************

I come to you this evening to tell you why Dan Brown is right and everyone else is wrong, and why Robert Langdon is the hero we need.

I think Dan Brown was tired of Jason Bourne, James Bond, Jack Bauer, Indiana Jones, and John McClane and decided to make us what we really want . . . a nebbishy hero whose name does not contain a J. Someone who is not fearless, but deeply fearful. A reading of The Lost Symbol alone reveals his fears of: planes, elevators, running in loafers, spontaneous speaking, basements, long hallways, rats, stairs, fast driving, catwalks, and tiny conveyor belts. This is a man who wears turtlenecks because he is afraid of ties.

This is also a man who could not save his own ass with a two-handed ass-saving machine, so he is incapable of helping anyone else. Indeed, he never saves the damsel in distress—she is saved from death twice, once by herself, and once by the CIA. On the first occasion, not only does Robert Langdon not save her life, but she is forced to drive herself across down in her own Volvo, crash into the steps of the Library of Congress, and fling herself into his arms just to show her appreciation for just how much he has not done.

He spends most of the book having absolutely no idea what is going on. Like a cat lost in an airport, he dodges and weaves his way around massive, frightening figures. He repeatedly denies the reality of everything that is happening. “What the hell?” he asks. “You cannot be serious.” “But that’s not real.” He is periodically lifted up and carried from place to place, and set down again in increasingly uncomfortable surroundings. He will go anywhere he is told to go, even if that place is completely crazy—like on to a plane at a moment’s notice at the invitation of a stranger, down the book chute of the Library of Congress, or to the house of a known madman. Ten hours after the ordeal, he allows Peter “The Stump” Solomon to blindfold him and push him around Washington DC—into black cars and ominous elevators. When Katherine tells him to go to the top of the dome of the Capitol building, he goes. If your parents ever used the “if your friends all jumped out the window would you do it too?” line on you, they were talking about people like Robert Langdon, who would not only jump out the window because his friends told him to—he would do it because anyone told him to.

He would like nothing more than to cave in to any and all demands placed upon him. In Mal’ahk’s house of horrors, he is subdued within seconds of walking in the door, and when forced to give up the secrets of the pyramid or die, he trips over himself in his effort to give up the secrets as quickly as possible. A beloafered jerk in a Mickey Mouse watch whose only known routine is his daily swim and subsequent hand-grinding of coffee beans . . . Robert Langdon would like nothing more than to be left alone to study weird puzzles and dead languages and teach the surprisingly dimwitted and slavishly devoted students he openly despises. But sadly, his phone always rings, and he must do whatever the voice on the other end tells him.

At the end of the book, when he is busy not making out with Katherine, she gives him a suggestive hug and says, “How can I ever thank you?”

Missing the hint entirely, he delivers the great truth of the novel. “You know I didn’t do anything, right?” he says.

Now, in saying all of that, you may think that I may be suggesting that the book or its characters are deficient. Far from it. Dan Brown just saw that the world was ready for a completely unironic, unsexy, inept, scaredycat, easy-bleeder, indoor-kid, nerd hero who succeeds not by trying, but by being forcibly pushed into danger, which he quite sensibly hates and wants to avoid. He is the opposite of a Boy Scout—he is never prepared. This unpreparedness is the key to his success—had he known what was going to happen, he most certainly would have hid.

How does Robert Landgon roll? He rocks some Saturday New York Times crossword puzzle in pen. He likes comfy chairs and smooth rides and looking at the decorations. He doesn’t know what Twitter is. He’s like your grandpa, but he’s not as cool as your grandpa. He’s that guy at the party who will just not shut up about the things he saw in Rome. You could kick his ass, even if you are twelve years old and armed only with a bag of goldfish. This is why, to use a word he despises, Robert Langdon is awesome. Adventure comes to the lazy, nerdy, and easily influenced. You too—armed with your comprehensive understanding of signage and your workmanlike knowledge of Klingon—you too might be called. You too can defeat the big bad, no matter how big, oiled, hairless, and tattooed he is—even if you do so almost completely by accident.

And in what forms does danger come? It comes in SUDOKU. Because, just as you suspect, the forces of good and evil spend all of their free time making codes and building puzzle cities. Everyone in power is full-tilt-boogie crazy, secrets are the building blocks of the universe, and absolutely everything is interesting if you are just boring enough to see that fact.

This is the world I want to live in, and this is the world Dan Brown has shown to me.

The man, the myth, the loafers

When we last left them . . . Mal’akh had gotten everything he wanted and had Katherine and HSRL in the basement of his evil lair. Katherine was hooked up to something you mind find at an evil bloodbank . . . a machine that slowly drained her dry. And HSRL WAS DEAD! We saw his body sink to the bottom of the tank, like one of those little pirate chests they put in fishtanks.

Now, back to the action.

Chapters 109-110

CIA director Inoue “Evil Yoda” Sato and her crack team have swooped down on Mal’akh’s Palace of Fun. Sato commands one of her minions to find the computer. Said minion goes to the desk and stares at it in bafflement. It LOOKS like a computer should be there, but there is none! Where could it be? What kind of evil mastermind has a computer that you can just PICK UP AND CARRY AWAY? What kind of monster are they DEALING with?

Sato tells him it was a laptop, makes mental note to stop hiring people from the room with the rounded scissors. No wonder she is so cranky and wizened!

In the rumpus room in the furnished basement, Katherine is still hooked up to the bleeding machine, and RL is apparently STILL NOT DEAD. As he clings to life, he runs through some Latin phrases. This is the kind of thing he usually does while trying to run from a hail of bullets while wearing loafers, or trying to escape a major national monument in loafers, or trying to get away from a swooping helicopter in loafers . . . but since there isn’t a lot to do at the bottom of a tank as your brain is about to explode, going through Latin phrases is as good a way to pass the time as any.

Chapter 111

We flashback to what seems like a scene from Stupid Harvard* (but it’s actually Stupid Phillips Exeter Academy, which is a feeder school for Stupid Harvard—and from what I can tell, from there it’s pretty much a straight line to Sato’s team—IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW). Here again we see the overeager arm raising, the giddy excitement at slide shows, the shouting out of names of countries and other nouns.

At the heart of the action is Peter Solomon, who’s there to tell these dim bulbs about the wonders of the Smithsonian. In the process, one of the students confronts Peter and wants to know if he is a Mason. She has Googled him! This one will go far! He admits that yes, he is a Mason. But aren’t the Masons some kind of creepy, weirdo organization of creepy weirdos? Not so, says Peter.

DB proceeds to slice up and plate the juicy fact-meat that he so loves to serve. We learn that the Masons are awesome and not weird at all, and that everything you know is wrong. So there, suckers.

Chapter 112

Downstairs, the CIA is disconnecting Katherine from the bleeding machine, so if you were worried about that, don’t be.

Meanwhile, wretched, crab-like Sato is descending into the hidden basement, where one of her agents is pointing out HSRL’s tweed coat and loafers, which are on the floor! His uniform! His loafers! Then she approaches the tank and looks through the plexiglass and sees a FLOATING, SUBMERGED HSRL!

