The Lost Message of the Masons

After having listened to The Lost Symbol, Dan Brown's latest opus, I admit that,like Matt below I wanted to like it, but in the end I just couldn't. Brown violates all of the rules of writing good fiction en masse from an over use of modifiers, repeating phrases as if they were a mantra we can't recall from the previous page. The key to thrillers though is a fast pace, murders, or one murder and a maiming in this case, although as others have pointed out, the murder victim was long forgotten once the deed was done. The italicized internal dialogue with he thought attribution is a beginners style mistake but having to fully master POV is not on Dan's radar when he can sell his tomes without learning anything save laundry lists of obscure facts presented as infodumps. As long as the whole thing is a chase scene it works. Sex? Let's just hope Dan's home life is more exciting than his characters.' I mean really.

Hilarious reviews here:

MATT TAIBBI
"The most irritating Harvard-educated, mullet-wearing, sexless pedant of all time."
09/25/09 at 16:30

The let down new agey anti-climactic ending felt like a rip off of the movie, The Jewel of the Nile. The jewels have been right before you all along. But where is the damn treasure! Yeah. I felt the way I did touring the Montana headquarters of the CUT church: standing in a gift shop awash in religious symbol trinkets ( like a Catholic field day sidewalk sale) from every belief in the history of the world humans have ever held, all gathered beneath a portrait of the owners of the church, The Prophets. Us. We are the Gods we've always dreamed of. Sure. It's all about us.

At the end of the day those of us involved in the pursuit of the publishing grail of are all just mystified by the Brownian product line and what he gets away with. I strive for the opposite, but the biggest fantasy of all may be that good craftsmanship should command this kind of money. I think that's the real lost message of the freemasons. And if you look in just the right place in the right light I bet it's chiseled into a corner stone somewhere,