The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

Title: The Lost Symbol

Author: Dan Brown (American, 1964- )
Originally published: 2009

Page count: 654

Dates read: 1/12/25-2/19/25

2024 book goal progress: 1 out of 24

Read my other book reviews for my 2025 goals HERE.



Description on back of book:
When Langdon's mentor, Peter Solomon - a prominent mason and philanthropist - is kidnapped, Langdon realizes his only hope of saving his friend's life is to accept the mysterious invitation into an ancient world of hidden wisdom.

First sentence:
"The Otis elevator climbing the south pillar of the Eiffel Tower was overflowing with tourists."

Favorite quotes:
"The word occult, despite conjuring images of devil worship, actually means 'hidden' or 'obscured.' In times of religious oppression, knowledge that was counter-doctrinal had to be kept hidden or 'occult,' and because the church felt threatened by this, they redefined anything 'occult' as evil, and the prejudice survived."

"The difference between Masonic spirituality and organized religion is that the Masons do not impose a specific definition or name on a higher power. Rather than definitive theological identities like God, Allah, Buddha, or Jesus, the Masons use more general terms like Supreme Being or Great Architect of the Universe. This enables Masons of different faiths to gather together... In this age when different cultures are killing each other over whose definition of God is better, one could say the Masonic tradition of tolerance and open-mindedness is commendable."

"Masons meditating with skulls and scythes are no more unnerving than Christians praying at the feet of a man nailed to a cross, or Hindus chanting in front of a four-armed elephant named Ganesh. Misunderstanding a culture's symbols is a common root of prejudice."

"Our forefathers were deeply religious men, but they were Deists - men who believed in God, but in a universal and open-minded way. The only religious ideal they put forth was religious freedom... America's forefathers had a vision of a spiritually enlightened utopia, in which freedom of thought, education of the masses, and scientific advancement would replace the darkness of outdated religious superstition."

CAWPILE Rating: Overall - 4.9/10 - ⭐⭐⭐/5
Characters      - 5
Atmosphere   - 6
Writing Style - 3
Plot                - 6
Intrigue          - 5
Logic             - 3
Enjoyment     - 6
What is a CAWPILE Rating?

Review:

This book was pretty meh, especially compared to the first two books of the series - Angels and Demons, and The Da Vinci Code. The first two books had crucial, controversial critiques of Christianity, which I greatly appreciated. In this story, despite Masons accepting all religions, the book celebrates the Bible. I had hoped we would find a library of pre-edited and lost sacred texts from around the world, but the ending was very disappointing. I also guessed the biggest plot twist in the book from very early on.

Dan Brown needs to stop with his unnecessary cliffhangers. It makes the books unreasonably long and instead of driving the book forward, it just becomes annoying. He also left out critical information as part of cliffhangers, which left me as the reader not as invested in the story as I would've been if I had just been given the information from the beginning. This book should have been half its length - a lot of it just could've been removed.

Overall, it was OK and I still appreciated some of the philosophical points made at the end. Nonetheless, the tone was very different than the previous two books and it feels like it doesn't quite fit into the series. It almost seems like Dan Brown got too much backlash from Christians, so he had to write a more Christian-friendly book - though it may not appear so due to the quotes I've chosen.

Embroidery update:

It'll look better (I hope) when more books are read and the star has more spokes around it.

Now I'm off to read another book... but since a review should be more about the author of the book than about the writer of the blog, I will let Dan Brown have the last words:

"From the Crusades, to the Inquisition, to American politics - the name Jesus has been hijacked as an ally in all kinds of power struggles. Since the beginning of time, the ignorant have always screamed the loudest, herding the unsuspecting masses and forcing them to do their bidding. They defended their worldly desires by citing Scripture they did not understand. They celebrated their intolerance as proof of their convictions. Now, after all these years, mankind has finally managed to utterly erode everything that had once been beautiful about Jesus."

"You and I both know that the ancients would be horrified if they saw how their teachings have been perverted, how religion has established itself as a tollbooth to heaven, how warriors march into battle believing God favors their cause. We've lost the Word, and yet its true meaning is still within reach, right before our eyes. It exists in all the enduring texts from the Bible to Bhagavad Gita to the Koran and beyond. All of these texts are revered upon the altars of Freemasonry because Masons understand what the world seems to have forgotten - that each of these texts, in its own way, is quietly whispering the exact same message. 'Know ye not that ye are gods?' "