The Lost Symbol

A couple of weeks ago, I finished reading Dan Brown's new book, The Lost Symbol. It was a typical Dan Brown affair with lots of skipping from place to place and character to character, strong on action, and a nice puzzle. It also had Brown's typical push of his world view, which caused the denouement to drag on long after the story was really over. All in all however, it was a fun read, if not a slightly predictable one.

As with his other books featuring Professor Langdon, the other character were more facilitating than the protagonist. The villain, Mal'alk, was particularly interesting. Mal'akh, in my opinion, is strongly based on Siddhartha, the title character in the novelette by Hermann Hesse. (Siddhartha is not the story of the Buddha, but rather a fictional contemporaneity with the same name, who also seeks and eventually finds enlightenment). Both men seek themselves and happiness in indolence and excess, and then turn to an ascetic path. Both men are transformed through their lives' journey. The glaring difference between the two is that Mal'akh choose the dark path and thus never finds true enlightenment.

One could also look at the similarities between the transformations of Mal'akh and Frankenstein's monster; however, I shall save my ramblings and analysis of Frankenstein for another time. Besides, further discussion of Mal'akh's transformation could ruin one of the major plot twists (no matter how predictable) for those of you who have not read the book and choose to do so.

-Phil