Dan Brown and Euripides

Oliver Harris begins hisTLS review of Theodore Ziolkowski’sLure of the Arcane by pondering why two million people went out to buy Dan Brown’sLost Symbol the first week it was out:

“If those who rushed to consume this tale of ancient mysteries and secret societies were not buying it for its sinuous prose, might their enthusiasm be due to what Ziolkowski describes as the lure of the arcane? The arcane – from Latin arca, signifying a chest in which something is locked away – describes both esoter...