The Lost Symbol
The
Lost Symbol is a 2009 novel written by American
writer Dan Brown.[2][3] It is a thriller set in Washington,
D.C., after the events of The
Da Vinci Code, and relies on Freemasonry for both its recurring theme and its major characters.[4]
Released
on September 15, 2009, it is the third Brown novel to involve the character of Harvard University
symbologist Robert
Langdon, following 2000's Angels
& Demons and 2003's The
Da Vinci Code.[2] It had a first printing of 6.5 million (5 million in North
America, 1.5 million in the UK), the largest in Doubleday history. On its first day the book sold one million in
hardcover and e-book versions in the U.S., the UK and Canada, making it the
fastest selling adult novel in history.[5] It was number one on the New York Times
Best Seller list for hardcover fiction[6]
for the first six weeks of its release,[7] and remained on the list for 29 weeks. As of January 2013,
there were 30 million copies in print worldwide.[8]
Plot
Renowned
Harvard symbologist Robert
Langdon is invited to give a lecture at the
United States Capitol, at the invitation apparently from his mentor, a 33rd
degree Mason named Peter Solomon, who is the head of the Smithsonian Institution. Solomon has also asked him to bring a small, sealed
package which he had entrusted to Langdon years earlier. When Langdon arrives
at the Capitol, however, he learns that the invitation he received was not from
Solomon, but from Solomon's kidnapper, Mal'akh posing as Solomon's assistant, who has left Solomon's
severed right hand in the middle of the Capitol
Rotunda in a recreation of the Hand
of Mysteries. Mal'akh then contacts Langdon,
charging him with finding both the Mason's Pyramid, which Masons believe is
hidden somewhere in Washington, D.C., and the Lost Word, lest Solomon be
murdered.
Langdon
meets Trent Anderson, head of the Capitol police, and Inoue Sato, the head of
the CIA's Office of Security. Sato claims that Mal'akh poses a
threat to the national security of the U.S. and that his capture is more
important than Peter's rescue, although she refuses to elaborate. Examining
Solomon's hand, they discover a clue leading them to Solomon's Masonic altar in
a room in the Capitol's sub-basement, where they find a small pyramid lacking a
capstone,
with an inscription carved into it.
Sato
then confronts Langdon with the security x-ray taken of his bag when he entered
the Capitol which reveals a smaller pyramid in the package Langdon brought in
response to the request by the kidnapper posing as Solomon's assistant. Langdon
explains that he was unaware of its contents, but Sato, refusing to believe it,
attempts to take Langdon into custody. Before she can arrest him, however, she
and Anderson are assaulted by Warren Bellamy, the Architect of the Capitol and
a Freemason, who then flees with Langdon in the confusion. He later explains to
Langdon that he too has been in contact with Mal'akh and wants Langdon's
assistance in rescuing Peter.
Mal'akh
is revealed to be a Freemason with tattoos covering almost his entire body. He
infiltrated the organization in order to obtain an ancient source of power,[9]
which he believes Langdon can unlock for him in return for Peter Solomon's
life. Several chapters also delve into Mal'akh's history with Peter Solomon:
many years earlier, Peter bequeathed a large sum of inheritance money to his
rebellious son, Zachary, who then fled the Solomon household and led a reckless
life in Europe until he was arrested and imprisoned in Turkey for smuggling
drugs. Peter flew to Turkey but decided to have Zachary extradited in a week's
time instead of getting him released immediately in order to teach him a
lesson. Zachary was apparently murdered by his cellmate who got his hands on
Zachary's fortune and fled to Greece to lead a luxurious life under the name
Andros Dareios. Dareios, however, soon grew tired of his life. Apparently
having spoken with Zachary about Solomon's life as a Mason, Dareios broke into
Solomon's home to find the pyramid, but accidentally killed Peter's mother
Isabel and was in turn shot and left to fall into a frozen river by a vengeful
Solomon. Surviving the fall, Dareios nursed himself back to health, covered his
scars and eventually his entire body with tattoos and set off on a mission to infiltrate
the Freemasons and gain access to their secrets, adopting the name Mal'akh.
