Guardian/Observer : The Observer Profile - Veni vidi da Vinci
Uncle Yap
The Observer Profile - Veni vidi da Vinci
He takes a break from his desk to do press-ups every hour, he likes
Jeffrey Archer and the Gypsy Kings ... but his novels and his bank
balance are far more thrilling
David Smith
Sunday December 12, 2004
The Observer
Future biographers may be riding for a fall. Seduced by the swirl of
religious controversy, the ardent globetrotting of devotees and the
awesome statistics - 18 million copies sold, 42 language translations
and £140 million earnings and counting - they will investigate The Da
Vinci Code's author with as much zeal as his central protagonist's
quest for the holy grail. But whereas the theological thriller 'ends
virtually every chapter with a cliff-hanger', the life and times of
Dan Brown imply not every tale has a sting.
That he possesses the rare kind of genius to corner a mass market is
beyond dispute: his novels occupy four of the top five spots in the
latest Observer paperback fiction bestseller list with combined sales
of more than 2.5 million in the UK alone. Christmas will provide
another boost to the coffers as there is no safer bet during the next
fortnight's gift shopping.
It is a triumph for all the Browns, Joneses and Smiths of the world
who thought you need an exotic name like Umberto Eco to be a big hit.
That said, Brown himself was once disparaged as 'Umberto Eco-lite' and
his lifestyle is as mundane as his name: a happy middle-class marriage
to Blythe in Exeter, New Hampshire, playing tennis and writing in his
loft, cocooned from phone or e-mail. Equally unexciting is his ascetic
work regime: 'If I'm not at my desk by 4am, I feel like I'm missing my
most productive hours. In addition to starting early, I keep an
antique hour glass on my desk and every hour break briefly to do
pushups, sit-ups, and some quick stretches. I find this helps keep the
blood (and ideas) flowing.'
Advertiser links
Adventure Sports Holidays in Austria
Walking, mountain biking, canyoning, river rafting, summer...
redpoint.co.uk
Horse Riding Adventure Holidays
A wide variety of horse riding and adventure holidays all...
equitour.co.uk
Adventure Holidays in Australia
The official Australian tourism Web site. Everything you...
australia.com
Not exactly a riot of hedonism that might win him an invitation to
join Byron, Hemingway and Thomas at your fantasy dinner party.
On his website Brown, 40, reveals some literary heroes of his own:
'John Steinbeck for his descriptions ... Robert Ludlum for his
plotting ... and Shakespeare for his wordplay.' His brow eases between
high, middle and low. Of Mice and Men and Much Ado About Nothing sit
beside The Bourne Identity series and Jeffrey Archer's Kane and Abel
on his shelves. Of the latter he says: 'I was amazed how well Archer
handled the long time spans without ever losing the narrative pulse.
The ultimate novel of sibling rivalry.' Favourite music includes The
Gypsy Kings and Enya - a Radio 2 kind of guy.
Little hint there of the frenzied pace, exhilarating twists and
scandalous claims about Christ which have made The Da Vinci Code the
best selling hardback adult novel of all time, in danger of becoming
better known than Leonardo himself.
Laced with symbols, riddles and teasers, the plot follows Harvard code
specialist Robert Langdon who, called in to investigate the murder of
the curator of the Louvre in Paris, discovers a series of clues buried
in the works of Leonardo. Amid the conspiracies of secret societies
and malevolent foes emerge stunning revelations: Jesus never claimed
to be divine, he married Mary Magdalene and had a child with her, his
bloodline survived in France and the Holy Grail was not a chalice but
a woman.
As his selection of favourite writers suggests, Brown knows how to be
all things to all readers and push the populist buttons. He is not the
first, in his expropriation of the Da Vinci name, to attempt a trick
of intellectual flattery (see Flaubert's Parrot, Galileo's Daughter ).
Critics have found in the narrative a veneer of erudition that cloaks
nothing more than a James Bond-style romp, albeit a highly addictive
one. His publisher has described it as 'a thriller for people who
don't like thrillers'. One newspaper put it thus: 'It is terribly
written, its characters are cardboard cutouts, the dialogue is
excruciating in places and, a bit like a computer manual, everything
is overstated and repeated - but it is impossible to put the bloody
thing down.'
But while the literary elite sniffed, the New Statesman magazine has
just named Brown its Man of the Year, suggesting that 'this myth-maker
of false reality is a kind of benign David Icke'.
The ball - now a gigantic snowball - started rolling in March last
year when the New York Times threw its august weight behind The Da
Vinci Code a day before its publication, summing up its sentiments in
one word: 'Wow.' It shot to the top of bestsellers lists in America
and Britain and has stayed there to become the biggest literary
sensation since Harry Potter.