Now, I know what you are thinking . . . you are thinking, “HSRL has been in that tank for a while, totally submerged, so he MUST be dead. He MUST be.” But Sato knows different. She knows that he is alive. HOW he is alive—well, we’ll get to that in a minute. But think about this. You’ve found HSRL in a tank of liquid in a hidden basement. Now, I don’t know about you, but if I had stumbled upon this scene, I would have turned to my idiot agent and said, “We’re going to go back upstairs and cement over that door. Then I’m buying YOU a chocolate milk and you’re going to promise me never to tell anyone about this.” But DB knows best and doesn’t give in to baser instincts like these. So instead we are given a scene of a naked HSRL, born again, blinded by light, and mistaking the face of Sato for the face of God.

And now . . . the science. DB is not precious with this next section. It moves with the grace of a ballgown trimmed in hammers, but we must get through it to understand the bit about the tank. That tank was filled with oxygenated perfluorocarbons, a new technology known as Total Liquid Ventilation (TLV). Yes, breathable liquid! The science goes on for about two more pages, which contain the only known quasi-academic reference to the 1989 movie “The Abyss.”

Then we get a full HSRL rebirthing scene, and as soon as he is out—he’s talking Latin. I’m not going to lie—Chapter 112 is a bruiser. But no one said this would be easy.

Chapters 113-124

Katherine, of course, believes that she has just seen HSRL die, so she is as surprised as any when he shows up all drippy and towely. “How?” she asks. Sato is about to do the whole “oxygenated perfluorocarbons, have you seen The Abyss?” thing again when Katherine pulls a “Just shut up and hold me!” (To HSRL, not Sato.) HSRL has, once again, not saved her. Our hero is beloafered and an easy bleeder, and he doesn’t rescue much, but he knows his Latin!

While in the tank, he realized that Mal’akh is after the MAGIC WORD! That’s what this has all been about! He’s run off with the pyramid, but RL figures out that he is going to Heredom (which is Greek, actually). Heredom is a mythical mountain in Scotland! But it’s ALSO the nickname of a building in Washington DC!

In the interests of time, I realize I must seriously condense what happens from here on in.

While becoming an initiate in the Masons, bald, shaven Mal’akh was wearing a wig. And in that wig . . . WAS A CAMERA! Yes, the wig cam captured it all, and Mal’akh has edited it together into the most badass and viral Youtube video since Keyboard Cat. This video shows half of Washington drinking what looks like blood out of what looks like a skull, committing what looks like murder, throwing what look like dead bodies into coffins. But, DB goes to great lengths to explain, this is all playacting and the Masons are pretty much the most awesome organization, ever. If this were the prom, you know how there’s always one couple in the middle of the floor that makes out the WHOLE DANCE, even during the fast songs? Well, if you could replace that couple with DB and the Masons, and the prom was The Lost Symbol . . . then HSRL would be the DJ. I think. All you need to know is that THE MASONS ARE AWSEOME EVEN THOUGH THEY SEEM REALLY WEIRD.

So forget Peter Solomon. Who cares if he dies? This wig cam video must be stopped!

Meanwhile, Mal’akh is wheeling Peter Solomon around DC in a wheelchair. Peter has been rebirthed about three times tonight. Having stolen the magical pyramid, soaked Peter in a tank and severed his hand, tattooed himself, fed Trish Dunne to the giant squid, killed a few guards, hooked Katherine up to the bleeding machine, and pickled HSRL . . . the extremely prolific Mal’akh is now about to conclude his evening by getting the magic word he has so longed for. Then all he has to do is tattoo it on his head, prepare the creepy sacrificial table in the skylight of the Heredom, and use the ACTUAL BIBLICAL KNIFE from the story of Abraham and Isaac that he has obtained from ebay. But WHO IS TO DIE?

Meanwhile, HSRL is zooming around the streets of DC, shouting directions from the backseat, and Sato sits in a helicopter, gnawing at her horrible talons. People are running from every possible direction. It’s BEDLAM. Cats and dogs living together, etc.

You aren’t going to believe this, but Mal’akh? Is PETER SOLOMON’S LOST SON ZAC. Except now he’s crazy and tattooed and he wants Peter to sacrifice him just like Abraham was asked to sacrifice his son in the Bible and Peter is all oh nooooooo. But it’s okay, because the helicopter crashes through the skylight and kills Mal’akh with a zillion shards of glass, but not before Mal’akh can hang on for a few scenes of WTF? Because, to be fair, he has gone to a LOT of effort.

Oh, and the wig cam video goes out! Except, it doesn’t! Because Sato stops it with some helicopter-fu! HSRL runs in at the end and is all, “Hey, guys.”

Chapter 125

Key lines between Katherine and HSRL:

Katherine walked up and embraced him warmly. “How can I ever thank you?”

He laughed. “You know I didn’t do anything, right?”

And there you go.

Chapters 126-130

It’s a symbolpalooza! I can’t really remember any of it, but you’re going to LOVE it!

Chapter 131

We learn that many great thinkers were convinced that the Bible contained the Ancient Mysteries, but not in the literal words—that the words on the pages were codes, and that the Bible is comprised of heavy-handed and useless story covering up something much more important and interesting. I get the feeling that DB is trying to tell me something, but I am not biting, reader.

Chapters 132-Epilogue

HRSL gets the best tour of Washington DC, ever, because Peter Solomon can apparently get in anywhere. Like, if he wanted to see the President’s underwear drawer, he could see it. He exacts a kind of passive-aggressive revenge on HSRL by blindfolding him and taking him to enclosed spaces and up high stairs and on to scary balconies, all under the pretense of showing him a good time, which is pretty slick in my opinion. Also, he seems to have recovered from his son’s second death and his own hand-severing/rebirthing pretty well, but then again, it has been four hours or something.

Anyway, we get to see that Washington DC has a lot of high, dark, creepy spaces, and apparently the founding fathers had WAY too much time on their hands . . . which is surprising, considering that they were busy creating a whole new country, and laws, and currency and everything. But they also took the time to make a whole PUZZLE CITY that no one knows about!

Oh, and by the way, the lost word is actually a lost symbol, and that lost symbol is a circle with a dot inside of it. But there also is a word, and that word is buried in the cornerstone of the Washington Monument. That’s the answer. You’re welcome.

THE END

* See Part Two to learn about Stupid Harvard, which is where HSRL teaches. I know this means it should have been SHSRL all along, but it is too late now.

Reader, if you have followed along through parts one, two, three, and four, you will know that I have been a strong supporter of Mal’akh from the beginning. Mal’akh is the hardest working bad guy in literature, and he has an evil lair that rivals any James Bond villian’s. In Chapter 81, we get to see more of his crazy house. We learn that while his basement has all of the traditional storage capabilities, it’s also super weird. He’s got rooms and rooms down there full of strange, with blue lighting in the ceiling. Every one of these rooms has a specific, evil purpose.

The room he goes into now has everything in twelves. Twelve are the signs of the zodiac, he italics-thinks. Twelve are the hours of the day.* Twelve are the gates of heaven. This reminds me quite a lot of the Schoolhouse Rock song “Little Twelvetoes.” I was a huge fan of Schoolhouse Rock when I was a tiny mj, but “Little Twelvetoes” was a song I never really got. Watch this and judge for yourself.

Can you see how my little five year-old mind was slightly blown by the concept of “deck and el,” two entirely imaginary single digits between nine and twelve which take the place of ten and eleven? And then twelve is mysteriously renamed “doe.” Schoolhouse Rock got it right so often that I don’t want to belabor my criticism, but still, as a fully-grown mj, I sometimes think about this “deck, el, doe” problem and it stops me cold. I mean, that hillbilly kid seems to get it, so I don’t know why I can’t. And why does Little Twelvetoes’s head come off? I am asking too many questions. I have only analyzed two pages of The Lost Symbol so far. I cannot get off track like this.