As
Langdon deals with the events into which he has been thrust, Mal'akh destroys
the Smithonsonian-sponsored laboratory of Dr. Katherine Solomon, Peter's
younger sister, where she has conducted experiments in Noetic Science, in the process ambushing and almost killing Katherine in a
cat-and-mouse chase, but Katherine manages to escape and meet up with Langdon
and Bellamy. Eventually, when cornered by the authorities, Bellamy is forced to
give himself up while Langdon and Katherine escape. Both are later apprehended
by Sato's team. Following clues regarding Mal'akh's previous identity as Peter
Solomon's psychiatrist, Dr. Christopher Abaddon, Sato allows Langdon and
Katherine to rush to his mansion to confront him, but Mal'akh ambushes them and
murders their CIA escort. Meanwhile, as he is being interrogated by Sato, Bellamy
expresses belief that Sato is working with Mal'akh but Sato assures Bellamy
that she is also pursuing Mal'akh in the interest of national security and
displays evidence that visibly shocks Bellamy.
Mal'akh
places Langdon into an airtight sensory deprivation tank, where he interrogates Langdon by slowly filling the tank
with liquid. He is able to convince Langdon to decipher the code at the
pyramid's base, but continues to fill the tank until Langdon drowns and
apparently dies. Mal'akh then ties Katherine to a chair and inserts an
open-ended transfusion needle into her arm and leaves her to bleed to death
then flees with a weakened and wheelchair-bound Peter Solomon to the Temple
Room of the Scottish Rite's House of the Temple.
He uses the threat of not calling an ambulance for Katherine as further
coercion for Peter's cooperation. Sato leads a team of agents to the mansion
after Langdon and Katherine's escort fails to check in and are able to save
Katherine's life. After a near-death experience, Langdon is revealed to have
survived due to the "water" in the tank actually being breathable
oxygenated liquid and the tank being a device for
meditation. Sato, Langdon and Simkins race to the House of the Temple where
Mal'akh threatens to release a heavily edited video showing government
officials performing secret Masonic rituals (the same video that Sato showed to
Bellamy), which without context, appears highly disturbing. Mal'akh forces the
Word—the unpronounceable circumpunct—out of Peter and tattoos it on his head on the last portion
of unmarked skin on his body. Mal'akh then orders Peter to sacrifice him, as he
believes that it is his destiny to become a demonic spirit and lead the forces
of evil. When Peter claims that he will do so without hesitation to avenge his
son and mother, Mal'akh shocks Peter by revealing that he is actually Zachary
Solomon himself, having conspired with the prison warden to fake his death by
disfiguring the body of another inmate beyond recognition (at the same time,
Katherine and Bellamy discover several photos of Zachary in Greece after his supposed
death that show his gradual transformation into Mal'akh). With tears in his
eyes, Peter prepares to stab Zachary but ultimately cannot bring himself to do
so and drops the knife just as Langdon arrives and tackles him. Director Sato
arrives at the Temple in a helicopter, which smashes the Temple's skylight, the
shards of which fatally impale Zachary. The CIA then thwart Zachary's plan to
transmit the video to several leading media channels using an EMP
blast, disabling a cell tower in the network path leading from Zachary's laptop
computer. Katherine arrives and she and Langdon then share a tearful reunion
with Peter and mourn Zachary's death. Zachary is only briefly able to lament
his body's mutilation before dying.
Later,
Peter informs Langdon that the circumpunct Zachary tattooed on his head is not
the Word. He also informs Katherine that he made back-ups of all of her noetic
research data on his own computer, meaning her research can continue. Deciding
to take Langdon to the true secret behind the Word, Peter leads him to the room
atop the Washington Monument
and tells him that the Word—a common Christian Bible, the Word of God—lies in the monument's cornerstone, buried
in the ground beneath the monument's staircase. Langdon realizes that the
symbols on the pyramid's base spelled out the words Laus Deo which
translate to Praise God. These words are inscribed on the small aluminum
capstone atop the Monument, which is the true Masonic Pyramid.
Peter
tells Langdon that the Masons believe that the Bible is an esoteric allegory
written by humanity, and that, like most religious texts around the globe, it
contains veiled instructions for harnessing humanity's natural God-like
qualities—similar to Katherine's noetic research—and is not meant to be
interpreted as the commands of an all-powerful deity. This interpretation has
been lost amid centuries of scientific skepticism and fundamentalist zealotry.
