Posts Tagged: Robert Langdon

Writing — No Comments
19
Dec 09

Is She Guilty?

dan_brown_lost_symbolSo the architect has just come barging into room SBB 13, rescuing Robert Langdon. Of course, he could be a co-conspirator.

With regards to Director Ito, there are two possibilities. It seems rather obvious that she is part of the conspiracy. Why else would she have mysteriously shown up right after the severed hand appeared, already knowing about Mal’akh’s plot. Of course, this could just be a diversion, and we are supposed to think she is guilty. It in fact seems far too obvious to be true.

Which leads to possibility number two. She is not part of the conspiracy. Which means that the Director of the CIA’s ultra elite Office of Security is a complete imbecile.

Right now I’m leaning towards both being true.

Pages read: 168
Pages To Go: 341
Writing — No Comments
19
Dec 09

Waiting For Something To Happen

dan_brown_lost_symbolI’m 34 chapters in, and nothing much has happened. The Da Vinci Code started out much more exhilaratingly, with Langdon immediately being faced with the puzzle in the Louvre. As I recall, in Angels And Demons, we knew pretty early on that he needed to hurry, or the Vatican would be destroyed by a bomb.

But here we are almost 150 pages in, and there has been one, very simple puzzle, lots of random information about Washington D.C. iconography, a blatant attempt to make Director Ito seem a part of the conspiracy, and very little else. The tension all rests upon the fact that Robert Langdon has the secret package in his bag, and that Katherine doesn’t realize the doctor is an imposter, and planning to murder her.

Worst of all, the book is not as spectacularly bad as I was hoping for. It’s just dull. And I have four hundred pages to go. Curses!

Pages read: 144
Pages To Go: 365
Writing — No Comments
19
Dec 09

Fail: Search Engine Automation As Exciting Plot Hook

dan_brown_lost_symbolSome more random thoughts as I plow further into the novel:

A complete failure at making a search engine spider compelling. Trish, the search engine expert seems totally surprised upon learning that it works. As if she has never run a search before. Brown makes a serious mistake, grafting the reaction of the audience, who might be surprised, onto the character, who would be expecting it to work. He inner monologue is completely unbelievable.

Katherine Solomon is beyond stupid for believing that text message.

Another one of Dan Brown’s patented puzzles turns out to be ridiculously easy. I turned over the symbol and realized it was SBB 13 as soon as I saw it. It is clearly upside down roman numerals. Why wouldn’t world renowned symbologist Robert Landon have figured this out IMMEDIATELY?

Noticed my first instance of misogyny in chapter 27. More to come I’m sure.

Pages read: 118
Pages To Go: 391
Writing — No Comments
19
Dec 09

The Apotheosis Of Dan Brown

dan_brown_lost_symbolPerformed my second google search, for the Apotheosis of Washington, a painting on the ceiling of the Capitol, America’s version of the Sistene Chapel. Interesting stuff. Apotheosis is the transformation of a person into a God, and the ceiling of the U.S. Capitol depicts Washington ascending into heaven as a deity. Interesting implications both for the separation of church and state and our own Christian heritage.

The ongoing conversation between Ito and Langdon continues to grate. Moments after saying she has no time to waste, she allows Langdon to waste her time with a history lesson. We still have no idea why she is there or what is so important about her search for the perpetrator, so important that she has no interest in the severed hand discovered in the Capitol building or conducting a search for the man who left it there. How ironic that is the very man she is searching after.

Pages read: 84
Pages To Go: 425
Writing — No Comments
19
Dec 09

Director Ito, Why Don’t You Believe Him?

dan_brown_lost_symbol80 pages in, and the story is already beginning to unravel. Director Ito’s character makes no sense. She rushes to the scene of the crime, looking for Robert Langdon, but does not actually know about the crime. And no one thinks this is strange. No one asks for an explanation for why she is there, or why she seems completely uninterested in solving the crime. She mentions, for unknown reasons, that she is intent on helping the confessed perpetrator of the crime to find the portal. She challenges Langdon every step of the way.

Her character is functioning as an obstacle for Langdon to overcome, an obstacle formed by the very institution that is supposed to be helping. She is no different from a skeptical police chief or a by the book investigator who keeps impeding the protagonist. As an added bonus, the questioning of Langdon serves as a way to convey more information to the reader.

It is all so transparently inane. Is it so hard to come up with thoughtful characters and compelling story arcs? If Dan Brown were a masseuse, he would have ball-peen hammers for hands.

