue style in his words that he can actually make you visualise the entire novel! If Robert is feeling suffocated, you’ll too. That’s how good he is at describing character’s feelings and locations in the novel.

The explicit details, and descriptions of deaths is really intense, so if you don’t like reading extreme deaths, you may not read it. But if you have read Angels and Demons before, I think you’ll be able to read the deaths in this novel too. It’s not too much, but very deeply described. You can literally feel how the character is feeling while dying.

Many may differ with me on this, but I found the ending of this novel, not up to my satisfaction. It was just… abrupt. But still, keeping the ending aside, I liked reading this novel. Now let me tell you the reason why I did not like the ending THAT much. Imagine, there’s an amazing plot twist, and no one knows about it yet, not even the characters. But suddenly the author tells you the plot twist, but not the characters, and it is later revealed in the story when you already know it! 

Robert Langdon is a lovable character. Since I have already read about him in Angels and Demons, I am starting to get used to this character, and sometimes I can guess what’s going on in his mind, so that’s a good thing for me.

I have already told you about Katherine Solomon, and why I like her character. Because she’s smart, and sensitive at the same time. Characters are really well developed.

One thing is for sure, you will doubt each and every character’s intentions. When I was reading about Sato, and even Bellamy, I couldn’t guess if they are on good side or bad! And I was thinking about till the ending, and this is a reason why I like reading Dan Brown’s books. Characters are Unpredictable!

It’s an amazing read, of course, if you like his writing style. And I would also suggest you to read this book for increasing your knowledge about many things! Masonry, and Noetic Science. You should read it!

I definitely recomment it!

Dan Brown is the author of numerous #1 bestselling novels, including The Da Vinci Code, which has become one of the best selling novels of all time as well as the subject of intellectual debate among readers and scholars. Brown’s novels are published in 56 languages around the world with over 200 million copies in print.

In 2005, Brown was named one of the 100 Most Influential People in the World by TIME Magazine, whose editors credited him with “keeping the publishing industry afloat; renewed interest in Leonardo da Vinci and early Christian history; spiking tourism to Paris and Rome; a growing membership in secret societies; the ire of Cardinals in Rome; eight books denying the claims of the novel and seven guides to read along with it; a flood of historical thrillers; and a major motion picture franchise.” Source