For nine out of the ten clues he runs into, he has an answer, while one of his compatriots is usually on hand for the tenth. The Lost Symbol’s plot primarily serves to remind you how clever and daring Robert Langdon is, which would be annoying if the amount of self-congratulation didn’t border on the absurd. Of course, one of the villain’s goons immediately breaks him out and forces him to track down clues alone - now with the CIA chasing him too. Then, the CIA brings in Langdon for questioning because his ability to be in the right place at the right time is awfully suspicious.
BOOK THE LOST SYMBOL CODE
At first, Langdon works with mysterious CIA bigwig Inoue Sato (Sumalee Montano) and down-to-earth Capitol police officer Nunez (Rick Gonzalez), who has to play the whole “man of the people” foil to Sato and Langdon and, for instance, interrupt their argument about whether a code is written in Latin or Arabic to point out that they’re holding it upside down. Once the show gets going, it carries on at a pace that’s so fast you hardly notice the number of plot holes it’s hydroplaning over. When she decides to help him, she hits pause on her discovery that monks chanting can stop the growth of cancer. Also, of course, there’s a love interest: Valorie Curry, as the daughter of Langdon’s mentor, who’s researching some woo-woo “Noetic science” he refuses to believe in. The show adapts one of the less mega-successful Brown novels, but follows a lot of the same conventions: There’s a conspiracist on the loose who has captured one of Langdon’s old mentors (played by Eddie Izzard), and the only way to stop him is by solving puzzles that hinge on obscure knowledge. Shiv’s sidepiece from Succession, as a younger, jockier version of the symbology professor. After Tom Hanks and his misguided hair choices played Brown’s hero in the Da Vinci Code and its subsequent movies, this show casts Ashley Zukerman, a.k.a. If you’re aware of The Lost Symbol, it’s probably because it’s informally known as the Hot Dan Brown Show.
BOOK THE LOST SYMBOL TV
There are so many leaps of logic it’s basically narrative hopscotch, and some of the most fun I’ve had watching TV this fall. He’s a character who can resolve every problem he faces through a liberal application of basic art history, comparative religion, and maybe basic Latin, Greek, or Arabic. Over the course of the first few episodes of Peacock’s The Lost Symbol, the tweedy-yet-hunky Harvard professor runs around Washington, D.C., spouting such revelations as “It’s symbolic!” “I used a standard Masonic cipher,” and “Hang on, this sconce!” while trying to solve a grand arcane mystery involving, yes, a lost symbol. Inventory No: 17120053.When you’re Robert Langdon, the whole world is your escape room. For, as Robert Langdon will discover, there is nothing more extraordinary or shocking than the secret which hides in plain sight. A brilliantly composed tapestry of veiled histories, arcane icons and enigmatic codes, The Lost Symbol is an intelligent, lightning-paced thriller that offers surprises at every turn.
All that was familiar is transformed into a shadowy, clandestine world of an artfully concealed past in which Masonic secrets and never-before-seen revelations seem to be leading him to a single impossible and inconceivable truth. Langdon finds himself quickly swept behind the facade of America's most historic city into the unseen chambers, temples and tunnels which exist there. When Langdon's revered mentor, Peter Solomon - philanthropist and prominent mason - is brutally kidnapped, Langdon realizes that his only hope of saving his friend's life is to accept this mysterious summons and follow wherever it leads him. It is, he recognises, an ancient invitation, meant to beckon its recipient towards a long-lost world of hidden esoteric wisdom.
Within moments of his arrival, however, a disturbing object - gruesomely encoded with five symbols - is discovered at the epicentre of the Rotunda. *** ABOUT THIS BOOK: WHAT WAS LOST WILL BE FOUND.Washington DC: Harvard symbologist Robert Langdon is summoned at the last minute to deliver an evening lecture in the Capitol Building. *** CONDITION: Very Good book with No Dust Jacket. *** PUBLISHING DETAILS: Doubleday Book Club, Australia, 2009.