The Last Symbol

Yeah! Yeah! I know I have been a rather indolent blogger lately as one rather persistent friend points out whenever I’m on Gtalk, refusing to believe my excuse that I’m currently involved in a highly confidential project to solve global warming. So what kept yours truly from putting pen to paper ( or more precisely, finger to keyboard) all these days (apart from traveling and seeing places I never wanted to see in the first place)? As a rather disgruntled movie fanatic, I turned to sitcoms these holidays. And boy, am I luvin ‘em or what?! Among other things, I read books that I had missed out this year. And a lame specimen of this aforementioned category is what this post is all about- The Lost Symbol. You see, I read a quote somewhere recently. It said- ” There are two types of books, the ones you chew and the ones you digest.” Unfortunately, this book doesn’t fall in either category. A category of the sorts “Books which you puke out” seems more applicable.
I was never a big fan of Dan Brown. Not only are his books as formulaic as they come, they also come equipped with a ridiculously lame moral. In fact, with the last book of his that I read, Deception Point( I had finished reading his more popular books prior to that), I thought he had hit rockbottom. But with his latest offering, I believe he has begun to dig. Make no mistake. His lameness does not compare with the other writer that i have reviewed, Chetan Bhagat. Whereas Chetan Bhagat continually sets lower standards for each passing book and then consistently fails in achieving them, Dan Brown has had a few good books to his credit like the Da Vinci Code (or so I thought until I read this http://itre.cis.upenn.edu/~myl/languagelog/archives/000844.html). But with the stale broth of “well researched” literature spewed forth in the form of “The Lost Symbol”, he has come close.

Let’s face it, Robert Langdon as the offspring of Sherlock Holmes, step-brother to Superman, and the new avatar of Don Juan was interesting in the first book, bearable in the second and torturous now. Not only does The Lost Symbol have a done to death plot as original as a Nintendo playbox 360 available in the local market, it is about as close to objective reality as Ajit Agarkar is to beating Sachin Tendulkar’s batting records, while generating all the excitement associated with a Zimbabwe- Bangladesh test match. Hell, I’ve seen pornos with more original (and definitely more exciting) plots than this. Ofc, I know this will be made into a movie in years to come with Tom Hanks once again showcasing his vast repertoire of facial expressions (namely the dumb, dazed, perplexed, no-idea-what-the-hell-is-going-on-but-I’ll-still-play-along, constipated and again dumb looks), but I’d be better off watching re-runs of ‘Rakhi ka Swayamwar’ or hopefully ‘Rakhi ki Suhaagrat’on my TV.

So anyways, digressions apart, the story begins with a mention of a stupid little secret society called the FreeMasons that no one’s heard of (or cares about) , a leading member (some Peter dude, I forget the name) of which, is kidnapped and has his hand cut off by a tattooed villain (with an outrageously scary name Mal’akh) who incidentally seems as dangerous and threatening as a pickpocket on a local bus. The villain seeks to find out some particular word which will help him obtain an ancient source of power and the only person in the whole world who can help him do it is (drumroll)……..yep you guessed it right- the great claustrophobic Robert Langdon. And his bargaining chip (other than poor ol’ Peter  who no one really cares about) happens to be the possession of some video of powerful government officials indulging in a ‘secretive Masonic ritual’ (which is, no doubt, some code word for some wild monkey sex ). So there you have it, a wild caveman is on the loose, armed with a porno (probably) and a sidekick armed with err… one arm, on course for world domination and it is upto Robert ‘I’m so scared of elevators’ Langdon to save the world. How about that for a plot, eh? (Incidentally, one question kept bothering me the whole time. If Robert Langdon is so scared of moving in closed elevators how does he take a crap in closed toilet cubicles? Or does he keep the doors open?)

So as is the case with the other books, Robert Langdon hops around from one country to another running away from the police agency of whichever country he is in, taking time breaks in between to visit all the monuments around him while giving gyaan on matters of universal importance like Madonna’s surname (Yes, he actually does that in Angels and Demons), and uses some weird symbols, ancient paintings, pyramids and objects of similar importance to solve silly mysteries that no one really cares about and save the world yet again, while hitting on hyper-intelligent uber-hot chicks at the same time. Did I mention that he does all this in a span of twelve hours? Talk about multitasking! Now, I could go on for pages on how he uses the stupid symbols to save the world, but since I don’t subscribe to Dan Brown’s philosophy of “Why use only one word to convey something when you can do it in 1024?”, I’ll skip right to the end.

