The Lost Symbol - A big apology

The Secret is how to die... proclaims the first line of the book. But then, may be, Robert Langdon has forgotten how to die. He rises from the ashes again this September 15th and raises more questions than he answers.

I once wrote about a book :

The book is a very big promise broken down by the commercializing tendencies of the increasingly capitalistic world.

I feel this is apt for Dan Brown's new novel. Dan, probably in search of making a quick buck after the humongous success of The Da Vinci Code OR under pressure from his publishers, is back with 'The Lost Symbol'.

'The Lost Symbol' promises a chase against time through the chambers, tunnels and temples of Washington DC.

But all it delivers is a huge and arbitrary discourse on the lost wisdom of the Ancients. It reads more like an encyclopedia on the symbols of the Old than a thriller which is unputdownable.

My main concerns with this new installment from him are:

1) This time Robert Langdon is just a caricature of what he was in the older novel. No doubts he solves ancient puzzles but the solutions are very mundane and not exciting as they were once.
2) The premise over which the novel is built is not so convincing. Does a search which ends in finding nothing (both allegorically and physically) really deserves a 448 page book?
3) The discourse on the Holy Scriptures and its allegorical symbolism to modern world is not what I wanted from a Dan Brown book. If I wanted that I would have seen God TV.
4) The book has a feel of being hastily compiled with loads of information about older Orders but with no real storyline.

At the end of three days, reading this monster of a book, all I felt was :

this book is a big apology for all the holes that Dan Brown drilled in Christianity with his The Da Vinci Code.

And that apology costs some 480 bucks.. Damn costly apology, eh!