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| Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon and Audrey Tautou as Sophie Neveu in The Da Vinci Code |
“I used to think that Dan Brown was merely bad. Now, after reading the latest version of the apocalyptic thriller he rewrites every few years, I suspect he might be mad as well.” — Peter Conrad, reviewing Inferno for The Observer
“The early sections of Inferno come so close to self-parody that Mr. Brown seems to have lost his bearings.” — The New York Times
“As a stylist, Brown gets better and better: where once he was abysmal he is now just very poor.” — The Daily Telegraph
These are just a few lines from reviews in the past week of Dan Brown’s sixth novel, Inferno, which released worldwide on May 14. What is it about Dan Brown that brings out the fangs in critics? Or should we ask, despite the scathing attacks, how has Dan Brown sold 190 million copies? Having raged through Inferno, Brown’s fourth novel featuring symbologist Robert Langdon, t2 is all fired up to crack “The Dan Brown Code”.
THE PLOT
The Da Vinci Code:Though he was already three thrillers old, Brown really burst into the big league with The Da Vinci Code, in 2005. In terms of thrills, it just doesn’t get bigger than putting a question mark on 2,000 years of Christian history! When Brown asserted that Leonardo da Vinci was a Grand Master of the Priory of Sion — a secret cult of Jesus Christ’s “real” followers — and that he had hidden clues in his art pointing to an explosive secret that would destroy the Church, the world went crazy poring over The Last Supper, Mona Lisa, Virgin of the Rocks and The Vitruvian Man.
Readers cared a hoot that historians were crying themselves hoarse over factual inaccuracies and fanciful deductions — there’s nothing more addictive than a nice, juicy conspiracy theory. That the Church denounced the book and some governments even banned it just helped ratchet up sales.
Angels and Demons: After The Da Vinci Code blew our minds, we went scurrying for the first Robert Langdon adventure, written in 2000. Here too, the focus is the Church, in fact, it’s all about the Vatican. Brown resurrects a little-known cult called the Illuminati and engineers a papal election, only to kill off the four top cardinals, each with one element of the Illuminati Diamond — earth, air, fire and water. Someone is trying to take over the Vatican and that someone has got hold of what Brown calls the most devastating element — antimatter, created at CERN. It’s a heady mix of science and religion.
Never mind that the novel ends with Langdon parachuting to safety clutching a helicopter windshield, the breakneck speed, a poisoned Pope, secret passageways in beautiful Rome and trips to the Vatican library to seek parchments written by Galileo ensured that this too was a rollicking read.
The Lost Symbol: In 2009, Brown finally left the Church alone and set up shop in America. The object of his interest this time was a widely known “secret” society — the Freemasons. Langdon is called to the US Capitol by his friend Peter Solomon, a highly placed Mason, but all he finds is his friend’s severed hand with a clue on it. A madman has kidnapped Solomon and Langdon must find the “Masonic pyramid” to save his friend. Even as Langdon dashes across Washington DC, the Solomon family saga adds meat to the mystery. This is possibly Brown’s weakest plot with an anticlimax of an ending, but the sales tell a different story — there are over 30 million copies of the book worldwide!
Inferno: Brown returns to Europe in Inferno, this time to the heart of Florence, following a 14th century poem on the nine circles of hell by Dante. But let’s just admit it, Dante is no Da Vinci and Florence is no Paris! What powers Brown’s latest thriller is its contemporary theme — a genetic expert is convinced that action must be taken NOW to combat global overpopulation. When his pleas for action fail to move the director of WHO, this crazed genius decides to take steps himself for a mass culling.
VISUALS & WORDPLAY
More than the plot, it’s the codes, anagrams, ambigrams, iambic pentameters, pagan symbols, clues in famous artworks and buildings, puzzles in cryptexes and riddles in poems that Brown peppers his books with that are his biggest hooks.
Come on, that thing about Sir Issac Newton and his apple in The Da Vinci Code was just genius! And how many times have you turned your copy of Angels and Demons upside down to peer into the ambigrams or rotated Inferno in circles to read the text behind Dante’s death mask? Half the fun of a Dan Brown mystery are these visual clues that tease the eye and tickle the brain.
ROBERT LANGDON
An expert on religious iconology and symbology, he teaches at Harvard University. Though six feet tall, good-looking and super-sharp, it’s a relief to the reader that Robert Langdon is no James Bond.
Described as “Harrison Ford in Harris tweeds”, this prof is more concerned about his collector’s edition Mickey Mouse wristwatch that his mother gave him than the pretty women he shares his adventures with. He fell into a well at age seven and didn’t turn into Batman; the only fallout was a lifelong fear of enclosed spaces.
We love that he swims 50 laps in the Harvard pool every day, we LOVE that he is played by Tom Hanks.
THE WOMEN
There’s a new woman in every Robert Langdon novel but this nutty professor doesn’t do a thing! In Angels and Demons, Vittoria Vetra has to literally straddle him on the bed to get any action out of him, in The Da Vinci Code it’s Sophie Neveu who kisses him on the lips, in The Lost Symbol, Katherine Solomon lies down beside him in the dark rotunda but all he does is gaze at Brumidi’s fresco, prattle on about the power of the mind and then doze off!
In Inferno, he doesn’t even get that bit with Sienna Brooks. But watch out for this blonde ponytailed doctor, she’s unlike any other Langdon lady. When the film is cast, we suggest Monster maiden Charlize Theron.
Brown always keeps alive just a hint of a spark between the prof and the women, but Langdon’s love life seems to be a lost cause. Just as well, because each adventure usually spans just one day and there’s no time for canoodling when you have codes to crack.
FAMOUS FACES
You may have never heard of the secret societies, but Brown’s books are always teeming with famous people. Readers feel giddy with delight to learn how not just Da Vinci but Victor Hugo, Issac Newton and even Walt Disney were members of the Priory! Or that Ariel the Mermaid’s red hair is actually a symbolism harking back to Jesus’s “wife” Mary Magdalene. Then there were 14 American presidents, including George Washington and Teddy Roosevelt who were Freemasons, says The Lost Symbol. Talk about a casting coup!
THE WORLD TOUR
When the Papal Congress used the unique smoke signal during the election of Pope Benedict XVI earlier this year, it was nothing new for Dan Brown fans. We had been there, seen that — in Angels and Demons!
While critics routinely slam Brown for “writing like a tour guide”, there’s no denying the exciting places he takes us to. How else would we have known that Newton’s grave lies at Westminster Abbey? Or that “yours sincerely” in our letters is really a promise from Michelangelo’s times that we haven’t cheated in the content?
Dan Brown’s novels are not literary — far from it, in fact. He’s quite capable of writing “The tall professor walked to the world-famous museum using the long legs attached to his torso…” we admit. But it’s what the “tall professor” will find after walking to the “world-famous museum” on his “long legs” that make us hold our breath — every time. How many “writers” or “critics” can claim to do that?!