As you might very well know by now, Dan Brown’s books are characterised by twists. And so in a shocking twist in the tale he reveals to us – brace yourselves ppl (warning: definitely not for the weak hearted)-  that good ol’ Mal’akh is actually that Peter guy’s son (ooohs and aaahs all around). I could again go on for pages about how Langdon and co. rescue the Peter guy in the nick of time, but fearing brickbats from readers whose patience has already been stretched to its limits, I won’t. In a fitting finale to this epic thriller, we have Robert Langdon uncovering some of the best kept secrets in the world, for the protection of which millions of masons have been martyred over the millenia (Note the alliteration ). Move over 42, you are not the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything as Langdon as finds out. In fact, the the answer is -hold your breaths, ppl- (drumroll)………. that * Wait for it*………. God is a part of Man and two heads are better than one (Tada! Applause and cheering). Profound, isn’t it??

So you see, after suffering 450 pages of this celebration of craptasticity (I know there is no such word), i expected atleast a half-decent ending, but I realize Dan Brown’s sole intention was to unzip his fly and let loose all over Douglas Adams’ grave. And I had half a mind to do just that (on the book, I mean). Because, for all his show of bringing out an intellectual book by making references to Noetic sciences and the like, it would be insulting to the average reader’s intelligence if he expects us to believe half the codswallop that he dishes out in the last 50 pages or so.

The book ends with the word ‘Hope’ and if there is one thing where Dan Brown has never failed to deliver, it is in giving others hope. Hope that one day duds like me could a write a book with utterly pointless symbolism, formulaic plots, lame Panchatantra flourishes as endings and get away with a readership of 5.5 million. Or so I thought until I saw this  http://www.slate.com/id/2228327/ and this http://www.columbia.edu/~ip71/fun/danbrown.html. No point in me doing it when a computer can do it better, huh?

P.S: One thing’s certain tho, that this is my last Dan Brown book ever. Period. Hence the name of the title.

P.P.S: (I love using parentheses in my posts. )

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And the Booker goes to…..

If I ever did a chetan bhagat and managed to recount three mistakes of my life in a book, I’m sure the one topping the list would be the one about me wasting 95 bucks and an entire night on a genuine piece of literary crap – one night at the call center. What I fail to figure out, is how chetan bhagat has missed out on the Booker all these years. But if an actor of the caliber of rakhi sawant hasn’t come around to winning an Oscar till now, I guess chetan bhagat has no hopes.

I read five point someone a couple of months back. Despite being in an iit, I found unable to connect myself with any of the characters in the book, and found the book a little far-fetched and cut off from reality (especially the getting laid part. Yeah right! Try getting laid in an IIT and you’ll know. You’ll have better chances at the Vatican) Nonetheless, it was an amusing read with an interesting plot. Which is more than what can be said about one night at the call center, the plot of which is about as interesting as, and contains all the excitement of a national geographic documentary on the inter racial marriages of the members of the zulu tribe in Africa (Believe me, I’ve watched it.), with more holes in it than the roads of Bangalore during monsoon. Chetan again tries his hand at a badly concocted brew of subtle humour, (which again matches the subtlety of a sledgehammer hitting you on your head, and is as iterative and monotonous as a for loop in a C program, so much so that I couldn’t help but scream out “Stop, stop. I get it, I get it” while reading the book) and pathos, with splotches of mushy lines being thrown in for good measure. As far as the pathos is concerned, I can honestly say that I’ve been more moved by the plight of the losing contestants of “Rakhi ka Swayamwar” than the characters of the book.

Now all of you must be wondering what made me, who, incidentally, hasn’t been diagnosed with any mental illness till now, go out of my way and buy the book. Well, staying in no LAN’s land with a useless comp (with only freecell and solitaire in the games folder) for a companion equipped with an even more useless modem, coupled with the fact that TV was rendered useless as you could bounce an eyeball at the kotla pitch made me leave my humble abode and seek out a book on which I could waste my otherwise worthless time. Ofc, ‘Rocket Singh’ was running successfully at the multiplexes around my place and worldwide (or so the makers would like us to believe) but I would like to clarify to my readers that contrary to popular belief, I am not a masochist, and, no, I do not enjoy inflicting self torture. Now, the more sceptical of you and the singularly persistent, might question my motives in buying this particular book despite myriad other books being present. To them I say, blame the USA. Yes, it is bcoz of that godforsaken country that I find myself broke as an aftereffect of the economic recession they unleashed upon an otherwise wealthy world. Cash-strapped as I was, I wasn’t looking for a long term affair with an expensive 1000 odd page book, but a one night stand with a cheap one. (And boy, the book took cheapness to all new depths!) So it was either on@tcc, 3 mistakes or two states and I made the grave mistake (for the sake of Indian literature I hope that it was a mistake) of buying this lame excuse for a book.

