I finally got around to starting The Lost Symbol today (hey, I'm pretty with it, this time- it took me listening to like four years of hype before I broke down and read The DaVinci Code...) and I'm finding it to be an enjoyable read. The one thing that keeps making me grin, however, is Tom Hanks- er, I mean, Robert Langdon.
I read both The DaVinci Code and Angels & Demons before either of the movies came out, so of course I had my own idea of what the protagonist looked and (more to the point of this entry) sounded like. Generally when I see a movie based on a book I've already read, the two versions of the characters take up separate spaces in my brain. For instance, although I find Daniel Radcliffe to be an almost inappropriately fetching young man, I am quite clear on him representing Movie Harry Potter, not Book Harry Potter. Book Harry Potter looks and sounds quite different in my mind... not because I don't appreciate or approve of Mr. Radcliff's portrayal, but because I have no problems holding multiple versions of a character in my head (this may be due to my long-standing love-affair with comic books...) without giving it a second thought.
Not so with Robert Langdon, apparently.
I wasn't very far into the book when I had the sudden realization that I kept hearing Tom Hanks speaking all of Langdon's dialog. His accent, his cadence- straight up Tom Hanks in the role of Robert Langdon. It made me laugh out loud when I realized it. From that point onward my mental image took on a sort of shifting quality- most of the time Langdon looked as I had originally envisioned him, but any time he said something, he became "-as-played-by-Hanks".
I must say, it's making the book that much more enjoyable for me. (But more on my affection for Tom Hanks some other time...)
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