New Dan Brown book, "The Lost Symbol", releases Tuesday

Cafe Society
61

Yeah, that was mentioned in a few reviews I saw. Is my pork tenderloin done cooking yet? It’s a somewhat-common literary technique for third person narrative, letting you know what a character is thinking, but it’s usually used much, much more sparingly. I hope that zit on my ass is gone tomorrow.

I finished the book last night, and found the whole last quarter of it to be quite boring. After the plot is done, there’s just pages and pages, chapters and chapters of proselytizing and talking about how excited characters are about scientific discoveries that aren’t real at all. *Christ, it’s hot in my room. * I think Brown was reacting to all of the religious backlash he got over his last book, so he went far out of his way to make a pro-religion, pro-Bible, pro-Jesus message, and spent the last 40 pages hammering it into the reader’s skull. I need to go drain my massive sex organ.

The gymnastics required to maneuver around using the word “penis” in the two or three times it’s referred to is quite, amazing.

62

I don’t know if that first print run is actually that high, I heard 2 million. But even if it is ‘only’ 2 million, do people realise quite what a staggering achievement this is? I know many authors, including really good authors. I also know someone who is trying to line up a book deal to tie in with a major prime-time TV show happening next year. It’s the same story everywhere: no-one has any money. Even good, commercial writers who used to get an advance of £50k (or $80k) a few years ago are now having to accept just £5k or less. Even the guy with the TV show lined up (guaranteeing prime-time exposure to an audience of millions every week) is being offered advances of £10k or less, and that’s after a lot of chasing and meetings and maybes. I know writers who, if they sell 1000 copies of a book, think the book has done well.

For someone to have written something that can justify the publisher printing even 2 million copies is an unbelievable, fantastic achievement, a phenomenon. And maybe wierdarron is right and it’s actually 5 million.

By all means fault Dan Brown and say he’s a terrible writer (a very popular thing to do, especially among writers who have never published anything). By all means argue that the way publishers focus all their resources on one or two bankable ‘star’ writers is bad news for other writers, and for publishing in general. But give credit where it’s due. Writing something that even 2 million people think they want to read is an amazing achievement that ought to leave us dazzled.

63

One of my favourite books ever. Funny and really clever - but also makes you think for ages afterward. Goldsworthy is also a really classy writer.

I enjoyed The Da Vinci code and it really suited when I just wanted an intriguing story - nothing more.

64

Agreed. The story ended about 100 pages before the book did. After that it was a long anticlimatic ramble about Noetics and Buy-bull study, which Langdon found to be astonishing as he took it all in with his mouth gaping open.

65

Finished reading it. On the whole, I was slightly disappointed. I expected his hilarious prose style (which I parodied once upon a time*) and didn’t mind it. It kept closely to formula, there were some fun puzzles, I felt I learned a bit about Washington (as an ignorant Briton) once I’d filtered out the obvious BS.

Plot-wise, it was weaker than DVC. There was no moment of rug-pulling-out double-crossing, and given the number of ancillary ‘authority figure’ characters there were, this seemed a waste. I didn’t see the comedy bad-guy reveal coming, and didn’t find it convincing (they would have seen a *lot *of each other on the way to the 33rd degree). The whole business about the noetics was a complete waste of time, contributed nothing, and also was blatant hot air. At least all the symbology had enough (by DB’s standards) of an attempt at authenticity. I didn’t buy Sato’s motivations.

He made an obvious effort to cast Freemasonry in a balanced light, and had clearly learnt from the backlash to his previous efforts. As a mason myself, I appreciated this. Frankly, I don’t mind the publicity that has/will result from this book, and I was worried that it would be cast in an unfair manner.

If you want to see how good Dan Brown really is, read “The Lucifer Code” by Michael Cordy. It is the same formula (deformed baddies, astonishing discoveries, pseudo-scientific nonsense), but is the worst piece of writing I have ever read. I literally wept with laughter at the absurdity of it. Highly recommended.