Anyway, the room is full of twelves. And also sevens, but I’m not even going to get into that. And Mal’akh is running around in the bluish-purple light, “wearing only a silken loincloth around his buttocks and neutered sex organ.” Mal’akh is a villain who is not afraid to show his butt. A lot. Running up stairs, in the shower, under the heady lights . . . there is so much Mal’akh butt in this book. He’s also got a magic knife from eBay, and all kinds of other evil things.

Chapters 82-88

HSRL takes his bag o’ pyramids to the Washington National Cathedral, where they meet the blind Reverend Colin Galloway who feels the pyramid and says, “I totally know what this says, but I’m not telling you.” He then proceeds to play “I know symbols too” games with HSRL for what appears to be about a half an hour, which annoys HSRL to no end. There is nothing worse than a symbol-off. Then he pushes a button, which makes the box open up.** Then there’s more translating of Latin phrases and realizing the previous interpretation was wrong, and more quotes, and more mysteries and numbers. I don’t want to imply that this is making me weary—I merely want to convey the DENSITY of the mysterious words/phrases/numbers/shapes/codes. You only need to weigh this book to know just how much ancient mystery you are getting. Anyone who says this isn’t the heaviest book of the year just doesn’t know his math.

Chapter 89

Continuing their tour of Washington landmarks, HSRL and Katherine go to the Cathedral College. Why? To use the kitchen, of course! They are going to boil the pyramid! Mmmmmm. Boiled pyramid.

Chapter 90-93

It turns out that all you really need to do to get to the bottom of some ancient mysteries is boil a pyramid. Well, not all, because there’s like, ANOTHER cryptic message revealed, bringing the count to about 16. Then the CIA catches them. It turns out Bellamy was working for Mal’akh! But he regrets it. Evil, gremlin-like Director Sato wants to know what they have been doing. They have been boiling a pyramid.

Sensing that the story is lagging, Mal’akh calls and says that he says to get over to his house fast or he’ll kill Peter! Everyone runs for their cars, except for HSRL, because of the loafer thing.

Chapter 94-99

Cautious loafer-runner HSRL doesn’t like how fast the CIA agent is driving. They arrive at Chez Mal’akh only to find pretty much one of every kind of car parked in front of the house with the lights on. HSRL names all of the cars, while Katherine decides that her time might be better spent running into the house. Except you know what? She totally trips and starts flying. Then Mal’akh kills the CIA guy with a screwdriver to the neck, tases the crap out of HSRL, and trusses Katherine up. He’s very efficient.

While recovering from the tasing, HSRL breaks down the origins of the word “sincere” in tedious detail. When he stirs, Mal’akh sits his naked self down on HSRL’s chest and bangs his head against the floor until he is knocked out again. Reader, can you blame him?

When HSRL wakes up, he is totally naked. Where are his loafers?

Also, he’s in a box!

Chapters 100-102

Meanwhile, Katherine is tied up to a chair. Mal’akh takes a moment to explain his evil plan to her. What’s the plan? He’s going to fill the box HSRL is in with liquid. It’s . . . diabolical!

Sure enough, the liquid starts flowing into the box. Mal’akh holds the pyramid up to a small window in the top (which I kind of picture being like the window on a magic eight ball) and tells him that he must solve what’s written there or DIE!

What’s written there is every single wingding and zapf dingbat in existence. (If you are a font person, the only thing that would make you crazier is a book of cat poetry written in Comic Sans, so be careful when reading these chapters.)

HSRL, panicking as the liquid rises, has no idea what all the wingdings mean until the very last moment! He tells Mal’akh what he wants to know, but Mal’akh just laughs and tells him to enjoy the afterlife.

Chapter 103

Did Robert Langdon just drown? It really seems like Robert Langdon just drowned.

Chapter 104

From outside the tank, Katherine Solomon watches HSRL sink to the bottom of the tank. Reader, why am I smiling?

Chapter 105

The CIA are still noodling around doing something with people.

Chapter 106

Having gotten his answer, Mal’akh does another excited naked run around the house, then goes off to his room to do the magic sudokus that will solve this puzzle once and for all!

Chapter 107

We get a flashback of Katherine in the pod. Guess what she was doing in there? She was weighing the human soul!

That won’t help her now, though, because Mal’akh comes back down and hooks her up to yet another one of his evil devices, a timing mechanism that slowly drains her blood into some kind of evil hourglass. Mal’akh has put a lot of work into his evil basement, and it is totally paying off. He also has Peter Solomon in a wheelchair. He’s shaved Peter Solomon’s whole body and dressed him in what sounds like a snuggie. I never said he wasn’t freaky.

Chapter 108

Remember how I said DB was writing poetry? Well, if you doubted me, I now present Chapter 108 in its entirety.

Robert Langdon’s mind hovered in an endless abyss.
No light. No sound. No feeling.
Only an infinite and silent void.
Softness.
Weightlessness.
His body had released him. He was untethered.
The physical world had ceased to exist. Time had ceased to exist.
He was pure consciousness now . . . a fleshless sentience suspended in the emptiness of a vast universe.

Do you see what I see? I think you do. It’s an echo of Walt Whitman’s Song of Myself. Take section 22, for example:

You sea! I resign myself to you also – I guess what you mean, 

I behold from the beach your crooked fingers, 

I believe you refuse to go back without feeling of me, 

We must have a turn together, I undress, hurry me out of sight of 
the land, 

Cushion me soft, rock me in billowy drowse,

Dash me with amorous wet, I can repay you.

That right there is a thesis topic if I ever saw one. You’re welcome!

Coming next: the final part of the reader’s guide!

END PART FIVE
PAGES COVERED: 301-399
PAGES LEFT TO GO: 109
CHAPTERS LEFT TO GO: 24

* Wait. That one is wrong!
** Okay, there’s a box too. There’s a pyramid, a tube, and a box, and possibly another pyramid. I can’t keep track. HSRL is carrying around a whole bag of shapes.

Chapters 51-52

Chapter 51 begins by answering an important question, first posed in the movie Airplane!: “Hey, Joey, have you ever been in a Turkish prison?”

Except it wasn’t Joey, but Zachary Solomon, Peter’s son. He went bonkers when he turned 18 and got his share of Solomon money and ended up in the Turkish prison because of the drugs.

We find out about this in an astonishing double flashback. Speaking as a professional writer, I can tell you that a double flashback is tricky and dangerous. Like its cousin, the dream-sequence-with-a-dream-sequence, it’s a precision move. I wouldn’t try it. I’m not nearly experienced enough . . . and I have an MFA.

Katherine is thinking back to the night her mother died, and in that thinking back, thinks back to Zach in his Turkish prison . . . and then we come back to some guy breaking into the Solomon residence years later. He points a gun at them and says, “Hello, Solomons.” He was all, “Where’s the pyramid?” But he never found out, because Ma Solomon came after him with a shotgun, but ended up getting shot herself. It is hard work, being a Solomon.

Anyway, that was long ago . . . but that dude that just broke into the pod? He was that guy!

Chapters 53

One thing I love about The Lost Symbol is the room it leaves for wonder. What kind of mysteries is the book about? Ancient mysteries. What kind of discoveries is Katherine working on? Shocking ones! What kind of science? Modern science. What kind of bunny? A fluffy bunny!* DB has certainly unpacked his adjectives!

