The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown

Well, I fell for it- the book was offered at 40% off, and I liked Da Vinci Code, so I got easily suckered in. And I did enjoy the first 350 pages, but it grew to be boring, so I skimmed through to the end. While I accept the author's premise- the lost symbol of the title ends up being "our limitless human potential" - the villain's main reason for cutting off one man's hand, among other gruesome things, was that the head of the Masons in Washington had turned his back on his own son! Seems a weak excuse for a lot of blood, tattoos, blood sacrifice,being buried alive, and so on. As an expose of the Masons, it was enjoyable, and I did learn a few things - for instance, the fact that a physical body weighs less after death than before, proving I suppose that one can actually weigh the human soul - but I decided that Dan Brown is an adult's J.K. Rowling, and I only read the first two of her Harry Potter books. Brown writes well- his characters are introduced gradually, as well as important plot details- and I liked the fact that the object of everyone's search- Peter Solomon- is not found until near the end, so Brown obviously planned things out well, and probably stepped back many times to judge the effect of certain things on his reader. I expect there'll be a movie- I won't bother going to see it. Anyway, I was disappointed in the movie of Da Vinci Code, too. When am I going to read a" sit down and get totally immersed" book??? It's been a while!

The Lost Symbol was a good book to take along on our trip to Ottawa, however, because I was still reading the most interesting parts at that point. And Katherine's monologue at the end is good, too: I agree that what we call God is within us, not above us; that we do have limitless abilities, we just have to harness them and cultivate them: become Creators ourselves.