REVIEW OF DAN BROWNS THE LOST SYMBOL .....HEADLINES TODAY : DAN BROWN arrested for numbing the mind of a million people.

Let me tell you my friends, ignorance is bliss. This is true in case you are planning to read the 509 page long epic mistake titled 'THE LOST SYMBOL' by DAN BROWN(DB). If you have already read Brown and enjoyed his previous books namely 'Angels and demons, Digital fortress and the Da Vinci code'

, you will probably be horrified by The Lost Symbol. Robert Langdon's third adventure is another fast paced thriller that involves secrets in art, architecture and history. Brown does not break any new ground, but he does provide some good beach reading because you can fall asleep anytime and get a nice tan in the process. Though the book picks up after 20 or so pages, you will find that the book dulls its pace in all the wrong moments. Be it the overly descriptive nature of DB's writing or the unnecessary two page explanation for every word or symbol, you will soon discover that you have wasted your time, energy and money on a lousy book.

Robert's dear friend and mentor Peter Solomon has been kidnapped and to save him he must now decipher the code on the pyramid which would reveal information about 'the Ancient Mysteries'. Soon the CIA are involved and the director insists that solving the pyramid's code is a matter of national security (SHOCK). As you would have guessed by now there has to be a female accompanying Langdon.. what story is complete without a female lead? It's none other than Katherine Solomon , Peter's sister a brilliant scientist whose research proves that the human soul is quantifiable. For some odd reason the villain is threatened by her research. So he does what villains do best, destroys it and tries to kill her. After a narrow escape from death, she unites finally with our FEARLESS HERO (he's claustrophobic wink*wink*). Ironically, this is the unsolved mystery in the book, for one cannot figure out till the end why the villain chose to destroy her research, as it is of no consequence to him.

There are parts in the book that really lack logic. It's baffling, the CIA in the climax concentrate on waiting for the villain to turn up at location for 40 min before calling it quits. When they receive no word from their agent who has accompanied Langdon and Katherin to an unknown location they don't even seem to be the least bit worried. But miraculously after 40 min they seem to care about Langdon and track the GPS on the car. One would think an agency with such power would have more common sense. It reminded me of those tacky Tamil movies where the cops would show up after everything was over!!!! Has the CIA not heard of Multi tasking????

The most excruciating part is, when your willing for the book to end, DB gives you a 3 page explanation on oxygen deprivation tanks and torture techniques. Its astonishingly long so don't be fooled by the font.. just the sheer volume will drive you crazy. Even the solving of the clues is not all that intelligent. The ultimate revelation of what the anticent mysteries is all about falls flat and adds to the agony of reading a disappointing book.

It starts off on a positive note giving the reader hope that this is going to be a thriller like none other. But one soon realizes that what started out as a dream has turned into a perfect nightmare.

Chaos,Anarchy,and Beauty

Clausius and carnot, in the middle of last century, formulated the entropy law, or second law of thermodynamics. Entropy, in essence, was the degree of randomness, or chaos of a system. Chaos that is every increasing and uncontrollable. In theory, the very words you are reading now, is ever increasing chaos.

Scientists found chaos so alluring,so fascinating, that they dedicated an entire class of scientific persuasion is dedicated to studying chaos, also referred to as The Butterfly Effect. We have all heard the old wives tale, how a butterfly flapping its wings can cause a hurricane elsewhere. Choas, it turns out, has distinct order to it. And we have found that, despite all the complexities and randomness of nature and world we live in, there is still beauty to be found in it.Laws we have been taught to accept, Ohm's Law and the kinetic theory of gases are descriptions of a large number of micro events, each of which are random , and none of which is entire predictable. The mathematical theory of probability arose from the need to give randomness a shape.

It is in fact, down to pure random chance, the humans ourselves came into being. The primordial soup, as they say, was made in the perfect kitchen.It is pure random chance that the right ingredients were in the right place, at the right time, in the right amounts, with the right catalyst, and with the right environment. And then came you. Natures' natural selection, a prime example of working chaos, has ensured that it is our species that evolved in the way it did, to bring us here. Take a good look at the mirror, and remark at the beauty of chaos, and its inimitable ways. To this date, scientists employ randomness in Genetic Algorithms to recreate natures' holy chaos.

Humans have been fascinated by chaos to such a degree, that they become enamoured by it. That they revel in being part of the infinte chaos. Dice games, and gambling, all were created to satiate the appetite humans have for randomness. Random number generators are increasingly used by computers for data encryption, selecting random samples from large data sets.

The theory of chaos has always fascinated humans. It appears we are all just 6 year old children, playing with a test tube of unknown chemicals, just to see what turns out.

Anarchists believe that in the absense of a government or ruling body, in the resulting chaos, common sense would prevail, allowing people to come together to form a functional society. They belived that despite all the randomness, there would still be functional order.

Randomness has even been introduced in music, generating arbitrary sounds to imbibe an ambient effect, a genre referred to as post-modern.

A popular cult-comic character, The Joker, an arch nemesis, of Batman, claimed himself to be an agent of chaos. He believed, that there was never really justice in the justice system, and only true fairness was to be found in blind chance, the toss of coin. The plain glee with which the anarchist explained his philosophy found an admirer of choas, in me. And got me to write this article.

LOst..season continues

Well sorry to disappoint but this is not a review of the serial LOST (which btw is unbelievably still on air. For those less informed its the U.S counterpart of our local superhit Tamil serial "KOLANGAL". I guess there is no logical explanation for why they have been running around an Island half naked most of the time (not that i mind :):))for 6 seasons now.

but enough of that...

I dedicate this my first post to all the people in the world who feel as lost and confused as me. To those people who have no idea what to do with their lives, where they are headed or just plain clueless. I guess you can say I fall under the 'Cukoo' category where u will find the slightly crazy and confused. What am I confused about? even to that I have no answers.

Even now i have no idea what to write about and you still see me rambling on about something inconsequential. I must admit I was a bit apprehensive about starting a blog. But now that i have started writing i feel liberated.

I look forward to writing some wonderful posts in the days to come. I end now with a quote that serves as a source of inspiration to me and is close to my heart,

"All your dreams can come true if you have the courage to pursue them. - Walt Disney"

Ciao :D