And still, despite these descriptions, we are left with so much room to imagine. This is not a stuffy book—this is the wide open prairie, where ideas can’t be caged. We aren’t squeezed into overly specific notions about what the hell is going on.

This is why I am not going to tell you what Chapter 53 is about. The moment you try to define Chapter 53, you have lost Chapter 53.

Chapter 54

Mal’akh blows up the pod.

Chapters 55-56

We are reminded again in Chapter 55 that HSRL leads a stressful life, with people constantly making weird demands on his time:

Langdon looked at this Mickey Mouse watch. 9:42 P.M. “You do realize that Peter’s captor is waiting for me to decipher this pyramid tonight and tell him what it says.”

But does Capitol Architect Warren Bellamy care? No. Bellamy doesn’t care about anyone!

“Forget Katherine!” Bellamy said, his voice commanding now. “Forget Peter! Forget everyone!”

You know there is no way HSRL is just going to let Katherine Solomon down! She’s in trouble out there! He has to save her! Luckily, she makes that task a lot easier by choosing that exact moment to drive her white Volvo right up on to the sidewalk of the library and run up the steps and directly into his arms. RL is all, “You’re safe, I have you now.” He’s probably feeling pretty stupid now that she has gone all self-rescuing princess on him. But still, it was probably a good thing, because the last thing he needs right now is to have to run again in those loafers.

Chapter 57

More flashback. We find out that Mal’akh was in that Turkish prison with Zach Solomon, and that Mal’akh killed Zach and stole all his money. Mal’akh then moved to Greece. At first, every part of his new life was great. Reading Homer made him want to lift weights. Lifting weights made him incredibly hot. Steroids apparently . . . made him taller.

But you can only go so far sailing your boat, eating arni souvlakia, and cliff diving off Mykonos.** Soon, Mal’akh felt empty. While channel surfing one night, he saw a special on Freemasons. This made him remember something he heard in passing from Zachary about a pyramid. And THAT is what made him go to America, sneak into the Solomons’ house, point his gun and say, “Hello, Solomons.” Mal’akh is very suggestible. If he had seen an infomercial instead, this story would have been very different. Then we would have been reading The Lost Snuggie.

Chapter 58-59

A special ops team is chasing Bellamy, HSRL, and Katherine through the Library of Congress and blowing things up with plastic explosives, though I would be lying if I said I knew why.

I’m also not sure why the Architect of the Capitol has a key card that operates the conveyor system under the main circulation desk of the Library of Congress. Washingon D.C. is a confusing place. Bellamy tells HSRL to get on the conveyor, and HSRL pulls a John McEnroe-perfect, “You cannot be serious.” This, after the running in the loafers thing?!?

But he is, and HSRL and Katherine just evade their pursuers by riding off on the book belt, in what has to be the nerdiest escape ever written.*** Pwned, special ops team!

Chapters 60-64

Flashback to Zach Solomon’s 18th birthday. Peter is all, “You’re a man now son, so I want you to take care of my tiny pyramid.” And Zach is all, “I don’t care about your tiny pyramid, old man! I want the drugs!” Bellamy watches this awkward family exchange, and waits.

Meanwhile, HSRL and Katherine are riding along in the dark on the little conveyor belt. Katherine has figured out that this all has something to do with the tiny pyramid, and HSRL (again, a day late and a dollar short) reveals that he has Peter’s magical box in his bag!

Katherine is all, “Why didn’t you say so?” She does the thing I’m surprised HSRL didn’t do long ago—namely, she opens the box, which contains a magic tube. (I’m a little confused because I thought the x-ray revealed that the box contained a tiny pyramid. It may have both.) If you liked that cyptex in The Da Vinci Code, it looks like you are going to be rewarded with yet another cylinder! But remember . . . as the song Boogie Boogie Hedgehog teaches us, you have to be careful when you get your head stuck on tubes.

Chapter 65

Chapter 65 is one paragraph. Mal’akh is studying his own naked body in front of the mirror again. He is a beautiful picture, framed in white space.

Chapters 66-67

The number 1514 is found on the box. Most people would think that meant a year, but HSRL knows it refers to a person. If I told you how he knows this, it would blow your mind.

Chapter 68

The first sentence of Chapter 68:

Albrecht Dürer?

The last:

“That’s not just any square,” Langdon said, grinning. “That, Ms. Solomon, is a magic square!”

Try to imagine what happened in between!

Chapter 69

Okay, just one more thing about Chapter 68 . . . you have to respect a huge chase sequence which pauses for a moment because, “Professor Langdon, the art connoisseur, was having an ethical dilemma about using the Internet an original was so nearby.” Or when the obstacle is, “There’s no icon for a browser.”

Also, there’s a paragraph that just reads:

Science . . .

So great is Chapter 68 that I cannot even bring myself to read Chapter 69, but I can see it has something to do with evil, wizened CIA Director Sato questioning Bellamy. Ever see The Incredibles? She’s just like Edna.

Chapter 70-71

While HSRL and Katherine work on some magic squares, which are apparently “Sudoku puzzles for geniuses,” Mal’akh is at home taking a shower. A really long shower. With a lot of products. I got as far as, “Hanging beneath the archway, his massive sex organs bore the tattooed symbols of his destiny.”

If that is where the lost symbol is, I want my money back.

Chapter 72-75

The CIA guys are very grouchy because they have lost HSRL, who rode off in triumph at speeds upwards of 8 mph. Outside, the city is going crazy trying to find them. There are helicopters and spotlights. Where could they be? They seem to have left heat signatures everywhere.

I’ll tell you where they are! They’re out front! Katherine and HSRL get in a cab, but the driver (who is somehow patched into CIA headquarters) gives them up.

Meanwhile, Bellamy has been hauled off to the Jungle! No, really! You see, the U.S. Botanic Garden is known as the Jungle! Can you believe that? It’s true! Why is he being interrogated at the U.S. Botanical Garden? That, I could not tell you, but if he breaks into the “I am the Lorax, and I speak for the trees” speech at any point, I am going to cry.

Meanwhile meanwhile, Katherine Solomon realizes that like the pyramid, the U.S. one dollar bill is also a map and that they are going the wrong way! “To Freedom Plaza!” she says. The CIA totally overhears.

Chapter 76

Freedom Plaza is also a map.

Chapter 77

I’m not sure if I’ve really been clear on the general course of events in this section of the book, so let me sum it up. There are two pyramid things, which apparently lead to a spiral staircase. HSRL and Katherine have these two pyramids (I think) as well as some kind of magical tube. I know they have at lease one pyramid and one magical tube. And there’s writing on them that has to be decoded. For some reason, everyone is in a big rush to do this tonight. That is why Mal’akh captured Peter Solomon and cut off his hand and sent HSRL on this scavenger hunt. Mal’akh also wanted something in Katherine’s lab. I’m not sure what, but in the process, Trish Dunne ended up in the tank with the giant squid.

Bellamy is especially urgent for HSRL to find the staircase, though I don’t know what his rush is. And fhe CIA is chasing them with plastic explosives, though I am not 100% clear on the details of that either, but I am sure there is a reason. Anyway, Bellamy gave himself up so that HSRL and Katherine could go on, and now he is being interrogated in a greenhouse by a woman who is no bigger than a pumpkin and is entirely made of anger.

What I haven’t mentioned is that there is also a Redskins game going on on this particular night, and absolutely everyone else is watching this game. Security guards, computer hackers, everyone.

I hope that clears everything up.

