The Dan Brown Enigma (13 page)

A good thriller also needs to take the writer and the reader on an adventure. We know that Brown has done this in
Deception Point
because of the reviews, many of which have said that all his books are ‘packed full of suspense’.
Deception Point
is filled with twists and turns to keep the reader guessing. The plots cuts back and forth between locations and Brown uses his short chapters with cliffhanger endings to keep the pace moving. Once the action kicks in he moves it with lightning speed and the climax at the end is a finely crafted and skilled piece of writing equal to that of MacLean’s work.

But there is one element that MacLean peppers his works with and is difficult to find in
Deception Point
– humour. For Brown his third novel was meant to be fun and easier than the first two, but halfway through he began to think that he might have made a mistake because he was bored by politics and he felt uncomfortable using a female lead. ‘I had been far more interested in the Vatican, Langdon, codes, symbology, and art,’ he said. ‘I had no money, and I found myself wondering once again if I should give up. Fortunately, my wife has always been a tremendous support system and she encouraged me to keep at it.’
[112]

Brown’s first two books had been commercial duds. The sales of
Deception Point
would prove to be no better. The next one had to be good if he was to survive as a novelist. It was his last hope.

The hard part of writing a novel is not the ideas but rather the nuts and bolts of the plot and language and making it all work.

Rumours of this conspiracy have been whispered for centuries in countless languages, including the languages of art, music, and literature
[113]

B
rown had fulfilled his two-book deal with Simon & Schuster and to say he was disappointed with the publisher is an understatement. ‘My lone advocate at Simon & Schuster seemed to be my editor, Jason Kaufman, with whom I had developed a friendship and level of trust,’ Brown said. ‘He too had become deeply frustrated with the lack of publisher support I was receiving at Simon & Schuster.’

As with
Angels & Demons
the promise for
Deception Point
was high but never materialised. The book was published in August 2001 fifteen months after
Angels & Demons
and a month later the unthinkable happened. The terrorist attacks of 11 September scuppered the sales of his third novel. No books of fiction or non-fiction did well that autumn – people’s minds were elsewhere. As Lisa Rogak noted in her book on Brown, ‘Many details of the typical thriller novel suddenly seemed too frivolous.’
[114]

Broke and disheartened in the months after sending
Deception Point
to the publishers, Brown realised that something needed to be done if he was to remain a full-time author. He had to have success.

The pressure was intense. The first thing he did was to change his agent. He left Jake Ellwell at Wieser and Wieser and found a friendly face at Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. Based in New York, the agency represented authors of commercial and literary fiction as well as non-fiction, and the friendly face was Heidi Lange.

Dan and Blythe Brown met with Heidi to look at the first two novels (
Deception Point
hadn’t been published yet) with a critical eye.
Digital Fortress
had received a lot of attention from the press because it was a topic that was prominent in the news in those days. Email was relatively new at the time but most people used it at some point in their day and the revelation that the government read everyone’s email was a shocking one.

Brown needed locations he could travel to fairly easily, so the day after he submitted the manuscript for
Deception Point
, he and Blythe went on holiday to Mexico. ‘It was there on the Yucatan Peninsula, exploring the ancient Mayan pyramids and archaeological ruins of Chichen-Itza and Tulum, that I was (at last) able to leave behind the high tech world of
Deception Point
,’ he recalled. In Mexico Brown was immersed in ancient ruins, myths and legends, ‘and this intriguing history was tickling my imagination again. I began to muster the sense that I might be able to write another novel. At that point, I had no doubt who my hero would be – I would return to the world of Robert Langdon.’
[115]

According to Rogak, Dan, Blythe and Heidi continued their analysis, and Brown went back to the research for
Angels & Demons
that he hadn’t been able to use. Was there anything he could use that would shock people or even offend them? ‘He remembered that, after
Angels & Demons
had been published, he’d got a lot of grief for describing the face on Bernini’s statue of St Teresa as looking like she was in the midst of a ‘toe-curling orgasm.’
[116]

What he was looking for was something controversial. ‘This particular story kept knocking on my door until I answered,’ he said.

