"The Lost Symbol": A night with Dan Brown
First hour
A secrecy like the Holy Grail
That was a bit of a fuss: only six people in the world are said to have read the work before "The Lost Symbol" appeared on Tuesday. A secrecy like the Holy Grail. But with 81 million "Da Vinci Codes" sold worldwide, the bar is just high. The successor has been waiting six years. No wonder Dan Brown was punished with a hellish writer's block. And then the movie too! Since then, Brown's hero Robert Langdon in my head is unfortunately a full-bodied Tom Hanks with an even fuller hair creation and no longer the sleek Harvard version of treasure hunter Harrison Ford. But anyway, I'm ready to spend the night with him. Just like translator teams around the world who are now working in the chord. The curiosity is great, so go. I also promise not to reveal too much.
A little prologue leads us to a pretty secret ceremony. So it's clear who's the focus this time around: the Masons. But actually that is a flashback, because we sit with Robert Langdon in the plane. It's about six in the evening, landing on Washington D.C. The man has a nightmare. We remember him suffering from claustrophobia since he fell into a well as a child. And otherwise Dan Brown puts us right back in the picture: His hero is celebrated by the ground staff because of his scandal book. Oh yes, the Catholic Church suppresses the genealogy of a blessed marriage to a daughter of Jesus and Mary Magdalene. Since we are in the mood for the next scavenger hunt!
Second hour
Seven o'clock in the evening (with Robert in Washington and by chance also with me). I already have the first VHS block in the proven Brownian style behind me. Half an hour ago (6.30 pm), Dan Brown introduced the art of tattooing and thus his villain. I can confidently betray that, because you can scarcely draw a finsterling more clearly. This time we're not dealing with a murdering albino monk, but with a well-tattooed avenging angel named Mal'akh. Both not exactly inconspicuous. Hopefully this will not be too clumsy Da Vinci clone. And Langdon makes a city tour on the way to his lecture by taxi, which is already the tourist course, which will lead in future in the American capital as a Louvre counterpart to the Capitol. No matter, Washington D.C. and the Masons, which promises to be exciting.
The thriller begins, the character salad too
And the first cliffhanger works: For just as Langdon enters the hall to bring his audience closer to that theme, only a few distraught tourists stare at him. The man who let him fly in has disappeared except for his severed hand on the floor. Added to this is a mobile phone call from the villain: If Langdon wants to save his friend and mentor Peter Salomon, he must clear the way to long-forgotten knowledge. The thriller begins, the character salad too.
Third hour
Eight PM. Katherine Salomon is also waiting for her brother, who is a famous freemason and also the head of the Smithsonian Museum Support Center (SMSC). This gigantic collection point for scientific finds of all kinds really exists. Even the exact address is named - for all fans who do not want to wait for the official Dan Brown bus tour. And the subject of Katherine, who conducts research in the SMSC, according to the foreword, really is: Noetic Sciences.
Can thoughts change the world?
Let me take a little reading break and google "Noetic Science": The Institute of Noetic Sciences (IONS) is obviously doing research on telepathy, psychokinesis, clairvoyance, meditation, spontaneous and distant healing. Incidentally, the institute was co-founded by astronaut Mitchell, the sixth man on the moon. Allegedly, he was enlightened on the return flight and considers 90 percent of the UFO sightings for actual visits by aliens who are covered up in an organized manner. Of course, the noetics are accused of pursuing frontier science without the necessary empirical evidence.
And that's where the old fox Brown starts. The revolution is imminent: Katherine Salomon has measurable results on questions like: What happens after death? Or: Can thoughts change the world? She and her research are the link between modern science and ancient myths.
Fourth hour
What do I actually know about the guy who is supposed to rob me of sleep?
Nine o'clock in the evening. The villain drives up to the SMSC to screw up humanity's quantum leap of knowledge. Meanwhile, the CIA is also involved and drives Langdon, who still follows his hand, so far into the catacombs of the Capitol, that the center of the earth seems to be reached soon. Nevertheless, our hero calls his publisher, because he wants to ask for the number of beautiful and smart Katherine.And is promptly insulted: You owe me a manuscript. Do you know how long I wait? Dan Brown makes a little self-irony, this is also the favorite curse of his characters: "Holy Shit".
What do I actually know about the guy who is supposed to rob me of sleep this night? Not much. He is shy, does not like interviews - and does not need them any more. He has his unbridled desire at numbers, anagrams and symbols from the father, a mathematician: "At Christmas, the gifts were not just under the Christmas tree." They were hidden. "Father encrypted the site in picture or number puzzles. " His new work is also a great Christmas in proven family tradition.
