{"id":555,"date":"2017-08-02T16:00:17","date_gmt":"2017-08-02T22:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/?p=555"},"modified":"2017-09-10T16:23:02","modified_gmt":"2017-09-10T22:23:02","slug":"book-the-lost-symbol-2009","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/2017\/08\/02\/book-the-lost-symbol-2009\/","title":{"rendered":"BOOK: The Lost Symbol (2009)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"TheThe Lost Symbol
\n<\/u><\/strong>Year: 2009
\nAuthor: Dan Brown
\nLength: 1,067 minutes \/ 17.78 hours<\/p>\n

After Dan Brown\u2019s previous entries in the Robert Langdon series had covered the Illuminati and the Catholic Church, respectively, his next target in\u00a0The Lost Symbol<\/em>\u00a0was the Masons. Unfortunately, as both\u00a0National Treasure<\/em>\u00a0(2004) and its sequel,\u00a0National Treasure: Book of Secrets<\/em>\u00a0(2007), were released before this book came out, the setting and concept seemed derivative in\u00a0The Lost Symbol<\/em>. Especially with the focus on the Masons\u2019 \u201ctreasure\u201d for the better part of the book, I was half expecting the chase to be on a larger scale than just hopping from one Washington D.C. monument to the next as the puzzle unfolds.<\/p>\n

In a bit of a combination of\u00a0Angels & Demons<\/a><\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0The Da Vinci Code<\/a><\/em>,\u00a0The Lost Symbol\u00a0<\/em>combines the exciting twists of uncovering the secrets of a Masonic pyramid with the pseudoscience of Noetics. Of course, the plot could have omitted everything about Noetics, and it would have stood just fine on its own, so I question why it was even needed at all, except for some familial drama and a series of wordplays near the end of the book. In my mind, the puzzle-solving element brought over from\u00a0The Da Vinci Code<\/em>\u00a0was much stronger than the \u201cscience\u201d brought over from\u00a0Angels & Demons<\/em>.<\/p>\n

As for the book\u2019s antagonist, I initially felt he was merely formulaic to the other enemies from previous Robert Langdon books. After all, when you have a self-motivated Illuminati Agent in\u00a0Angels & Demons<\/em>\u00a0and an albino religious zealot in\u00a0The Da Vinci Code<\/em> when you have a tattooed Masonic muscleman as the antagonist in\u00a0The Lost Symbol<\/em>, you start to see the similarities. At least this time the antagonist had a great twist near the end. However, like some of the other \u201ctwists\u201d in this book, if you were paying close enough attention, you would have figured it out before its reveal.<\/p>\n

A procedural combination of the previous two books in the Robert Langdon series, I give\u00a0The Lost Symbol<\/em>\u00a03.5 stars out of 5.<\/p>\n

\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\"\u00a0\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\"\u00a0\"255px-Five-pointed_star_svg\"\u00a01\/2<\/strong><\/h1>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Lost Symbol Year: 2009 Author: Dan Brown Length: 1,067 minutes \/ 17.78 hours After Dan Brown\u2019s previous entries in the Robert Langdon series had covered the Illuminati and the Catholic Church, respectively, his next target in\u00a0The Lost Symbol\u00a0was the Masons. Unfortunately, as both\u00a0National Treasure\u00a0(2004) and its sequel,\u00a0National Treasure: Book of Secrets\u00a0(2007), were released before […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22,54],"tags":[372,639,55,638,716,718,719,8,640,641,715,717],"class_list":["post-555","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-3-5-stars","category-book","tag-372","tag-angels-and-demons","tag-book","tag-dan-brown","tag-masons","tag-national-treasure","tag-national-treasure-2-book-of-secrets","tag-review","tag-robert-langdon","tag-the-da-vinci-code","tag-the-lost-symbol","tag-washington-dc"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=555"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":744,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/555\/revisions\/744"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=555"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=555"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/benjamin-m-weilert.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=555"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}