The Masons have (metaphorically) buried it, believing that, when the time is
right, its rediscovery will usher in a new era of human enlightenment.
Characters
- Robert Langdon: A professor of symbology at Harvard University and the protagonist of the novel.
- Mal'akh: A Mason whose body is covered with tattoos and the novel's main antagonist. Formerly known as Zachary Solomon, the son of Peter, was arrested in Turkey for drug possession. During his incarceration he overheard a conversation between his father and the prison warden reaffirming that Peter would not pay for Zachary's release as he did not wish his son to believe that money was able to waiver all punishment, especially one of the magnitude of drug possession. Angered, Zachary conspired with the warden to have his cell-mate killed and proceeded to report Zachary dead. Zachary broke out under the name Andros Dareios for several years and took on a whole new life-style in Greece. After much growth hormones and steroid indulgence, he began to bore of this life-style and began to cultivate his mind in the Masonry ideals and practices. He renamed himself Mal'akh after an attempt to obtain the Masonic secrets from his father, breaking into their home, and killing his grandmother. Mal'akh sees himself as a physical manifestation of the angel Moloch, as he worshipped the Black Arts in order to grow stronger and he performed numerous aspects of black magic which allowed the angel to enter his body. Mal'akh is the Hebrew word for 'angel'. Throughout the book, he also uses the name Dr. Christopher Abaddon to gain his father's trust, and Andros Dareios, a name he used while hiding out in Greece before the book's events. Of note, he is the first antagonist in the Robert Langdon series who serves as both the killer and the mastermind of the events in the novel, with all other killers merely acting on behalf of the mastermind.
- Peter Solomon: A Smithsonian secretary, billionaire philanthropist, Freemason, father of Zachary Solomon, and close friend of Robert Langdon. His kidnapping sets into motion Langdon's race to find the Mason's Pyramid and the Lost Symbol.
- Katherine Solomon: Noetic scientist, sister of Peter Solomon, aunt of Zachary Solomon.
- Trish Dunne: Katherine's metasystems analyst. She is murdered by Mal'akh while in his Dr. Abaddon disguise, when he drowns her in the ethanol-filled tank preserving a Giant Squid.
- Isabel Solomon: mother of Peter and Katherine Solomon and grandmother of Zachary Solomon. She was killed ten years before the events of the book by Zachary, disguised as Andros Dareios.
- Warren Bellamy: Architect of the Capitol and fellow Freemason to Peter Solomon. He aids Langdon and Katherine Solomon by helping them escape from Inoue Sato, briefly suspecting her of helping Mal'akh, but he later learns that he and Sato are on the same side.
- Inoue Sato: the second-generation Japanese-American Director of CIA's Office of Security, from whom Langdon must flee after she accuses him of criminal acts.
- Reverend Colin Galloway: Dean of Washington National Cathedral and fellow Freemason to Peter Solomon and Warren Bellamy.
- Trent Anderson: Capitol police chief.
- Jonas Faukman: Langdon's New York editor (named for Brown's real-life editor, Jason Kaufman).[10]
- Nola Kaye: CIA analyst, named after Elonka Dunin, Kryptos expert[11][12][13]
- Omar Amirana: A taxi driver
- Mark Zoubianis: A hacker hired by Trish and Katherine to hack into an encrypted document.
Publication details
The
Lost Symbol had been in development for several
years; originally expected in 2006, the projected publication date was pushed
back multiple times.[14] When officially announced, the hardcopy book was on
pre-order lists for months leading up to its release, being heavily ordered
both in the United States and Canada.[15][16] The book was published on September 15, 2009 with an
initial print run of 6.5 million copies, the largest first printing in
publisher Random House's
history.[17][18] Electronic versions such as eBook[19] and Audible book versions[20] were also made available on the same date.[21] The American release audio book was read by Paul
Michael, who also performed the audio book
for The Da Vinci Code.
