The Lost Symbol

Well, it looks as if he has done it again – Dan Brown has published another ‘best-seller’! The Lost Symbol is Brown’s third volume of similar genre, following on from the (in)famous The da Vinci Code. In between, with very little publicity of which I am aware, was a sequel to The da Vinci Code – Angels and Demons.

I confess that I have not taken the opportunity to further enhance the substantial bank balance of Mr Brown by rushing out to purchase his latest literary offering. However, I did read The da Vinci Code, from beginning to end and, recalling some of the hype that surrounded that publication, I was surprised to see a review of the newest volume under the heading “Non-fiction of the week”. Is it indeed, I wondered, as the earlier volume, also,was continually advertised, “non-fiction”?

I could produce a full article on the inaccuracies, fallacies, and downright untruths that cover the pages of The da Vinci Code (and did, in fact, preach a fairly comprehensive rebuttal of the book's central inaccuracies) but, suffice it to say that, in the pages that most people ignore at the very beginning of any published book, is one that contains details of the publication such as the publisher, the date of publication, the ISBN and, very importantly, the cataloguing of the book in question in the Congressional Library (I may not have recalled that name absolutely accurately, but it is the USA equivalent of The British Library) as “a work of fiction”.

In order to satisfy my own curiosity I went, today, into a local bookshop and checked that one page in the latest Brown book. There it was, in black and white, as clear as the nose on my face, that the book is, like its predecessor, “a work of fiction”.

I have no truck for the Freemasons who are, apparently, the focus of The Lost Symbol, in a similar way to that in which the Church of Rome – and the Christian faith, in general – was the target in The da Vinci Code. However, truth is truth, and the product of the obviously inventive mind of Mr Brown should not be mistaken for it!

“Jesus said. ‘… I came to bring truth to the world. All who love the truth recognize that what I say is true.’ ‘What is truth?’ Pilate asked”. (Jn.18:37-38) It’s a question that each one of us needs to ask – certainly when we read books that purport to be the truth when, at least in the case of the one that I have read, there is very little resemblance to the truth at all!