Books: The Lost Symbol (Robert Langdon #3) by Dan Brown (2009)

While not a train-wreck, The Lost Symbol proves once again that Dan Brown can throw a bunch of odd facts and some suppressed history into a big pot-boiler of novel and then say What if?

I sense this is the weakest entry in the Robert Langdon series (the over uses of italics is perhaps this novels greatest sin) which started with Angels and Demons and followed by the mega-hit The Da Vinci Code. Generally, though, you have to take most of what is written here with a grain of salt. Brown paints Langdon as a skeptic, yet the way the story is written, you get a sense that Dan Brown believes this stuff. And he does seem to take some glory in poking at our cultural boundries -religion, the secular world, both ancient and modern history are messy at best.

While the book was a huge bestseller last year, there was less attacks from the world of religion that propelled The Da Vinci Code to its popular world wide success. Which may be why the film version is still in development at Sony Pictures. The first film, while poorly reviewed, scored a worldwide $758 million gross, but Angels and Demons faired less (though, apparently, better reviewed) at the box office, taking in only $486 million (which is respectable, and somewhat on track for most sequels, who's percentages never reach the first film).

It looks like Brown himself will now write the screenplay for the film, and despite Imagine Entertainment will be producing the film version, don't count on Ron Howard returning as director (as The Dark Tower beckons), but the odds are Tom Hanks will return (but is not yet "officially" committed to it though).

Books: The Da Vinci Code (Robert Langdon #2) By Dan Brown (2003)

Well, like the first book, Brown seriously takes on Church. While I will say this is a novel, and not to be taken as anything other than that, I'm fascinated by what has happened with the Catholics over the last three years when this book was published. While the novel takes stories of the founding of Christianity and molds them into a sort of conspiracy theory, it does open the door that some of what he writes could be true. I mean, take the bible; it's written by humans, flawed and certainly with agendas that will conflict with someone else's - and, as always, history is written by the victors.

The church's stance on the novel, its almost tyrannical way its trying to convince the world that all this written is false, strikes me as a organization with a tenuous hold on its flock. While the US Catholics have been the ones the Vatican has tried to convince -with many books published since 2003 on how wrong Brown is about what he wrote - it seems to think that its flock will take what he wrote too seriously.

Of course, as history has proved, being intelligent and openly question a religion has caused many problems. Intellectuals have always been accused of being anti-religion, but I don't believe this to be true. We are just open to the idea that its possible that Christianity could be nothing more than a great idea, not a rule book to live a life. After all, no one is perfect and no one could live a life as described. The bible offers ideas -which makes it difficult to attack, really - that seem great, but humans are animalistic. Take away their comforts, their daily things that make them "human", and they become animals.

While William Goldman's Lord of the Flies is a novel, also, it certainly portrays (I think realistically) what would happen if things fall a part, if, as Stephen King wrote, the world moved on. The center cannot hold when anarchy takes over, and neither can the church when its authority is challenged.

And that's the basic mistake they make. They've been challenged and they don't like it. But while I have no real dislike for religion as a whole, for as a concept, it is good idea; love thy neighbor and what not, I take umbrage with how they explain these mysteries. It's faith.

God, how I hate that answer.