But I digress. Coming back to the plot, the book starts off with chetan bhagat sitting in an empty compartment of a train, when a hot chick enters. And that is the end of the interesting part of the book. Now, I would have expected established writers like him to be well versed with pick up lines like “hey, is your name summer?” “No, why?” “ coz I think you are hot” (hehe. Lame, I know. But considering it was Chetan Bhagat, I coudn’t resist taking a dig) But like every IITian endowed with cotton-wool balls, the writer does nothing of the sort and goes on a mauna vrat for an hour or so. Then the chick decides to tell him a story on the condition that he will write it in his next book, and so begins the story. Basically, the plot revolves around the life of a loser called shyam, and his loser friends. Nothing like a story about losers and their lousy lives to attract crowds to buy a book during times of recession, eh folks? Neways, shyam works in a call center which he hates. He is low on confidence, and has just been dumped by his unjust girlfriend priyanka, who is also his colleague, and hasn’t gotten over it yet. Shyam also has a new semi-girlfriend Shefali whom he doesn’t approve of completely, but still hangs on to coz he’s tired of jerking off to porn everyday. His best buddy is varun, my namesake I know, but there ends the resemblance. Varun or Vroom as he’s known has a fetish for bikes and nurtures a hatred for america that the CPI and taliban combined cannot match. He’s infatuated with esha, a colleague who is supposedly pretty but pretty stunted in height and cranial capacity. She works at the call center at night and sleeps with fashion designers during the day. Radhika is a married woman working in the call center who is too dense to realize that her husband is cheating on her. Military uncle is an ex-army man working in the call center to supplement his meager pension. He has parted ways with his son, who lives in the US. He constantly tries to talk to his grandson but is castigated by his son, and rightly so, what with the growing number of paedophilia and incest cases in the US.

 Does shyam get back his lost love or is he left jerking off for the rest of his life?

Does priyanka truly love shyam or is she secretly a lesbian taking advantage of the newly revoked section 377?

Does Vroom become an anti-american terrorist or does he replace prakash karat as the new leader of the cpi? Is he successful in wooing esha or is he left married to his bike for the rest of his lousy life?

Is esha’s lot restricted to the BPO industry or does she sleep her way thru the modeling industry?

Does radhika dump her cheating husband or is she okay with a threesome every night?

Is military uncle just a benevolent grandfather doting on his grandson or is he a Michael Jackson fan with sinister designs? Can this septuagenarian with hormones still raging, leave the call center and make more moolah by becoming a poster boy for viagra??

 And the most profound of all – Is this a story written by india’s most popular writer or is this something some italian guy came up with, while banging a hooker in a las vegas casino????

To find out the answers to these profound questions, get your fat derrieres off that seat and buy yourself a copy of on@tcc OR you can just read further. As a coup de grace to this epic saga of love and lost love, the author comes up with a brilliant ending. An ending so meaningful and so well thought off that it will leave you marvelling at its intrinsic profundity. The author comes up with an ending on these lines – Imagine you are caught up in a precarious situation – something akin to hanging at the edge of a cliff. Also imagine that you have your cell phone. What would you do? Call 911??

Well, 911 just got obsolete. Coz you can call up God! And as added bonus, during times of recession, you don’t even have to waste your balance calling up God, coz God calls you, even if your cell phone doesn’t have a battery!! And that is precisely what happens in the book. God takes up the role of a counselor and not only saves them from their dangerous situation but gives solutions to remedy their messed up lives. A brilliant ending! An ending so blissful that it left me, an atheist, screaming in wonder “Oh God!”. An then, the author finishes off on a lovey-dovey note that would give karan johar and yash chopra a run for their money. Also, and this is the BEST part of the book, the hot chick in the train turns out to be well, God.

I know many of you might have read this book already, but for those of you who haven’t, a piece of advice- avoid it like you would avoid a dark alley full of mangy curs with rabies on a full moon night.

And those of you who are out of your seats and off to buy the book, try tossing a few bricks in the air and see if you can bounce them off your head while you are at it.

P.S: I know i’ve bashed up the book pretty badly but boy, after reading the book, was i pissed off or what!!

P.P.S: Roorkee, here i come.

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