Oh and Chapter 77 is a flashback about a time that Mal’akh fell into a lake, and then moved to New York, and then a bird flew into his apartment, and he got a bunch of tattoos.

Chapters 78-80

The CIA just cannot catch the beloafered HSRL and Katherine! This makes them really mad. Evil CIA Chief Sato is going to make someone pay, and it looks like that person is going to be Bellamy. Sucks to be you, Bellamy!

END PART FOUR
PAGES COVERED: 201-300
PAGES LEFT TO GO: 286
CHAPTERS LEFT TO GO: 50

* My apologies. That last one is not from The Lost Symbol.

** I have a mild suspicion that DB spent some time vacationing in Greece while working on this book.

*** I am sure Ron Howard will make this look exciting in the movie.

Chapters 24-34

At the start of Chapter 24, HSRL has just figured out why he has been dragged to Washington. He flashes back to a meeting, many years before, when handsome Peter Solomon snuck up on him while he was swimming in the Harvard pool* and gave him a magic box of secrets. Even though it is creepily sealed in wax and has been delivered to him in the strangest way possible at the crack of dawn at a pool, and Peter Solomon is all “you are the only person in the world I trust with my magic box,” RL locks it away thinking it must be nothing.

Anyway, when HSRL got that weird phone call and fax this morning? He was asked to bring along the magic box! HSRL actually has it in his bag—the one in his hand! But he has somehow forgotten this for the first 100 pages, probably because of all the excitement.

Flashback over, HSRL snaps back to the present, where CIA chief Sato is standing there all, “Can you stop having long flashbacks in the middle of my case?” They figure out the weird message on the palm of the handequin corresponds to a room in the basement called SSB 13. Getting to the basement takes from chapters 27-35, because the basement is totally deep. Every time you think you have a handle on how deep this basement is, it gets deeper.

We also learn that this search will somehow involve the Masons’ magical pyramid of mysteries! HSRL keeps saying that the magic mason pyramid of mysteries is just a legend, but since it comes up about 39 times, you start to think it just might be true. We will wait and see.

Meantime, genius Trish Dunne has successfully completed a Google search, genius Peter Solomon has successfully sent a text on his iPhone, and genius bad guy has tricked genius Kathleen Solomon into letting him into her pod.

Chapter 35

Much is made of DB’s writing style. In particular, people cite his use of italicized “thought bubbles,” his page and a half long chapters, and his single sentence paragraphs.

The ones that divide up the action.

Like this.

To give you a feeling that something is happening.

Some people suggest that he does this because he is not a good writer, or because he assumes that his readers haven’t really gotten past the single-line, compacted story form usually used in elementary reading books. These people are wrong. What DB is actually doing . . . is writing poetry.

It took me a while to figure this out, but I see it clearly now. I feel that he is following in the tradition of William Carlos Williams, a critical American poet. Consider “The Red Wheelbarrow,” Williams’s most famous work.

so much depends
upon

a red wheel
barrow

glazed with rain
water

beside the white
chickens.

The language and the style are so simple. The lines are short, and so is the work as a whole. And yet, in those eight lines, sixteen words, you can find an entire world. Compare this to the end of Chapter 35—which you at first think is this noodley, pointless chapter about the arrangement of the Capitol Building’s basement—but then you are hit with the last four sentences:

“My God,” Anderson shouted.
Everyone saw it and jumped back.
Langdon stared in disbelief at the deepest recess of the chamber.
To his horror, something was staring back.

Do you think that this has been chopped up by accident? Do you think this same effect could have been achieved in a single, flowing paragraph? Do you think it needs more detail?

Of course not.

These particular lines also strongly echo T. S. Elliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock”:

I am no prophet—and here’s no great matter;
I have seen the moment of my greatness flicker.
And I have seen the eternal Footman hold my coat, and snicker,
And in short, I was afraid.

It’s uncanny how these two men could communicate such similar ideas in a similar form—and yet, DB manages to cleverly plant these moments in a considerably larger work. T. S. Elliot never wrote anything nearly as long as The Lost Symbol.

Think about that, English majors, before you judge. Just think about it.

Chapter 36

SSB 13 has been reached and it is a totally weird room. It is full of skulls and crap.

Chapter 37

I guess the one complaint I have about The Lost Symbol, if I have any at all, is that it seems like Mal’akh is seriously overworked. If there was a Union of Bad Guys, there is no way they would let him work this long and not have a break. He does everything bad in the book. Everything. No one helps him.

So far, he’s had to: call Kathleen Solomon and pretend to be Dr. Christopher Abaddon, hack off Peter Solomon’s hand, stash Peter Solomon, and lead HSRL on this treasure hunt . . . all at once. And he does this, mind you, while wearing full makeup and having to constantly change costumes and juggle cell phones and manage at least three different identities. Would have it been so much to ask to give him one henchman? Just one?

This is why I am annoyed by the fact that in Chapter 37, he has to corner Trish Dunne, get her access code out of her, and drown her in the tank of ethanol with the giant squid all by himself. That right there could have been the work of one henchperson. It’s not like extra characters cost money. I’m just saying.

Chapter 38

For many chapters now, HSRL has been saying, “Look, there is no magic pyramid, okay? How many times do I have to tell you? No magic pyramid!” And then they move back a curtain in SSB 13 and there is a hole in the wall and in that hole is a pyramid. CIA director and professional HSRL hater Sato is all lolz.

Chapter 39

They are still looking at the pyramid.

Chapter 40

Chapter 40 is ¾ of a page long. Kathleen Solomon calls the front desk to ask where Trish Dunne is, and the desk is all, “I thought she was with you.” Neither knows that Trish Dunne now sleeps with the squid.

Chapter 41

I decided not to read Chapter 41. I’m not sure why. I was just moved by the Reading Muse, which landed gently on my shoulder and whispered, “Skip to the end!” in my ear. I went right to the last sentence, which is:

“Grab the pyramid!” the man commanded. “Follow me!”

This is why Dan Brown is a great man.

Chapters 42-43

Okay, I glanced at chapter 41 just now and saw that someone breaks into the room and starts swinging around a femur and knocks over Sato. Femur fight!

This person is Warren Bellamy, the Architect of the Capitol. He has rescued HSRL from Sato, who is suddenly a very suspicious character. It is implied that she wants the pyramid for herself! Also, we learn that the pyramid is a map!

Chapter 44

Chapter 44 is probably my favorite chapter of the book so far, because in this page and a half, DB drops the mask and lets us know a little about his life. The scene takes place in the Manhattan office of New York editor** Jonas Faukman. HSRL calls Faukman’s office, begging for Kathleen’s phone number, and Faukman is all, “Where’s that book you promised me? Why aren’t you writing? What the hell is wrong with you?”

There is a ring of truth to this, reader, which I cannot deny. And I salute DB for including this last sentence, “Book publishing would be so much easier without the authors.”***

Chapter 45

HSRL calls Kathleen and is all, “The calls are coming from inside of your pod! Get out of your pod!” But Mal’akh has used the key card and is now in the pod! Have I mentioned that the pod is pitch-black, and you can only find your way around by walking on a strip of carpet, and if you step off the carpet, you step into the void? You should probably know that. So you can imagine how alarmed Kathleen is when someone pounces on her in the dark. Very alarmed!

