So it has been a long time since I wrote my last review. I haven’t exactly been sitting idle but lately I am reading a lot of “extra heavy-duty” books which i guess are written with the intent of taking months to read and ponder. One such book is Fritjof Capra’s “The Tao of Physics”. You might be wondering how the heck is such a book related to Dan Brown’s Lost symbol, but as i found to my delight while reading Lost Symbol- many concepts were quite similar. So if someone is curious after reading Lost symbol- please do pick up a copy of Tao of Physics.

So let’s come to the book itself. At the outset I will confess- the book didn’t meet my expectations. The book is a drag with not many intricate plots, with typical Dan Brown chase sequences, “fight against time”, the unknown forces, etc. An interesting thing in this book has been a more “villainous” villain- you’ll definitely love the villain( and should i add -his idiosyncrasies). The plots are too shallow and many of the clues are quite easy(google images helps considering that most of us are unfamiliar with Washington monuments and paintings)- I specially hated it when Robert Langdon is at pains to decipher a simple upside down code. Perhaps the story is weak because Brown instead of giving us an entirely new direction of thinking and “breaking the conventions” as he did with DaVinci Code, mucks up about the infinite possibilities of the human mind- heck I already know that mind is all powerful, whats new about that. The ending was quite dramatic in all the Dan Brown novels, but not in this. Usually Dan Brown left us with a feeling of awe and made us feel little midgets in the global game of propaganda and misinformation and power players- making us doubt everything and making us think. In this book however he gave a concrete dead end, tying up all the loose ends and not leaving anything to ponder or reflect, or feel awed; just the fact that humans mind has immense capabilities.

On the other hand, I do think everyone should read this book. I find the etymological dissection of common words quite refreshing. Dan Brown surprises us with the origin of words- words like atonement, apocalypse, sincere, etc. It is these random jewels which Brown spills along the way that keeps me interested through the unfolding story. So my advice borrow this book read it, return it.

pace: medium(it is confined to a 12 hr timeframe but somehow it fails to get you on the edge)

rating: 7⁄10

content: 3⁄5 (not many earth shattering facts)