Brown has fathered 'Da Vinci Delirium'. The words 'Da Vinci Code' turn
up 2.1 million websites on Google. Spin-off books to help people
'decode' the secrets have become bestsellers in themselves, DVDs have
explored the myths and one fan ditched Atkins for the 'Da Vinci Diet'
which focuses on the benefits of bread.
The hard core are also pursuing 'Grail trails', retracing the
characters' steps in Westminster Abbey and Temple Church in London,
the normally quiet village of Rosslyn in Scotland and various
locations in France - even American tourists are returning - where, at
the Louvre, some reputedly ignore Leonardo's Mona Lisa to ask
bewildered staff: 'Is this the room where the curator was murdered?'
Underlying this obsessive behaviour is the novel's other populist
asset, a fusion of fact and fiction. The rumour of Christ's wife and
child, for example, is long-established and taken seriously by some.
Others have taken Brown to task. Opus Dei, a worldwide Roman Catholic
organisation portrayed in the book as an extremist cult, now receives
daily emails asking why it is hiding the truth about the Holy Grail.
It was forced to produce a 127-page response: 'Many readers are
intrigued by the claims about Christian history and theology presented
in The Da Vinci Code. We would like to remind them it is a work of
fiction and not a reliable source of information.'
In reply, Brown summons none of the anti-church rhetoric of Philip
Pullman, but is typically sanguine, that is to say, bland:
'Controversy and dialogue are healthy for religion as a whole.
Religion has only one true enemy - apathy - and passionate debate is a
superb antidote.'
Dan Brown was born in New Hampshire, the son of a mathematician father
and musician mother. Even at the age of 10 he was cracking codes: he
found a poem under the Christmas tree that led to a certain location
in the house, where he found an index card with a big letter 'E' and
another poem, which led elsewhere. Finally he and his sister completed
the full set of letters, E-C-O-P-T, which they rearranged to spell
Epcot, meaning the Epcot Centre at Disney World. A trip there was
their parents' Christmas gift.
Brown graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy and Amherst College
before moving to Hollywood to pursue a career as singer-songwriter and
pianist. He produced four CDs but, failing to make an impact, he left
to study art history in Seville, Spain. Here he first learned about
messages hidden in Leonardo's works. In 1993 he returned to New
Hampshire and became an English teacher.
His first book, written in 1995 with his wife Blythe, a painter and
art historian, was the lighthearted 187 Men to Avoid: A Guide for the
Romantically Frustrated Woman. But by then he was already on the path
that would change his life: 'In 1994, while vacationing in Tahiti, I
found an old copy of Sidney Sheldon's Doomsday Conspiracy on the
beach. I read the first page ... and then the next ... and then the
next. Several hours later, I finished the book and thought, "Hey, I
can do that." Upon my return, I began work on my first novel - Digital
Fortress - which was published in 1996.'
Digital Fortress was followed by Angels and Demons then Deception
Point, all of which have received a second lease of life thanks to The
Da Vinci Code, giving Brown the top four positions in some bestseller
lists. He struck a deal with Columbia Pictures for a multi-million
pound film adaptation of The Da Vinci Code, starring Tom Hanks as
Langdon and directed by Ron Howard. He is also writing a sequel,
tackling the Freemasons, to be published next summer.
But the monumental success has not spoiled him, according to those who
know him. Jason Kaufman, his longtime editor and close friend, told
the Boston Globe: 'He is the same person he was two years ago. It's
harder for him to walk down the street, but he is remarkably
levelheaded about his life.' Stephen Rubin, president of Doubleday,
added: 'He's an extremely charming, very smart, preppy guy, like the
college professor you never had. He's impossible not to like.'
Agent provocateur he may be in his work, but the most controversial
Dan the man gets is allowing his membership of Mensa, the society of
intelligent people, to lapse. Perhaps he does yearn for a more
exciting life, confessing: 'Langdon is the man I wish I were. Langdon
is cooler than I am. One of the luxuries of being a writer is that you
can live vicariously through your characters.' That said, his friends
should not expect a racy read from him on Christmas morning. 'This
will sound nerdish,' he says, 'but the all-time best "gift book" has
to be a leather-bound copy of the Oxford English Dictionary.'
Dan Brown
DoB: 22 June 1964 (New Hampshire)
Family: Married to Blythe, art historian and painter
Books: The Da Vinci Code, Angels and Demons, Digital Fortress,
Deception Point
Inspired by: John Steinbeck, Robert Ludlum, Shakespeare, Jeffrey
Archer