Chapter 46

While Kathleen Solomon is fighting for her life in the pod of doom, HSRL and Warren Bellamy have gone to the Library of Congress. In DB books, there is always time to be civilized, even in the middle of a huge chase scene. HSRL lists statues, and ornaments, and every possible kind of marble.We are told of the library’s beauty, and how many people think it contains one of the most beautiful rooms in the whole world. In fact, we first learn this in the opening sentence . . . and then we learn it again a page and a half later when both men stop and comment on the fact, one out loud, and one to himself.

“Some say it’s the most striking room in Washington,” Bellamy said, ushering Langdon inside.

Maybe in the whole world, Langdon thought, as he stepped across the threshold.

Chapter 47

Mal’akh is still chasing Kathleen Solomon around the pitch-black pod. Once again proving himself to be the most resourceful character in the book, Mal’akh thinks up a way to find her in the dark—he strips off his clothes and throws them at her. I know you are probably thinking that does not sound like a good plan, but it actually works. You might have to read Chapter 47 to see for yourself, but it does. Then there is a chase scene outside, and Kathleen gets to her white Volvo, and Mal’akh—who never gives up—jumps on it and puts his hand through the window. Through the window. She still gets away, but points for effort!

Chapter 48

Don’t even worry about chapter 48.

Chapter 49-50

Back in the library, Bellamy is lecturing RL about pyramids, and ancient mysteries, and statues of Moses—and RL is actually getting annoyed by this. Oh ho ho! The worm has turned! Then there is a bunch of stuff with codes and ciphers and coded ciphers which I kind of skipped.

Back at the CIA, Sato is recovering from where she has been hit by a femur in the femur fight, and we see that she has her own nerd working on the cipher, because it has been photographed. How was that possible? Well, when RL went into the Capitol, he was carrying the magic box, and in the magic box was a magic pyramid, and on the magic pyramid there was magic writing. Apparently, the magic x-ray machine could pick this up.

And yes, this means there are two pyramids. One is nine inches tall and the other is made of gold. Oh, and in case any of you, like me, wondered when someone would finally bring up the magical Masonic pyramids found on the dollar bill? According to my notebook here, it happens on page 161.

END PART THREE
PAGES COVERED: 101-200
PAGES LEFT TO GO: 309
CHAPTERS LEFT TO GO: 83

* Much is made of this swimming in the Harvard pool and DB really wants you to know that RL does it EVERY DAY. It’s like he is a merman.

** This is an honorary, city-wide title, like “Poet Laureate,” “Queen of Pop,” or “Mayor.”

*** It’s a nice sentiment, for sure. But then I thought about it and realized that it would sort of not be easier, because then the editors would have to write ALL the books, which is not only hard but that would MAKE them authors. Did DB mean to blow our minds with this paradox? Probably.

Chapter six

I have some issues with chapter six.

It starts off well enough. At the top of chapter six, HSRL’s car pulls up to the curb. HSRL’s main concern at this point is that he must run 400 yards, in the rain, in loafers. Never before or since has an action hero ever been so distraught about his casual footwear! My loafers! he despairs. My loafers!

Still, our beloafered hero manages to run the whole 400 yards to the Capitol Vistor’s Center. We are reminded that HSRL does not like enclosed spaces because he was once trapped down in a well. We are also reminded that HSRL always wears a Mickey Mouse watch given to him by his parents, because, as he helpfully tells the guy at security, “I wear it to remind me to slow down and take life less seriously.”

All to the good, right?

But then . . . he has a flashback, one that lasts pretty much the entire chapter. And this is where I start to get agitated. As RL looks around, he remembers a generalized classroom experience he had at Harvard. It forces me to come to one of two conclusions:

1. Harvard is not nearly as hard as people make it out to be. In which case, I totally could have gone there. Where did I go? The University of Delaware, home of the Fighting Blue Hens. I mean, it was fine, but it doesn’t have the same ring as Harvard.

2. There are two Harvards. One is for the people you typically think go to Harvard, like Bill Gates and my friend Robin Wasserman, and the other is Stupid Harvard. Stupid Harvard PAYS for real Harvard. This, I suspect, is what puts the H in HSRL’s name. The students in RL’s classes, as he remembers them, are the kind of people who have to use the plastic scissors. They annoy him by drawing all over their maps. They don’t know the meaning of any useful words. Witness this scene, as RL meets his new class and shows them a slide:

“How many of you recognize the building in this picture?”

“U.S. Capitol!” dozens of voices called out in unison. “Washington, D.C.!”

“Yes. There are nine million pounds of ironwork in that dome. An unparalleled feat of architectural ingenuity for the 1850s.”

“Awesome!” someone shouted.

Langdon rolled his eyes, wishing someone would ban that word.

He hates these idiots, even when they follow his lectures with a cult-like devotion:

“If you’re curious, you should take my mysticism course. Frankly, I don’t think you guys are emotionally prepared to hear the answer.”

“What?” the person shouted. “Try us!”

Langdon made a show of considering it and then shook his head, toying with them. “Sorry, I can’t do that. Some of you are only freshmen. I’m afraid it might blow your minds.”

“Tell us!” everyone shouted.

Oh, how he despises these awful, dimwitted creatures. How glad he is to be rid of them! Now he is in this fine, fine building full of fine things. He runs to the hall where he has to speak. Run, loafer man, run! And then he gets there . . . and . . .

Wait. Something is wrong!

Chapter seven

If you have ever wanted an entire book of people going into buildings, look no further, because this is it. In chapter seven, Katheleen Solomon goes into one of the Smithsonian storage buildings. Is it as cool as going into the Capitol Visitors’ Center? You BET it is.

Chapter eight

The one thing HSRL has failed to notice as he has been remembering and running is that there is absolutely no one around. So when he winds up on a stage facing absolutely no one—just a dark, empty room—you start to think that maybe Stupid Harvard is where he belongs.

Or so suggests the person who calls him on the phone at that moment and cackles that he has gotten HSRL to do his evil bidding! He has summonded HSRL, tricking him into calling 202-329-5746. *crack of lightening*

Chapter nine

Chapter nine starts off . . . well, exactly where chapter eight left off. HSRL is still standing on the empty stage, holding the phone. I guess it is expected that a page and a half of that kind of excitement is all we can reasonably be expected to handle.

Anyway, this lunatic on the phone is rambling about how he has brought Robert Langdon here to do his bidding, and if he wants to save Peter Solomon’s soul, he had better comply! At first, HSRL thinks this is yet another symbology groupie, but then, there is a scream!

Chapter ten

Chapter ten gives us a wonderful word that I plan on using in conversation as much as possible: handequin. It’s a mannequin . . . of a hand! How have I never heard this word before? And why is my first thought that instead of Harlequin romances, we should have Handequin romances, which would be torrid love stories that revolve around or otherwise involve fake human hands!

Oh, and the reason this is mentioned is because there is an actual, severed human hand on the floor. It has been mounted on a stand and decorated in tattoos and it belongs to Peter Solomon.

Handequin!

Chapter eleven

In chapter eleven, Katherine Solomon tries to call her brother and he doesn’t pick up. Presumably, she doesn’t know that his awesome (sorry HSRL) severed hand is causing all kinds of excitement at the Capitol Building.

Also, we learn that three years ago, as a gift, Peter Solomon gave her a football field-sized, sterile, Hydrogen fuel cell-powered pod in the Smithsonian. It’s called Pod 5.

You just know that was the year she decided to just keep it simple at Christmas and just get him a tie and some books, and then he turned around gave her this thing that you can keep a fleet of planes in. I bet on one hand she was really appriciatative, and on the other, that she really just wanted to punch him in the jeans.

