Billed as "An Evening With Dan Brown", the Bushnell Center hosted one of the best-selling authors of our time. John Dankosky of NPR was the host, and he asked some very poignant questions that made the evening fun and highly informative.
Dan Brown is the author of six novels, all of them now best-sellers. His best known work is The DaVinci Code, which was the book that put him on the map, so to speak. Since the publication of that book, pretty much all of his books, the ones that he wrote before and the ones that he has written subsequently, have all become best sellers. Two of his books have been converted into movies, with more on the way.
From the beginning of the evening right to the end, speakers kept urging Dan Brown to focus on Hartford at some point in time for a future novel. It became kind of the running joke of the evening, which started with a discussion on Mark Twain.
Dan Brown had never before visited the Mark Twain House, but he had the opportunity to visit it on this trip to Hartford, and he said that he was very impressed with it. later in the evening, some comparisons were made between the two authors, including how huge an impact their books had made, as well as the fact that both had wound up marrying their agents. Brown discussed how powerfully Twain's writings had resonated with him, and that visiting the house had vividly illustrated some of the tragedies that Twain had endured in his lifetime.
Then, the discussion turned to Brown and his habits, specifically about hanging upside down. Brown said that he was a bit surprised at how big that issue had become, but he did mention that it was true, he did hang upside down, but that it was good for people like him who tend to sit down a lot, as it straightens the back.
Brown joked about failing as a musician. He had moved to California and tried to embark on a music career. He even had managed to get an agent, who was fascinated with his music, and found his lyrics particularly fascinating, even though she did not understand them. He produced a music album, but he joked that it sold six copies, and four of them were sold to his mom. But that agent that was fascinated by his music ended up being his wife, who was in the audience that evening.
Of course, he was asked about his most famous character, Robert Langdon. Dan Brown gave birth to the fictional Robert Langdon because he needed a character that could have a strong grasp in both science and religion, and Langdon, being a star in symbology, was just that.
When asked about differences between the fictional Langdon and the author who created him, he mentioned that Langdon was smarter than Brown himself. When one woman challenged this notion, saying that Dan Brown had to have thought of everything that Langdon said and did, Brown responded by saying that Langdon would make brilliant deductions and insights within 24 hours, while Brown had a year and a half to think of the best way of saying things. Many of the things that the fictional Langdon knew and said quickly and almost in passing took days for Brown to write, precisely so it looked like it took minimal effort.
It was mentioned that there could be up to twelve books that will feature Robert Langdon in future Dan Brown novels.
He also talked about Deception Point, and joked that, while it seemed at the time to be a good idea, he was making a point of not going back to the arctic again. Visiting places like Venice and Florence suit him just fine now, thank you very much.
Dan Brown also spoke a bit about another earlier work, Digital Fortress, which focuses on NSA spying. He joked about how few people really bought that book - at least before he broke it big with The DaVinci Code. But, as it turns out, the whole government spying on regular people's emails and tapping into phone conversations has exploded into a huge, and divisive, issue. The idea for this novel originated while Dan Brown was teaching at Phillips Exeter Academy, when a German student who had sent an email railing against President Clinton, and suggesting that the president deserved to get shot, wound up being pulled out of class and interrogated. Nothing came of it after hours of questioning, and the government agents went away. But the episode resonated with Brown, who eventually thought that it would make a wonderful novel.
He recalled jokingly that, when he first committed to the idea, it was the middle of the night, and he kind of jumped up in bed and said that he was going to write this novel about government spying on regular citizens. His wife, rather patronizingly at the time (she was probably just tired), kind of patted him on the head, and said, "You go ahead and write that novel."
But he did, and it wound up being Digital Fortress, which Brown revealed may become a television series in the future, although it is not guaranteed.
Dan Brown also talked about religion and science, and the conflict that exists. He seemed a little reluctant to discuss such a divisive issue, and said that he was surprised by how divisive his The DaVinci Code had been, and the reactions that he received. He talked about some of the threats that he had received, and joked about how his father had told him that if 1% of his readers had such a reaction, it was not a big deal when he was selling only twenty books. But, when he was selling twenty million books, it became a rather significant problem. With this perspective, Brown mentioned that he can count his blessings.
Brown discussed how, while it may seem that there is no dialogue between science and religion, in fact, the true elite intellectuals in both fields, the ones who truly devote all of their thinking to their respective fields, do have dialogue between one another, although it is at such a high level, that most of the rest of us do not see it. He also mentioned how, with a background in both religion and in science (and math) when he was younger, there was a point where he turned away from religion, being unable to reconcile poverty and suffering in this world with the notion of an all-powerful and loving God. But that said, he also mentioned how, when asked if he would rather live in a world without science or religion, he had instinctively answered no religion. But upon considering this question a little bit more deeply, he said that he would change his answer, that religion, or at least spirituality, grounded people with strong morals, while science often times can seem cold and lacking in morals, and this might be even more dangerous than organized religion, which Brown also has some problems with. Science, he felt, often lacked morals, while organized religion often discounted facts that did not mesh with a literal interpretation of the Bible. Both are dangerous, and often too easily dismissive of one another.
Of course, as one of the best selling authors today, he spoke about the writing process. Brown mentioned that it is far too easy to get distracted. Even research can be a distraction, and he said that you instinctively have to know when research reaches that fine line where it becomes procrastination. Brown said that there is always something more fun that you can be doing than writing. If you want to be a writer, however, you have to be able to get past that and discipline yourself.
He talked a little bit about the interpretation of his books to movie format, and recalled that the secrecy surrounding it, due to fears of illegal piracy, reminded him a bit of the spirit of government secrecy regarding the NSA. He was able to watch an early version of the film, but someone from the company came to his house with a DVD copy, and his own player, which he attached to Mr. Brown's television. Brown had 24 hours to view it as many times as he wanted and, when done, that DVD copy was destroyed.
Brown also discussed the issue of overpopulation, and he estimated the world population at 8 billion, which means that it has doubled in around forty years. This, he announced, echoing Daniel Quinn and other prominent thinkers and writers in the field, is the single biggest problem that the world was facing, and that pretty much all of the other issues that seem to be the huge problems of our day, such as global warming, pollution, and the rapid depletion of the world's natural resources, all stem from this one issue of overpopulation.
When asked if he thought secret societies essentially ruled the world, Brown playfully declined to answer. But rephrased it, and eventually, essentially got Brown to admit that he did believe this, and that his experiences of having made it big allowed him to meet some elite and powerful people that reinforced his suspicions that a select few people in the world essentially make the decisions.
Of course, he also talked about the advances of modern technology, a topic that he discusses in pretty much all of his books. It was mentioned how modern technological advances have changed the publishing of books, and Dan Brown was asked if he might be interested in doing more with his novels with all of that wonderful technology. But Brown answered that books are one of the last areas where people trust their one source, the author, to do all of the work for them, and he liked that form, and wanted to continue that tradition.
Finally, he was asked what his one piece of advice would be to any aspiring writers out there, and he told the audience, and the prospective writers among us, to write about what they have a passion for. It does not even matter if you know nothing about the subject that you are really interested in writing about, since learning more about it will energize you, and that should translate to the written page, where the reading audience will likely be learning it right along with you.
Talked about conspiracy theories, and believed that people were comforted by a sense of order, and conspiracy theories, in a strange way, provided this.
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