Of Playthings and Puppets

I may have previously alluded to only purchasing a handful of books for the remainder of the year. Dan Brown’s The Lost Symbol was one of those (as was Stephen King’s Under the Dome, which just got its price slashed across the board–very beautiful). After finishing the book today, I honestly wish I hadn’t bothered with it.

The hotly anticipated books premise is a relatively simple one: Robert Langdon, protagonist of the infamous The Da Vinci Code, is back and this time he’s in D.C. to look for another (surprise!) hidden artifact. Along the way, there are freaky male antagonists (this one has tattoos on top of being pale and hairless), some kind of love interest (sadly, not a descendant of Jesus this time around), a friend to lend a hand (pun intended for those who’ve read the book), and a handful of CIA agents and the like. Yes, this is all quite simple, but unfortunately, it also reads rather simple.

I’m not sure whether or not Da Vinci Code utilized the same tactic, as I haven’t read it in some time, but each chapter of Lost Symbol ends on a what seems like a cliffhanger. This happens regardless of whether the section is three or ten pages long. This technique is usually meant to drive tension and build suspense, yet as I read, the cliffhangers only served to annoy me. Compounding this annoyance was the overuse of not revealing integral parts of the story to readers despite characters reacting to said event. Too many times, I was confronted with Langdon performing a double take or sighing in exclamation at a new development, yet I would have to wait multiple chapters to understand. This didn’t occur with just the mysterious side of the book, either. In fact, one of the final chapters has Brown exclude Langdon asking another character to visit the hospital… a point revealed just a page later.

These may seem enough to annoy any reader, but Brown took it even further by overlaying the text with extensive expository paragraphs that serve only to slow the pace of this “thriller.” I won’t spoil any particular point, but Brown does this in nearly every chapter, and clutters the story’s climax with lengthy dialogue that supposedly serves to explain the book’s “mystery” (not entirely mysterious, nor exciting, actually). Even before this climax, the expository paragraphs served to spoil the final “twist” hundreds of pages before it occurred, though none of the characters seemed to figure it out and are somehow shocked at title’s conclusion.

All of this occurs in a book with the absolutely dullest characters. Langdon is a walking encyclopedia with faulty eidetic memory (he can remember every phone number he’s ever dialed but not a grid of characters seen just a few minutes earlier?) that is either shocked or disbelieving of every fact thrown is way. The antagonist wants to screw everyone over for seemingly no reason (even given his eventual reason, his actions still seem a bit… extreme). Love interest Katherine could be interesting, but is too one-note to be anything worthwhile. The only sympathetic character is Langdon’s friend Peter, who barely appears at all. Even the other supporting characters barely bring anything more to the table but more misdirection and/or explanations.

It all boils down to a paint-by-numbers thriller lacking anything remotely resembling a thrill. Several times throughout the book, I simply wanted to put it down and read something better, but after spending my money, I simply couldn’t do it. I wanted, hoped, it would turn around and be worthwhile. It wasn’t. And I’ll never get those days back. But I did learn to avoid any Dan Brown titles in the future (not like it matters; the man never has to work another day in his life, does he?).