The Lost Code

A friend loaned me a copy, so cry havoc and let slip the dogs of mockery!

The man who was not Robert Langdon closed the book slowly. What had he just read? What did it mean?

He looked at the man across the table from him. "What did I just read? What does it mean?"

"Be a symbologist," the man said, then held up his hand as not-Langdon began to object. "I know there's no such thing, but pretend. Look at the book as though it contains symbols itself."

"Well, for starters. it's literally crawling with clichéd phrases," not-Langdon said. "Sighs are heaved, glances are thrown, panics rise. This can't actually be considered 'writing.'"

"Good. What else?"

"Words are italicized for no apparent reason," not-Langdon said. "There must be some kind of code! The hackneyed phrases and ridiculous emphases combine to mean something!"

"Excellent! What else? What about the characters? What about Sophie?"

Not-Langdon was puzzled, and his brows drew together in a confused frown. "Sophie? I think that was The Da Vinci Code. You mean Vittoria."

"No, that was Angels and Demons. Waitaminute, I remember. It's Katherine. What about Katherine?"

"What about her?" not-Langdon said. "She's an empty cipher." The other man gave no response. "Well?" not-Langdon asked.

"Oh, I thought that since you'd used a catch-phrase it was time for some exposition to clog the story and cover up the author's inability to show rather than tell. Sorry. Katherine's an empty cipher, go on."

"Yes, except she's not totally empty. She fulfills the role of communicating the author's latest screwy airheaded idea. The bloodline of the Magdalene...no, I mean 'Noetic Science.'"

"Ah, and Peter Solomon?"

"Langdon's mentor. I mean, his latest mentor, aside from the old mentors he runs across in the other books. He's a Mason and that role is the way that the author works in the secret system of codes and stuff he misuses for this book -- Freemasonry."

"You believe he's wrong about Freemasonry's rituals and such? You're a Mason?"

Not-Langdon heaved a sigh. "No, not at all. But he's Dan Brown. Actually, it's his job to get things wrong."

"So we're back to our original questions. What do all of these different esoteric symbols, codes, misused meanings, half-baked philosophical ramblings, lumpish expository soliloquies and inconsistent characterizations add up to tell us? When we combine them and pull our deus ex machina plot device out of the ozone, what does it all mean?"

"Dan Brown's a hack with a great marketing department."

"Exactly," the other man said. "Man who is not Robert Langdon, you have solved the secret of The Da Vinci's Angel Symbol."

"Don't you mean The Demon's Lost Code?"

"Whatever."