On the whole, enjoyable, unoffensive fluff.

66

It sold 2 million right away. The initial print was 5.4 million.

Since I like to make movies in my head, while I was reading it I was trying to imagine how to adapt it into a movie (which is already being done), and I think there are several plot elements that will make it somewhat difficult.

Especially the backstory of the villain

[spoiler] Since the bad guy is Solomon’s son, and doesn’t become unrecognizable (which is itself completely ludicrous) until after he gets out of prison and starts doing steroids, there will be no way to show him prior to that without it being obvious that it’s Zachary Solomon the whole time.

Sure, you could make a point of not showing his face when he’s overhearing Peter talking to the warden, and when Zachary is plotting with the warden to be released, and even not showing his face OR the victim’s face when he’s beating “Zachary” to death, but by not showing his face, it becomes terribly obvious that his face is a secret, and there are only so many options…

So the entire “surprise” of his identity is completely unfilmable. [/spoiler]

And, since every major plot development needs 4.5 pages of explanatory exposition afterwords, that’s hard to convert into a movie. Such as…

[spoiler]Langdon’s supposed drowning, is later explained to be because the tank was full of breatheable liquid, which he realizes once he gets out, and then the book goes on and on explaining how this is totally real. That wouldn’t work in a movie where everything has to be explained via dialog.

“What happaned? I thought you drowned.”
“Oh, well it turns out it wasn’t water, but a type of liquid you can breathe in.”
“Oh… what?”
“Yeah, it’s gotten more and more popular for sensary deprivation, and it was in that movie The Abyss. Remember it?”
“No, I was too busy moving ice molecules with my mind.”
“Oh, well basically it’s a liquid you can breathe because it’s heavily saturated with oxygen.”
“Well that makes sense, I guess, since my astonishing research in noetics has revealed that all sorts of things are possible, including that babies in the womb are breathing a fluid! What I don’t understand is why this all happened in the first place.”
“Well, my guess is that if somebody were watching all this, they would have been tricked into thinking I had died, which would have been very dramatic. The fact that you saw it didn’t seem to matter that much, since you were going to die right away anyway.”
“Yeah, so basically it seems like a big circle jerk.”
“Wait until you find out what the ‘Ancient Mysteries’ really are…”
“Have I mentioned the astonishingly breathtaking discoveries being made in a completely fabricated branch of science? Seemingly the entire point of this story is to amaze you with them.”
“Speaking of fabricated areas of study, have I mentioned I’m a SYMBOLOGIST?”
[/spoiler]

67

Of course it is fiction. He tells you than in the opening chapters when he is driving over the bridge from Virginia to DC, the Lincoln Memorial is straight ahead and the Jefferson Memorial is off to the left. That is hidden symbology to let the reader know the world of the book doesn’t really exist.

68

The book is fiction? WotNot couldn’t believe what he was reading. There’s hidden symbology that reveals the world of the book doesn’t exist?

Inwardly reeling, he cast his mind back over the chapters he’d read so far. Had there been any clues? True, he’d been surprised that the image of George Washington in The Apotheosis of Washington was described as being “dressed in white robes” when a quick check on Google images showed him wearing a blue uniform, but then as Langdon himself had reminded, only a few pages later, “‘Google’ is not a synonym for ‘research.’”

And then, now that he thought of it, were bunsen burners really fuelled by oil – oil that was viscous, highly flammable, yet noncombustible?

Have I been wrong all this time?

69

A review of the book, complete with a code, for those that don’t want to buy the hardcover. Warning major spoilers:D:

Hee

70

it’s already out in pirated paperback in China. Saw it tonight. I didn’t ask the price but probably $3.

71

I haven’t read The Lost Symbol, and I’m not sure if I will. I read both The DaVinci Code and Angels And Demons about 7 years ago or so, and really liked them at the time. I thought they had very engaging plots and great characters. For whatever reason, the writing itself didn’t bother me.