Chapter twelve

We meet Captiol police chief Trent Anderson, who is only slightly more functional than RL’s much-hated students back at Stupid Harvard. He manages to actually find and question the man who is responsible for the severed hand and is tricked by the “they went thataway” ploy. Meanwhile, the man escapes out the back door, takes off his wig and laughs. Can you blame him? Can you?

And we see it’s our old friend Mal’akh! Good for you, Mal’akh! You know who he reminds me of? Emperor Ming. Does that mean that HSRL is Flash Gordon, and instead of saving us by zooming in on a flying treadmill, he will come on his magic loafers? Maybe!

Chapter thirteen

HSRL has figured out that the severed hand represents The Hand of the Mysteries, which is a super-secret invitation to something super-secret. Also, you’re just supposed to DRAW it, not actually give someone a severed hand. He tries to tell someone that it is Peter Solomon’s hand, but resident incompetent Trent Anderson and his band of morons are making everyone’s life difficult, so you know we aren’t going to get anywhere for a while.

Here is a video I think will give you the basic idea of what Trent Anderson is like. For some reason, it’s in German, but I feel this actually adds to the experience. I just watched it three times.

Chapter fourteen

Mal’akh drives off in his limo, thinking about his own superiority and how he will soon rule everyone! I think I was right about this Ming thing.

Chapter fifteen

Page 55. This is not good. I should be further than this. We press on. Quick summary: Katherine is in her Pod. We find out more about her kooky, “you are the spoon” science. So concerned is DB that we get this that he even includes research quotes, book titles, and websites in her thought bubble.

We see a flashback of her talking to her brother Peter, which only serves to confirm my theories about her feelings toward him. She comes home from Yale, where she studies physics, and he makes her stand in the library and list everything she’s read, but whatever she says, it isn’t good enough. Everything she thinks is new has been done before. Entanglement theory? Well, just read the Tao Te Ching! Superstring theory? Well, that was covered in the 13th Century in Don’t Mess with the Zohan!*

Oh you think you know things, he schools her, but you know nothing! Nothing!

Ho, ho, say I. Where are you now, Mr. Peter Solomon? You’re a hand on a stand!

Chapter sixteen

Speaking of hands, Captiol police chief Trent Anderson clearly couldn’t find his ass with both of his own. But that doesn’t matter, because CIA chief Inoue Sato is on the phone . . . and wants to speak to HSRL! The CIA knows he is in the building! THEY KNOW EVERYTHING!

The phone is passed over, and Sato proceeds to grill RL relentlessly until RL has to pretend that they have a bad connection because he is so flustered. But it’s no good, because during the conversation, Sato has actually SNUCK UP BEHIND HIM!

Chapter seventeen

And guess what? Sato is a woman! Bet you weren’t expecting THAT! Not just a woman, but a tiny, wizended, mustachoed woman. Aside from the mustache, she appears to be a dead ringer for Gollum.

Chapter eighteen

Back in The Pod, we meet Trish Dunne, Katherine’s mad genius assistant. We find out that both Trish and Kathleen share the same debilitating condition—namely, they must explain everything they are thinking, out loud, to people who clearly know these things already.** They both have a terrible attack of this condition, with Kathleen explaining the entire nature of her work, and Trish explaining in excruciating detail the process by which she will create a search program called a delegator. It is a sad and lonely world in which they live.

Chapter nineteen

It is impossible for me to express just how much Sato hates HSRL. She oozes disgust. She cuts him off at every opportunity. She doesn’t even want to hear his lecture on Ancient Mysteries. She is small and full of rage.

Chapter twenty

Is again the same scene, with Sato hating RL even more because he will just not shut up about his Ancient Mysteries. He tries to lure her in by telling her that the Capitol is based on the Temple of Vesta in Rome, but she just doesn’t care. He finally gets her, however, when he tells her there is a painting of George Washington being depicted as a god . . . and, he points, it is RIGHT OVER HER HEAD!***

Chapter twenty-one

Even mustache-faced Sato can’t resist the lure of HSRL’s pointy ways.

We find out that the Founding Fathers were massively crazy and did all kinds of cool stuff that no one ever tells us about. Like, for instance, paint 4,664 square foot frescos of George Washington turning into a god on the ceiling of the Capitol. HSRL explains that whoever has done this dasterly deed believes that this painting somehow leads to a magical portal.

In his one moment of usefulness, Capitol police chief Trent Anderson says that there is an actual, secret door up there that pretty much no one knows about . . . but everyone just ignores him because HSRL has revealed that there used to be a statue of a half-naked George Washington standing RIGHT HERE, pointing at the ceiling in the SAME EXACT WAY, but they took it away because it was too freaky. He is so smug about this knowledge that he actually makes her Google it on her blackberry. Here it is:

He’s winning her over. You can feel it.

Chapter twenty-two

Katherine gets a call from Peter’s doctor. You find out that Peter was seeing a psychiatrist. The doctor invites Katherine over. It’s Mal’akh! In makeup! Oh, Mal’akh, whatever are you up to!

Chapter twenty three

HSRL is sure that Peter’s handequin has been tattooed on the palm. Sure enough, it has been! RL thinks the tattoo is a bunch of runes. You find out that his expertise “only extended to the most elementary runic alphabet—Futhark—a third-century Teutonic system.” No wonder they make him teach at Stupid Harvard. Somehow, in all of this, RL knows why he was chosen and what he must do. I do not, but I would venture a guess that we are going to be following a lot of pointy hands!

END PART TWO
PAGES COVERED: 23-100
PAGES LEFT TO GO: 409
CHAPTERS LEFT TO GO: 107

* My apologies. The text is actually The Complete Zohar.

** You may think HSRL suffers the same condition, but he does not. He suffers something similar, in which he delivers entire, unasked for lectures on the fairly obvious. But, instead of being put into a pod, this has gotten him his job at Harvard and thousands of rabid fans.

*** I feel obligated to link to this video, which claims the same thing. I warn you, it is VERY PROFANE so if you are under 35, I forbid you to click this link. But as far as I can tell at this point, this video pretty much sums up where this book is going.

You can read this guide any way you like. You can read it AFTER reading the book, or WHILE reading the book, or BEFORE reading the book, or INSTEAD OF reading the book . . . whatever you want. I am just warning you that I am reading this and recording my guide in REAL TIME, and there will be spoilers.

So now, without further ado . . . the first part of my LOST SYMBOL READERS’ GUIDE.

******************

The book begins with a FACT, which states that in 1991, the CIA locked up a document about something secret and it contains the sentence “It’s buried out there somewhere.” That is genuine truth. So get ready, because this is about to get real.

Prologue

We are at a Renaissance Faire. A 34 year old man in a floppy shirt and a noose around his neck is drinking wine from a skull cup.

No, wait. We are NOT at a Renaissance Faire. We at just BLOCKS AWAY FROM THE WHITE HOUSE! And we are at an initiation ceremony and it is super, super secret and super, super weird. We don’t know who is being initiated, but he is clearly up to no good. He is thinking devious things in italics the whole time. But he is also thinking, “The secret is to know how to die.”

Just think of something really creepy and secret society-like and multiply that by eleven and you will get a sense of just how creepy and secret-society like this is. There is a man in charge. We know he is in charge because he is called The Supreme Worshipful Master, which is about as clear an indication as you are ever going to get. That is clearly a job that comes with some kind of a hat.