In his witness statement Brown says he had first learned of the mysteries hidden in Da Vinci’s paintings while studying art history at the university in Seville. He came across Da Vinci again while researching
Angels & Demons
. ‘I arranged a trip to the Louvre Museum where I was fortunate enough to view the originals of some of Da Vinci’s most famous works as well as discuss them with an art historian who helped me better understand the mystery behind their surprising anomalies. From then on, I was captivated.’

The trio’s analysis had shown three things: that he needed a topic people knew and used in their daily lives, that he needed to present it in a way that would knock people’s understanding of that topic on its head, and that he had to reveal something that was shocking, even upsetting. By combining sex with religion he was almost guaranteed a certain level of push back and when he remembered his art class in Seville where the professor had pointed out the secrets in Da Vinci’s painting of the Last Supper, he realised he had the foundation upon which he could build the book.
[117]
With his wife Blythe being a Da Vinci fan as well, it made sense to bring Da Vinci into the story.

Bringing Langdon back was also perfect for the plot because Langdon is a professor of religious history and symbolism. He is also an art historian. ‘In choosing what characters to include in a novel, I select characters who have sets of skills that help move the plot along and also permit me to introduce information,’ Brown said in his witness statement. ‘His expertise in symbology and iconography affords him the luxury of potentially limitless adventures in exotic locales.’

Langdon is also close to Brown in personality. Indeed, Brown has said that he wishes he was Langdon, largely because his character takes chances that he (Brown) wouldn’t to uncover the truth about some ancient mystery. He has the same interests as Brown does, which makes sense because Brown takes so long to research and write his books that the subject matter has to keep his attention. He also feels more comfortable writing about Langdon.

With all of these ingredients in place, Brown got to work researching and writing
The Da Vinci Code
. ‘His fourth novel would be a culmination of every interest and influence he’d ever had in his life: religion, codes, art and secret societies.’
[118]

Sifting through the research left over from
Angels & Demons
, he made notes on areas where he still required more research and got busy. What happened if this book didn’t work? It just didn’t bear thinking about. He would have to change again, perhaps return to teaching full time.

At the heart of the book is a battle between two secret societies, the Priory of Sion and Opus Dei over the possibility that Jesus Christ of Nazareth had been married to Mary Magdalene and that the bloodline from their union is the Holy Grail. ‘It’s been chronicled for centuries,’ Brown explained, ‘so there are thousands of sources to draw from. In addition, I was surprised how eager historians were to share their expertise with me. One academic told me her enthusiasm for
The Da Vinci Code
was based in part on her hope that this ancient mystery would be unveiled to a wider audience.’
[119]

‘The secret I reveal is one that has been whispered for centuries,’ Brown told one interviewer. ‘It is not my own. Admittedly, this may be the first time the secret has been unveiled within the format of a popular thriller, but the information is anything but new.’

Recalling his art history classes 15 years earlier in Seville, Brown said, ‘One morning our professor began a lecture in a very strange way. He showed us a slide of Da Vinci’s famous painting
The Last Supper,
which depicts Jesus and his disciples sharing a glass of wine on their last night together. I’d seen this painting many times but somehow I’d never seen the anomalies that the professor began pointing out – a hand clutching a dagger, a disciple making a threatening gesture across the neck of another, the strange arrangement and architecture of individuals at the table and much to my surprise a rather obvious omission – the apparent absence on the table of the holy cup of Christ.’

Brown is referring to the cup that Christ used to share the wine with the disciples. For some reason Da Vinci chose not to put this into the painting and Brown was intrigued. ‘So all of us in class are scratching our heads as if we are seeing the painting for the first time and the professor said to us that these oddities that he’d just revealed to us were really the tip of the iceberg.

