I just finished The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown.
It is hard for me to say what I think of this book for many reasons.
I found the book predictable. It had the usual amount of Indiana Jones style fast running adventure to keep me up late at night but I knew that Dan Brown books did, so that was predicable.
The plot line exposed itself throughout the book and I kept saying to myself as I was reading it, that I had to be wrong because surely he would not have made this information so easy to figure out. But I was wrong, he did make critical plot lines easy to decipher.
Did he do that because he feels his audience is getting a little less sophisticated and he needed to be a little more mainstream?
That seems a bit oxymoronish for me because the underlying principles of the book are sophisticated, deep and very spiritual.
I really liked the background and history of the spiritual symbolism. I am a huge fan of symbolism in anything including life so finding so much of it in this book was exciting for me.
I loved the spiritual aspect of taking something so primitive like ancient prophesies and brought it into today’s experience. I loved the concepts that were discussed, expressed and explored.
I hated the extremism that was shown but that just may be because I hate extremism in every day life. I realize that there are those who take things too far like if one pill is good for me then a whole bottle must be amazing. Or the thinking of terrorist that say if you live differently and think differently then you are a threat to my life and I must annihilate you.
And the main villain character in this book definitely fit into that extremist characteristic profile. He was so much into the profile that it was almost laughable.
I loved the technology and possibilities that are so limitless that we got a glimpse of in this book. How exciting of a world we lived in if we did actually have an entire science based on what ifs… instead of just trying to prove theories of what is.
I would love to live in a world that thrived on possibilities and excitement of discovery.
That could very well be Dan Brown’s point that he was trying to make.
That we are living in changing times that need changing of minds…
and beliefs…
and to be open to possibilities…
and to honor our past knowledge…
incorporating what those before us have learned…
into our new tomorrow.
Could that just be what the entire 2012 predications are based on?
Overall it was a great book, that I thoroughly enjoyed. It was a fun way to explore spirituality. It was easy, compelling reading. It would make an amazing book group read if you took it a little further.
But it could also turn those conservatives bonnets in a twist again like Angels and Demons did with the Catholic church. We all need a little shake up once in awhile.