The initiate is thinking that his devious, italicized thoughts are going to be found out! But then they aren’t. In books, no one can hear you italicize.

Chapter one

A small boy and his dad are on the Otis elevator (Otis is, in fact, the largest manufacturer of elevators—a fact you probably knew already, but this can only be a sign of quality) . . . well, of COURSE it’s an Otis! We’re in the Eiffel Tower! The boy is having a panic attack and thinks he can’t breathe, and his dad is doing the “shut up and don’t be such a coward thing” that parents sometimes have to do in public. But then the cables snap and bottom drops out of the car! Omg!

Fooled you! Dream sequence!

Harvard Symbologist Robert Langdon wakes up from his dream. He’s on a private jet (a Falcon 2000EX, to be specific, which is the BEST kind of Falcon 2000 because that EX probably stands for EXCELLENT) flying to see his rich friend Peter Solomon—his other father, as it were. Robert Langdon doesn’t want to disappoint this man with the “soft grey eyes” by being a huge, huge coward, so he bravely sits on the plane like a fully-grown symbologist. He calms himself by obsessing over the 555-foot obelisk* in the middle of Washington DC.

A professional waver named Pam (one suspects that she is not so much an employee, merely someone who likes to wave at planes and the airport has just accepted the fact that she is not leaving) greets Robert Langdon on touchdown. She immediately wants to know if he is THE Robert Langdon who writes the books on symbols and religion. It’s Pam’s lucky day because he IS that Robert Langdon! Pam has recognized him because of his “uniform”: a turtleneck, a tweed jacket, khakis, and loafers. It’s possible that Pam has asked every single person she has ever seen wearing this outfit if they are Robert Langdon and has been disappointed for YEARS. It just goes to show . . . you have to hold on to your dreams and keep trying!

We also learn that Robert Landon is afraid of ties! He calls them “little nooses”! (That’s TWO nooses in six pages! This is going to be important. I demand a prize if he ends up hanging later in this book. MARK MY WORDS.)

Anyway, Pam is still greeting HSRL** relentlessly and telling him how to dress and going ON AND ON about his books and saying that he probably gets this all the time so maybe she should shut up. But she does NOT shut up, because you know how you get when you meet your favorite symbologist. You just start freaking out.

HSRL has places to be, and he wants her to leave, so he gives Pam the customary tip you give to people who wave at you (usually $20, or a small cake, if you have one on you) and meets Charles from Beltway Limousine. HSRL doesn’t take no cab! Inside, Charles has provided him with bottled water and tiny, hot muffins. (I don’t want to seem cynical, but I am starting to suspect that DB*** wrote some of this on a book tour and is literally just describing his own media escorts and crazy readers and drivers and hot, tiny muffins, but that is neither here nor there, and we must get right back to the fact that HSRL is now IN A CAR.)

Chapter two

I must try to make this chapter summaries a bit shorter because we are never going to get anywhere at this rate. Brevity. That’s what I’m going to aim for. Which is a good thing, too, because this chapter is two and a half pages long.

A tall, shaved, naked man named Mal’akh is tattooing himself and quietly saying under his breath: I AM A MASTERPIECE. Mal’akh is single, by the way. The book doesn’t say that—but I know it to be true.

We get a brief history of tattooing, and then the clock chimes six thirty and Mal’akh stops tattooing himself, so I am guessing that perhaps tattooing himself is his job, and like Fred Flintstone, he stops immediately when the bell rings and slides down the dinosaur to go home.

Except Mal’akh is already home, so he puts on a fabulous silk robe and runs around his house, blasting Verdi’s Requiem. He bounds up the stairs and goes to his bedroom and confronts himself in the mirror. He is so overwhelmed that he drops the robe and again considers his naked self and ital-thinks: I am a masterpiece.

I fully admit that as a kid and a teenager, I dressed up and ran around the house blasting music when no one was home . . . For me, there was a lot of dark makeup and The Smiths and The Cure, so I am not judging, per se, but I kind of feel that Mal’akh has taken this to a whole new level and is scaling the Kilimanjaro of weird to its creepy peaks and probably he needs a friend or a dog.

Mal’akh is now a 33rd level warlock in World of Warcraft**** and he is going to do something really, really important. He leaves the house (I’m guessing he’s gotten dressed, maybe in the HSRL uniform) and is going to do something to the Capitol building which is guaranteed to be exciting. Good for Mal’akh! I will be rooting for him.

Chapter three

Back in the car, Robert Langdon looks up because he can tell from the sound of the tires that they are already on Memorial Bridge. Normally, this would be a kind of pointless detail that you might leave out of a book, but it tells us that Robert Langdon can navigate by sound. He is just that observant. Shaken back to awareness, he once again starts staring at the huge obelisk which he can now see out the window. He really loves that obelisk.

We find out that HSRL didn’t think he was going to be here at all! He thought he was just going to have a quiet Sunday at home! The last time he thought that, the sky exploded over Rome and the quasi-pope parachuted out of a helicopter! Time to stop answering the phone on your day off, Robert!

It turns out that Peter Solomon’s assistant called him that morning and left a message to call back at the number 202-329-5749. And then he got a FAX asking him to call 202-329-5749! And then we hear all about how Peter Solomon is totally like the richest and most important guy ever! He turned HSRL into the HS he is today! And he’s totally been calling all morning trying to get Robert to dial 202-329-5749! And in case you think it is boring to read someone’s messages when all they say is “please call 202-329-5749”, well, you might be right, but guess what? Peter Solomon totally needs HSRL to be the main speaker at a private gala at the Smithsonian. And guess when it is? It’s tonight!

HSRL decides he needs coffee! I’ll bet you do, Robert!

Chapter four

Mal’akh goes through security at the Capitol Building. That’s the whole chapter.

I could tell you more about how he’s wearing a sling, and a ring (hey, that rhymes!) but I really have to go faster. All you need to know is that he goes through security and he makes it even though you know he is carrying something that is probably totally not allowed. I’m just glad to see Mal’akh out of the house.

Chapter five

In chapter five, we meet Katherine Solomon, who is Peter Solomon’s sister. And if you liked hearing about how Mal’akh went through security, you will love hearing about how Katherine Solomon drove her white Volvo through the gate of 4210 Silver Hill Road, just outside of Washington DC.

Katherine practices something called Noetic Science, which sounds totally made up! But I just looked it up on Wikipedia. It’s real! DB is always doing that! Making me look things up on Wikipedia! Noetic Science, from what I just read, is basically fancy New Age healing, mind-potential stuff. So whenever Katherine comes on, I am totally going to hear Enya in my head. Katherine has just gotten some shocking news about Peter. We don’t know what it is, but it doesn’t sound good. I fear that we are going to have a death sequence in our future.

Then we jump over to Mal’akh who calls her on the phone to tell her that whatever it is that Peter thinks is hidden in DC . . . it’s real! And it can be found! Katherine is all omg.

As are we all, Katherine. As are we all.

END PART ONE
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CHAPTERS LEFT TO GO: 130

* It is entirely improper to giggle at the fact that he has such a thing for huge obelisks and I am, frankly, a little ashamed of you. Who doesn’t like to stare at and constantly think about HUGE OBELISKS?

** Henceforth, this will be short for Harvard Symbologist Robert Langdon

*** Henceforth, this will be short for Dan Brown

**** That may be wrong, but he is definitely a 33rd level something. I think that’s only in WOW, right? Or is that D&D as well?