‘I was instantly fascinated. The further I progressed in my research the more troublesome it became to me,’ Brown added. ‘I don’t see much truth in the stories of UFOs, crop circles or the Bermuda triangle or any other conspiracy theories you might have in pop culture.’
[120]

However, a strange thing happened as Brown immersed himself in the research. His ideas on religion and spirituality began to change. ‘I began writing this book as a sceptic and I expected as I was researching it to dispute it.’ Instead, after two years of research and numerous trips to Europe, Brown became a believer. ‘It’s important to remember that this is a novel about a theory that has been out there for a long time and this theory makes more sense to me than what I was taught as a child.’
[121]

Much of the information he was researching Brown found hard to accept. The theories he was looking at didn’t match the dogma he’d been taught at school and in the church. ‘Troubled by these findings I asked a historian friend of mine, “How do historians balance contrary accounts of the same event?” This man responded in what I thought was a brilliant way.’ His friend made two big points, which most people don’t take into account. ‘When we read and interpret history we are not interpreting the events themselves but written accounts of the events. In essence we are interpreting people’s interpretations. Second, since the beginning of recorded time history has always been written by the winners.’
[122]

The mountain of research was daunting. Brown wanted to cram as much of it into the book as he could because there was so much to say. From the art history and the religious theories to the locations in Paris and London to the description of the Louvre and Da Vinci’s paintings, the amount of information was staggering. ‘Writing an informative yet compact thriller is a lot like making maple sugar candy. You have to tap hundreds of trees… boil vats and vats of raw sap… evaporate the water… and keep boiling until you’ve distilled a tiny nugget that encapsulates the essence,’ he said.
[123]

Brown found himself using the delete key a lot as he pared down the text. ‘In many ways, editing yourself is the most important part of being a novelist… carving away superfluous text until your story stands crystal clear before your reader. For every page in
The Da Vinci Code
, I wrote ten that ended up in the trash.’
[124]

Having written three novels about secret societies, Brown had built up several contacts around the world in the circles he talks about in his books. Through them he was able to gain access to areas of the Louvre that the public doesn’t see – including ones he didn’t know existed, such as the restoration labs – which, Rogak tells us, Brown describes in the book. Despite the trips, according to Lisa Rogak, Brown spent most of his research reading books by noted and respected historians and academics.

The Sacred Feminine figures prominently in
The Da Vinci Code
, and this came as a result of his research. ‘Two thousand years ago we lived in a world of gods and goddesses,’ Brown said. ‘Today we live in a world solely of gods. Women in most cultures have been stripped of their spiritual power. The novel touches on the question of how and why this shift occurred.’

It wasn’t just the research that inspired him to write about the Sacred Feminine. Brown says it was also partly because of his mother, who has a strong spiritual and religious conviction but is also open to change. It was also partly due to falling in love with Blythe as well as studying religions that were not Christianity, such as paganism and the concept of Mother Earth. ‘And some of it came from looking at the destructive force of man and saying, “What if we embraced our feminine side – the more creative, passive, loving side?” It’s a gross generalisation, but all those things added up to my celebrating the Sacred Feminine.’
[125]

For the more obscure facts Brown turned to the Ohio University research librarian Stan Planton, who had helped him on
Angels & Demons
and
Deception Point
. While Brown used his own extensive research on religion, spiritualism, art history and symbology, he used Planton and other researchers to help him with the more obscure facts on Da Vinci’s paintings and the hidden codes within them, and on the secret sects of the Priory of Sion and Opus Dei.
[126]

Brown claims that in
The Da Vinci Code
he worked very hard to ensure there was a balanced and fair view of Opus Dei. ‘While [it] is a very positive force in the lives of many people, for others affiliation with Opus Dei has been a profoundly negative experience.’ Brown states his view of the organisation comes from reading more than a dozen books on it and through his own interviews with former and current members of this secretive society.
[127]