Too much information | 23 September 2009

Freemasons have been getting steadily less glamorous since their apotheosis in The Magic Flute. Nowadays, one thinks of them in connection with short-sleeved, polyester shirt-and-tie sets, pens in the top pocket, sock-suspenders and the expression ‘My lady wife’. I honestly can’t see them guarding the secrets of the universe. Dan Brown’s new conspiracy theory cosmic thriller, portraying freemasonry as a wise secret sect, starts at a considerable disadvantage. Ends there, too.

Robert Langdon — was there ever a dimmer name for an action hero? — is lured away from his cryptological studies by an invitation from a wise old acquaintance, Peter Solomon, in Washington. Or so it seems; because when Langdon turns up at the lecture theatre, in one of Washington’s most prestigious venues, as Brown would put it, there is no one there. Instead, there is Solomon’s hand, cut off and newly tattooed with occult symbols, stuck on a spike and pointing upwards at the official frescoes.