Dan Brown Book Review "The Lost Symbol" 5/10

Have you ever noticed how in movies that have sequels they all have a similar pattern of quality? Generally the first one is decent, but not great. The second one normally gets all the elements right, and improves all of the negatives in the first to create a pretty damn good finished product. The third one generally regresses pretty hardcore and is generally a contrive attempt to profit off the success of the first two. This appears to be the format Dan Brown has followed, and “The Lost Symbol” appears to be a situation where Mr. Brown was obviously trying to hit on the success of the first two, and try to emphasize the highlights of those books. What that means is the use of the symbols and secret societies is now in your face instead of subtle and surprising. He has found a formula for success and he is sticking to it. To be quite honest, Dan Brown is not a good writer, actually quite the opposite, he is terrible. That doesn’t mean I don’t think he is entertaining, as I enjoyed his first two books quite a bit, however, he is no wordsmith. He is never going to make a living on his ability with words. His books are interesting despite his lack of writing talent, not because of it. It was his ability to work a plot, winding and interesting that makes his books popular. This one however, was transparent. It was easy to see what was going on from the beginning; there were not good plot twists, and frankly no really good plot period. At the end when it came to big reveal it was a terribly let down. Brown was really pushing to make something important and of something that didn’t make that much sense at all. I was hoping that would be a good read, something that would be interesting. Instead all I got was a contrived mess of predictable plot.

My favorite book.

This is a blog about my favorite book. I don't mean my favorite book to read, but rather my most treasured book in my collection. As many of you know, I am a collector. I follow most of the collectibles markets, and I like to collect the old, the rare, and the unusual. Particularly I collect books, and I have a fairly large and varied collection. My favorite book in this collection is not my signed copy of Mother Night by Vonnegut, or my signed God Knows by Heller. Its not even my copy of Catch-22 from high school that my friends signed like it was a yearbook. It is in fact an old beat up and faded 1971 copy of The Prydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander. Many of you might not be familiar with this series. Its the series that the Disney movie "The Black Cauldron" was taken from. It is a childrens or if you prefer tweens series written very much like Eragon or Harry Potter, and very much along those lines in terms of theme. Of course this series pre-dates those series by about 40 years, and in terms of writing ability Mr. Alexander is actually far superior, although he doesn't wind a story as well as Rowling. I loved this books when I read them, and I still love them. Even though I hardly here them mentioned, their themes and conventions come up so much in literature that I know people have to be borrowing from them. But anyway I digress, the quality of the series really isn't the point of this blog, so back to the point. In 1999, after I graduated High School I had the chance to go to Montana to spend a week in a camp for one of my best friends family reunion. I know that sounds a bit odd, but I almost consider this family as much my family as my own family. This of course is the Smith Family. This was a great trip, and everybody that I close friends with at the time went as well. While we were there we had limited access to stores of any kind, the closest town was Gardner, Montana and it is the entry way into Yellowstone. Its a small little town, a gas station, a few local restaurants, a few touristy type stores, and a few local stores. We were passing some time in this town one day, having just had lunch at one of the most awesome burger places on the planet (seriously they have about 150 burger toppings) I decided that I would like to find a place where I could find a book, because I had read the books that I had brought with me. We pull up to this little Mom and Pop flea market on the outskirts of town, and I said you know I would like to have a copy of the Prydain Chronicles. I don't have a copy, and I think I would really enjoy reading them right now, and the whole collection would keep my occupied for the drive home. Well, we went in and they had about 4 books on a shelf with about an inch of dust on them. 3 of them were romance novels, but the 4th one was, lo and behold, my trusty worn black copy of The Prydain Chronicles. What were the chances of that? To me the odd coincidence of that actually being there, combined with the memories of my first great adventure after High school makes it a treasured possession.

Thoughts on Literature

Recently one of those literary survey doohickies came around on facebook, and I being the listless literary geek that I am, I felt compelled to fill out its questions, and pass it around to my friends. While I was reading it, the inevitable question came up as to what what your favorite novel is and as usual, I without thought filled in "The Sun Also Rises." This is as most of my friends know, my absolute favorite work of literature. When I typed it in I thought to myself that this was the first thing in my life that I read that made me realize that there is in fact great literature in the world. The first time that I had a real experience where what I was reading made me think, deeply and introspectively about life and it was the first work I had read that made me realize literature as a true art form. I have a feeling that all great lovers of literature have a similar transcendental moment as this. The type of moment that just can't be delivered by your general run of the mill authors (i.e. The Twilight Series, Dean Koontz, etc) and can only be delivered by a true master of the written word. I am curious as to what some of those written works may be for the rest of you.