The
book immediately broke sales records, becoming the fastest selling adult-market
novel in history, with over one million copies sold on the first day of
release. By the end of the first week, a total of two million copies had been
sold in the U.S., Canada, and UK.[22] According to the publisher, the rapid sales prompted the printing
of an additional 600,000 hardcover copies to the 5 million initially printed
for the US market.[5] On its first day the book became the #1 bestseller on Amazon.com,[23] and the Amazon
Kindle e-reader edition became the
top-selling item on Amazon.com,
outselling Amazon's sales of the hardback copy of the novel, which is the sixth
best selling book of 2009 on pre-publication orders alone.[24] The Lost Symbol also ranked as the #1 bestseller in
Amazon's Canadian and British sites.[25][26] Both Barnes
& Noble and Waterstone's reported the book has broken all previous records for adult
fiction in the United Kingdom.[27][28] According to Nielsen
BookScan data, 550,946 copies of The Lost
Symbol were sold in its first week of sale, taking $7.49 million. By
the end of the second sales week, Transworld intended to have 1.25 million
copies printed.[29]
Reception
The New York Times praised the book as being "impossible to put
down" and claimed Brown is "bringing sexy back to a genre that had
been left for dead." Nevertheless, it noted the overuse of certain phrases
and italics, as well as the lack of logic behind characters' motivations. It
also likened Inoue Sato to Jar
Jar Binks.[30] Los
Angeles Times said, "Brown's narrative moves
rapidly, except for those clunky moments when people sound like
encyclopedias."[31] Newsweek
called the book "contrived", saying that to get through The Lost
Symbol, just like The Da Vinci Code, it was necessary to swallow a
lot of coincidences, but the book was still a page-turner, and that Brown
"is a maze maker who builds a puzzle and then walks you through it. His
genius lies in uncovering odd facts and suppressed history, stirring them together
into a complicated stew and then saying, what if?"[32] The National
Post's
review called it a "heavy-handed, clumsy thriller" and that the
character of the villain (Mal'akh) "bears an uncomfortably close
similarity" to the Francis
Dolarhyde character in Thomas
Harris' 1981 novel Red Dragon.[33] The Daily
Telegraph said the novel was "not quite
the literary train-wreck expected."[34] TIME
said the plot was fun, if bruising, but "It would be irresponsible not to
point out that the general feel, if not all the specifics, of Brown's cultural
history is entirely correct. He loves showing us places where our carefully
tended cultural boundaries — between Christian and pagan, sacred and secular,
ancient and modern — are actually extraordinarily messy."[35] Novelist William
Sutcliffe's review in the Financial
Times panned the book as "a novel
that asks nothing of the reader, and gives the reader nothing back",
adding that it "is filled with cliché, bombast, undigested research and
pseudo-intellectual codswallop".[36] The digested read by John Crace in The
Guardian ends with Robert Langdon begging
Dan Brown "Please don't wheel me out again."[37] Slovene philosopher and cultural critic Slavoj
Žižek described the book as "a
candidate for the worst novel ever".[38]
Adaptation
Following
the worldwide successes of The Da Vinci Code in 2006[39] and Angels & Demons in 2009,[40] which were both based on Brown's novels, starring Tom
Hanks as Robert Langdon and produced and
directed by Ron Howard,
Columbia Pictures
began production on a film adaptation of The Lost Symbol.[41][42] Hanks and Howard were expected to return for the film
adaptation of The Lost Symbol, along with the franchise's producers Brian
Grazer and John
Calley. Sony Pictures eventually hired
three screenwriters for the project, beginning with Steven
Knight[43] and then hiring Brown himself.[44] In March 2012, Danny
Strong was also hired to collaborate on
the adaptation.[45]
According
to a January 2013 article in Los
Angeles Times, the final draft of the screenplay
was due sometime in February, with pre-production expected to start in the
mid-2013.[8] In July 2013, Sony Pictures announced they would instead
adapt Inferno for an October 14, 2016[46] release date with Howard as director, David
Koepp adapting the screenplay and Hanks
reprising his role as Robert Langdon.[47]
In
June of 2019, the project was announced to be re-conceived as a television
series tentatively titled, Langdon. The series will serve as a prequel
to the film series, with Daniel
Cerone serving as creator, showrunner,
chief executive producer,
and screenwriter.
Dan Brown, Ron Howard, Brian Grazer, Francie Calfo, Samie Falvey and Anna Culp
will act as additional executive producers. The show will be a co-production
between Imagine Television Studios, CBS Television Studios, and Universal Television Studios and was ordered to series on NBC.
The
plot reportedly revolves around a young Robert Langdon, who is hired by the CIA
to solve a number of deadly puzzles when his mentor goes missing.
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