Then, I reread Angels and Demons about two months ago. Plot still good (though there are holes), but about 15 pages in, I turned to my wife and said “Ok, I understand why people don’t like Dan Brown.” I don’t know how I didn’t see it the first time through…despite the fact that the stories are good…he’s just an AWFUL writer. Reading the comments here, it seems like his writing abilities haven’t improved…in the two things that really bugged me throughout my Angles and Demons reread.

A) Bashing the same stupid easy to understand point home. Thanks for explaining in detail why that discovery was important, and what happened earlier…we know all that because of:

B) HIGHLIGHT PAY ATTENTION, READER, this next paragraph will foreshadow a big twist or important event later in the book HIGHLIGHT You didn’t miss, that, did you reader?

:slight_smile:

72

Assuming I know what you’re referring to, yeah.[spoiler] That had me thinking, "Did Brown just kill off his hugely successful series character three-fourths of the way through the book? That takes balls, and/or a sincere desire never to write one of these Robert Langdon novels again. Did Brown just send Langdon over Reichenbach Falls??

Or, wait, is the disembodied spirit of the late Mr. Langdon going to stick around somehow as a character in the story? An entirely different direction indeed![/spoiler]

73

I can’t talk about all the mystical, metaphysical mumbo-jumbo, or else I’m going to start punching my laptop. But I think I can comment on a few things that really bugged me. If I keep those things minor, I think I can refrain from punching my screen.

(1) What’s the deal with Dan Brown referring to his characters by their full names throughout the novel? Not every single time, but really, in Chapter 121, do you really have to refer to the main character as “Robert Langdon” instead of “Robert” or “Langdon”? It’s not like he’s a minor character, and it’s not like there are hordes of other Roberts running around (or any others, really). If Brown doesn’t like the sound of simply “Robert” or “Langdon,” then he really should have given him different names. He also does this with both Solomons, the Architect, the dean, etc.

(2) Were his big reveals supposed to be, um, reveals? The identity of you-know-who – were we NOT supposed to know that? Or the final location of the stairway… again, was there really ANY other possibility?

(3) And what was the deal with withholding really, really minor secrets? He kept what “SBB” meant from us for many chapters. Were we supposed to say, “OMG, ‘SBB’ doesn’t mean ‘Senate Basement B’ but rather ‘Sub-Basement B’!!!”? He did the same thing with the USBG’s identity. It was a Botanical Garden. Sorry to spoil it for you, if you haven’t read it, but it has absolutely – ABSOLUTELY – nothing to do with the story. But he kept it a secret anyways.

(4) Sato’s motivation was really, really weak. Matter of national security? More like a matter for the National Enquirer. Yawn.

(5) Did Noetics have anything to do with anything? No. It did not.

(6) The liquid in the coffin – why wasn’t it water? Was there any reason for it to be what it was instead of water? Did the bad guy have any reason to not use water? No. He did not.

(7) Were there any secrets that Langdon and Katherine couldn’t have gotten by sitting in a lab with the stone pyramid, the gold pyramid, and the cube? No. There was no reason for them to go anywhere other than some sort of lab (or kitchen!) where they could have poked, prodded, burned, frozen, dropped, etc. their tools. It would have been just as exciting.

I had more, but I’m starting to feel monitor-punchy. I don’t think I’ve actually disliked a book before this one. I’ve read some poor ones before, given up mid-way before (I didn’t on this, as I was listening to it on a road trip), then forgotten them. But I’ve never actually expended energy before loathing a book before this one. Kudos to you, Mr. Brown!

74

I think the answer to most if not all of the issues you raise is: Brown did it that way because that’s what the formula he established in the first two books called for. (Only this time, he’s having to reach further for deep, shocking secrets to reveal, etc.)

There’s part of your problem. I suspect Brown’s faults become greatly magnified if you listen to them. I’ve read and enjoyed his books, but I think the key to having the enjoyment outweigh the :smack: is to read them fast—certainly faster than they can be read aloud.

75

After reading this book, I am retiring Dan Brown from my list of approved authors. What a load of crap!