Fifth hour
Ten p.m. Actually, two minutes past ten, because the villain looks at the clock. He is waiting for success stories from Langdon. He still has two hours left to save his friend. Among other things, our code-cracker deals with pyramids of all sizes and ages, runes and Albrecht Dürer - who is even more mysterious than Leonardo da Vinci and whose key work hangs in the National Gallery in Washington. The villain has to take a hot shower first, and I need the first coffee to stay awake.
Sixth hour
Eleven o'clock at night. If it looks like a novel in a sudoku booklet - that's not my cup of tea. Play with the idea of directing the self-experiment in another, strongly noetic direction: Perhaps I could simply put "The Lost Symbol" under the pillow and acquire the 133 chapters in my sleep ...
Seventh hour
The coffee flushes my tiredness out of the bones
Midnight. The coffee flushes my tiredness out of the bones. Just in time to see Robert Langdons worst nightmare. The man with the fountain trauma (but yes, we remember) finds himself naked in a coffin after a clash with the villain. First he is afraid to be buried alive, then comes the water. In the face of death, he still has a flash of Dürer, then he drowns in the eyes of Katherine, who is now his mate. And how is he getting out of here? To hell with all good intentions, not too much to betray. In that case, it's just too nice: it was a floating tank. The soul re-enters the body after an intensive meditation experience.
Eighth hour
One o'clock in the morning. A little digression about Katherine's specialty tells us how to weigh a person's soul.
Ninth hour
Two o'clock in the morning. I'm not over the floating experience yet. Have a short break and think about the mystery of the Mickey Mouse clock. 1.) How can it be that a brilliant mind like Langdon needs to be reminded by such a childish accessory that he should not take everything so hard in life. 2.) How could it be that he has just escaped the death in the tank naked like a newborn and is looking again at his Mickey Mouse clock ("My God, so late!")? No answers from Dan Brown. I'm too tired to search for solutions myself. Keep reading as the villain tries to wipe out the entire Salomon family. Again a question: Why does the guy hate these people like that? The answer is delivered seconds later, but this time really can not be betrayed.
Tenth hour
I am tired, but I do not want to stop reading
Three o'clock in the morning. The villain is dead, Peter Salomon lives. The access to the secret knowledge of the Masons is still not found. Time for a small balance: I'm tired, but I do not want to stop reading. I'm not disappointed, even without Da Vinci, the Dan Brown code works. I hurry with the hero of the story from one station to the next and get in the Tour de Force through the tourist attractions of the American capital a sense of the great treasure of knowledge of humanity. And all for beginners, no matter in which area. You're welcome to do that.
Dan Brown fills us with a longing for excitement, spirituality and education. And that's fun at night as well. Above all, when one realizes with astonishment how serious the son of the mathematician and a devout church organist is with faith, love and hope: he has always wanted to believe in God, but is still occupied with this wish with scientific knowledge to reconcile. "Your heart yearns to believe, but your mind denies you permission," the novel says.
Eleventh hour
Four o'clock in the morning. Around this time, the currently most-read author of the world is to sit every morning at his desk in the East Coast town of Exeter. 90 percent of what he writes, he destroyed immediately. The erase button was his most important tool, he once said. He used to be a teacher, before that a lard rocker who did not want to go on stage because of inhibitions. His debut album entitled "Dan Brown" did not bring the breakthrough.Under the pseudonym Danielle Brown he published a humorous guidebook for women with lovesickness, later he put one after another for men with balding. The success came when his twelve-year-old wife Blythe had the idea of "sacrilege". She has taken over most of the research and dragged the material, he has made irresistible tidbits of it.
Twelfth hour
Landon and Katherine dream of a better Yes-We-Can world
Five o'clock in the morning. Langdon has done his duty and is allowed to take a nap. But only briefly, because as a reward, he still got a key that promises very pretty enlightenment. He opens the door to a sunrise, which he - in spite of the adverse circumstances of the night - may experience together with his companion. As you know, hope dies last. They dream of a better Yes-We-Can world in which no one doubts that two minds think better than one. And what kind of energy could humanity develop if more and more people thought so? And what will the millions of Dan Brown readers do that will read it again?
I can hardly imagine that the debates about Masons in Washington D.C. as heated as the discussions about the relationship between Jesus and Mary Magdalene. But nevertheless, the Masons, and especially the troupe of Noetics can prepare themselves for the fact that they are burned the stalls - and also the booksellers will be happy about the silver lining on the horizon, with the Dan Brown outlines the near future. "The Lost Symbol" (Lübbe) will be released on 14.10. in German.
