Peril in Prague: The Secret of Secrets, by Dan Brown, reviewed
Robert Langdon is a symbologist, and that is the meta joke – the only joke – of Dan Brown’s series of blockbusters, of which this is the sixth. Langdon, an Everyman – Frodo Baggins but taller, and with a professorship at Harvard – is a monied, moderate intellectual who likes swimming. And he is very ordinary – until he isn’t. All novels have subtexts, even if they don’t really want them. They can’t help it. This one is: a monied, moderate intellectual can be interesting, and interesting things can happen to him. (I think Brown spends a lot of time at his desk. I also think he prefers ideas to