Pages read: 81
Pages To Go: 428
Writing — No Comments
19
Dec 09

The Demosthenes Sock Puppet

dan_brown_lost_symbolTo me, the most salient feature of a Dan Brown novel is the manner in which he ineptly inserts flashbacks in order to provide the reader with necessary background information. I suppose that Brown thinks he is livening up the information by presenting it within the framework of a former lecture. These flashbacks invariably entail unlikely enthusiasm on the part of his audience, including unbridled ejaculations of surprise.

The best example comes in The Da Vinci Code, when Professor Langdon is giving a lecture on the feminine properties of the Mona Lisa to prison inmates. That’s right! And during the lecture, the convicts enthusiastically react to his revelations, as if his visit is the best thing to happen to them since their incarceration.

Chapter 6 provides the first example in The Lost Symbol. During his first lecture of the year in his Occult Symbols course, as he introduces the hidden iconography of Washington D.C., students yell out “Awesome,” they hang on his every word, laugh at his every joke, and even recognize Masonic rituals when presented with slides.

These flashback lectures–I am sure there will be more of them in the chapters ahead–are so inauthentic as to border on the absurd. Robert Langdon has the charisma of a dirty sock puppet, yet in every situation, he is welcomed like a modern day Demosthenes.

Every one of these flashbacks is so awkward as to induce nausea. But I soldier on.

Pages read: 32
Pages To Go: 477
Writing — No Comments
19
Dec 09

You Have No Idea How Long

dan_brown_lost_symbolThe formula is taking shape already: A mysterious ritual at an historical landmark? Check. A freakish, obsessive cult follower willing to murder anyone who gets in his way? Check. Awkward flirting between Robert Langdon and beautiful academic? Check.

We even have an obvious example of ominous foreshadowing: “A little extra caffeine this morning, he thought. It’s going to be a long day.”

It’s comforting to not have to think while reading literature.

BTW, it turns out that Peter Solomon was born into one of the richest, most powerful families in America. A fictional Rockefeller. He is now the head of the Smithsonian Institute. Of course.

Pages read: 17
Pages To Go: 492
Writing — No Comments
19
Dec 09

The Han Solo Of Symbology And Religious Iconography

dan_brown_lost_symbolAnd we return to the world of Robert Langdon. Oh, how I’ve missed you. In one of the previous books, he is described as “Harrison Ford in Harris tweed.”

In chapter one we learn that Langdon’s father died while he was still a boy, perhaps in an elevator accident at the Eiffel Tower. We also discover that he has been mentored by Peter Solomon, a 58-year old billionaire philanthropist, historian and scientist who had “taken Langdon under his wing nearly thirty years ago, in many ways filling the void left by Langdon’s father’s death*. Despite the man’s influential family dynasty and massive wealth, Langdon had found humility and warmth in Solomon’s soft gray eyes.” There better be a pretty good explanation of how Solomon, an historian and scientist, made himself into a billionaire. I hope he’s a robber baron.

Obviously, Peter Solomon is either going to die in the next few chapters, or turn out to be a villain.

Pages Read: 9
Pages To Go: 500

*Don’t you think “the death of Langdon’s father” would have been better here?

Entropy Squared — No Comments
13
Dec 09

She Will Not Be Able To Resist His Scholarly Charms

Lost Symbol coverThe time has finally arrived. The official launch of The Chaos Factory website. And to kick things off, we have a special event I mentioned a couple of months ago.

The Great Dan Brown Experiment will take place this coming Saturday, December 19th. Over the course of 24 hours (I hope) I will be reading The Lost Symbol, and live blogging about the experience. For those of you in the Western Hemisphere, the fun begins your Friday night. Please join me in order to provide the moral support I undoubtedly will need to devote an entire 24 hours to Dan Brown.

A little background. I read The Da Vinci Code a couple years ago, wondering what all the fuss was about. (And if you are unsure what I mean by fuss, as I mentioned earlier, The Da Vinci Code is already the 8th best selling novel of ALL TIME!) I found it annoyingly compelling, because even though I disliked everything about it, I finished it in 2 or 3 days. It was like I was riding my bike past a truck carrying a shipment of scissors that had crashed into a mental hospital. I could not look away.

So I have decided to relive the experience with The Lost Symbol. Will it be better than the Da Vinci code? Did Dan Brown take the tens of millions of dollars he has earned in royalties to enroll in a basic writing course? Will I live through the weekend or will I choke on my own bile? Will there be a beautiful, young love interest for Robert Langdon who cannot help but fall for his scholarly charms? All these questions will be answered this Saturday.

Remember, all of this takes place right here at entropy2.com.

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