Five Best Works of Literature from the 20th Century.(excluding Theatre, Thats a different list )

Those of you that know me understand that I have a bit of a bias towards certain authors, but I guess that is just the way it is in regards to literature, we tend to like what we like and hate what we hate and often there isn't a lot of reason for which category it goes in other than we like it, or don't.  Regardless, here is my top five.  

5.   Let Us Now Praise Famous Men by James Agee and Walker Evans-  This work probably hits home more if, like me, your parents are older.  My Mom was born as sharecropper in circumstances very similar to the farmers that are featured by James Agee, and it gives some unique and touching insights to what life was like back then.  It is also unusual because Agee wrote the words, but Walker Evans was actually given co-authorship for his photographic work.  The images tell the story just as much as the words do, and I might be a bit biased because I am a photographer and Evans is my favorite.  Either way it is recommended reading.

4. Winesburg, Ohio by Sherwood Anderson-A wonderful collection of intertwining short stories that encapsulate the good and the bad (mostly the bad) of living amongst colorful characters in small town Ohio.  Anderson in this work is an exquisite writer, and just reading the words he puts on the page is a treat.  

3.  Catch-22 by Joseph Heller- Dark, scary, hilarious, touching, and socially provocative.  Those are all ways to describe Joseph Heller's one literary success.  Quirky characters immediately pull you in and let you know that war is in fact hell.

2. Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut-  With him the question is which one do you pick?  Most people tend to pick Cat's Cradle or Slaughterhouse-5.  Myself, I tend to enjoy Hocus Pocus, Bluebeard, and Breakfast of Champions more.  I decided on Bluebeard, because it is the closest he comes to creating a real character, not a caricature of one.  I immediately became attached to the elderly painter with a very real idea of his own mortality and the fascination with panty lines.

1. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway-  I have been told that I am obsessed with this book, and that could very likely be true.  I read it for the first time when I was very impressionable, and I still remember the first time I realized that Jack Barnes was, how to put it, damaged.  Its a wonderful written novel that really shows us the meaning of torment and escapism.  

Five Best's.........Characters from the Fantasy Genre.

I love lists. I love reading them, I love making them, and I love debating them. I have decided that I am going to start periodically rating the five best (insert topic here) lists on a variety of random things that I enjoy, or find interesting or important. To start it off I have decided on listing the five best characters from the fantasy novel genre. Literature is to strong a word for what most of these characters come from. This a list not containing the characters from Tolkien or Rowling's worlds, but rather the ones that come from the type of books that are put out by Tor Publications. They are are the characters that generally will only be known by fans of the genre, not by the ones who only know characters that make it into popular culture.

5. Artemis Entreri (Forgotten Realms, R.A. Salvatore) A master swordsmen whom upon his first appearance is evil incarnate. He lives to be the best assassin there is, and has felt that to be a deadly master of the blade that means crushing all emotions inside him. However, his character grows and his comes to terms with what he has done and what it means as he grows older and looses his edge.

4. Matrim Cauthon (Wheel of Time, Robert Jordan) Lazy, gambling, womaning, the type that avoids work whenever possible. However, he is also is nigh unbeatable with a quarterstaff, by any swordsmen, and has the devils own luck (or rather the dark ones, as they call it in the series) throw in the fact that he has 10000 years of memories from former generals filling in the patches of his own swiss cheesed memory and he is a very formidable opponent and a very interesting character.

3. Vin Venture (Mistborn Trilogy, Brandon Sanderson) I was debating which character from this series to include as their are at least 3 possible candidates, I still ended up with two. I went with Vin because she is somewhat unusual amongst fantasy characters, or rather at least the ones that are the primary protagonists. And that is because she is a she. But not only is she the female, but she is also is truly a strong character, both in strength and in force of will.

2. Croaker (The Black Company, Glen Cook) Truly my favorite character from any movie, comic book, fantasy novel series, or anything really. Part soldier, physician, historian, general, and full time cynic. He is aware that he is the one writing the history, and although he tries to stay neutral, he can't help but transfer a little bit of himself into the histories he writes. His interactions with the Lady are some of the best uncomfortably romantic scenes in fantasy literature. And of course their flirtation spans about 40 years.

1. Sazed (The Mistborn Triology, Brandon Sanderson) He gets the nod because he is the most interesting and unusual character in any story I have read. First of all he is a eunuch, and it just gets more interesting from there. I can't really go to much into detail about his awesomeness without giving away the entire twist to a fantasy trilogy.