Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code

Dan Brown (born June 22, 1964) is an American author of thriller fiction, best known for writing the controversial 2003 bestselling novel, The Da Vinci Code.

Dan Brown was born and raised in Exeter, New Hampshire, USA, the oldest of three children. His mother Constance (Connie) was a professional musician, playing organ at church. Brown's father Richard G. Brown was a prominent mathematics teacher, writing textbooks and teaching high school mathematics at Phillips Exeter Academy from 1988 until his retirement in 1997.

Phillips Exeter Academy is an exclusive boarding school, which required new teachers to live on campus for several years, so Brown and his siblings were raised at the school. The social environment at Exeter was mostly Episcopal. Brown sang in the church choir, attended Sunday school, and spent summers at church camp. His own schooling was at public schools in Exeter until the 9th grade, at which time he enrolled in Phillips Exeter (Class of 1982), as did his younger siblings Valerie (1985) and Gregory (1993).

After graduating from Phillips Exeter in 1982, Brown attended Amherst College, where he was a member of Psi Upsilon fraternity. He played squash and sang in the Amherst Glee Club, and was a writing student of novelist Alan Lelchuk.

Brown graduated from Amherst with a double major in Spanish and English in 1986, and then dabbled with a musical career, creating effects with a synthesizer, and self-producing a children's cassette entitled SynthAnimals which included a collection of tracks such as "Happy Frogs" and "Suzuki Elephants"; it sold a few hundred copies. He then formed his own (vanity) record company called Dalliance, and in 1990 self-published a CD entitled Perspective, targeted to the adult market, which also sold a few hundred copies. In 1991 he moved to Hollywood to pursue a career as singer-songwriter and pianist. To support himself, he taught classes at Beverly Hills Preparatory School.

While in Los Angeles he joined the National Academy of Songwriters, and participated in many of its events. It was there that he met Blythe Newlon, a woman 12 years his senior, who was the Academy's Director of Artist Development. Though not officially part of her job, she took on the seemingly unusual task of helping to promote Brown's projects; she wrote press releases, set up promotional events, and put him in contact with individuals who could be helpful to his career. She and Brown also developed a personal relationship, though this was not known to all of their associates until 1993, when Brown moved back to New Hampshire, and it was learned that Blythe would accompany him. They married in 1997, at Pea Porridge Pond, a location near North Conway, New Hampshire.

Along with helping his singing career, Blythe has also been a major influence on Brown's career as an author, as she assists with much of the promotion involved with his books. She co-wrote both of his early "humor" books, which were written under pseudonyms, and there is speculation that she may have helped with other books as well. In the Acknowledgement for Deception Point, Brown thanked "Blythe Brown for her tireless research and creative input."

In 1993, Brown released the self-titled CD Dan Brown, which included songs such as "976-Love" and "If You Believe in Love".

Brown and Blythe moved to his home town in New Hampshire in 1993. Brown became an English teacher at his alma mater Phillips Exeter, and gave Spanish classes to 6th, 7th, and 8th graders at Lincoln Akerman School, a small school for K–8th grade with about 250 students, in Hampton Falls.

In 1994, Brown released a CD entitled Angels & Demons. Its artwork was the same ambigram by artist John Langdon which he later used for the novel Angels & Demons. The liner notes also again credited his wife for her involvement, thanking her "for being my tireless cowriter, coproducer, second engineer, significant other, and therapist."

This CD included songs such as "Here in These Fields" and the religious ballad "All I Believe."

Also in 1994, while on holiday in Tahiti, he read Sidney Sheldon's novel The Doomsday Conspiracy, and decided that he could do better. He started work on Digital Fortress, and also co-wrote a humor book with his wife, 187 Men to Avoid: A Guide for the Romantically Frustrated Woman, under the pseudonym "Danielle Brown" (one of the 187 items in the book was "Men who write self-help books for women"). The book's author profile reads, "Danielle Brown currently lives in New England: teaching school, writing books, and avoiding men." The copyright, however, is listed as "Dan Brown". It sold a few thousand copies before going out of print.

In 1996, Brown quit teaching to become a full-time writer. Digital Fortress was published in 1998. Blythe did much of the book's promotion, writing press releases, booking Brown on talk shows, and setting up press interviews. A few months later, Brown and his wife released The Bald Book, another humor book. It was officially credited to his wife, though a representative of the publisher said that it was primarily written by Brown.

Brown's first three novels had little success, with fewer than 10,000 copies in each of their first printings; but the fourth novel, The Da Vinci Code, became a runaway bestseller, going to the top of the New York Times Best Seller list during its first week of release in 2003. It is now credited with being one of the most popular books of all time (despite being heavily disparaged critically), with 60.5 million copies sold worldwide as of 2006. Its success has helped push sales of Brown's earlier books. In 2004, all four of his novels were on the New York Times list in the same week, and in 2005, he made Time magazine's list of the 100 most influential people of the year. Forbes magazine placed Brown at #12 on their 2005 "Celebrity 100" list, and estimated his annual income at US$76.5 million. The Times estimated his income from 'Da Vinci Code' sales as $250 million.

In October 2004, Brown and his siblings donated US$2.2 million to Phillips Exeter Academy in honor of their father, to set up the "Richard G. Brown Technology Endowment", to help "provide computers and high-tech equipment for students in need."

Brown is interested in cryptography, keys, and codes, which are a recurring theme in his stories. However, critics question his use of cryptographic buzz-words and technical terms. Currently his novels have been translated into more than 40 languages.

In 2006, Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code was released as a film by Columbia Pictures, with director Ron Howard; the film starred Tom Hanks as Robert Langdon, Audrey Tautou as Sophie Neveu and Sir Ian McKellen as Leigh Teabing. It was considered one of the most anticipated films of 2006, and was used to launch the Cannes Film Festival on May 17, though it received overall poor reviews. Screenwriter Akiva Goldsman has also been commissioned to adapt Angels & Demons, although whether Ron Howard will direct the project is as yet unknown.

Brown was listed as one of the executive producers of the film The Da Vinci Code, and also created additional codes for the film. One of his songs, "Phiano", which Brown wrote and performed, was listed as part of the film's soundtrack.

Novels: Digital Fortress, 1998; Angels and Demons, 2000; Deception Point, 2001; The Da Vinci Code, 2003; The Solomon Key, in development, will possibly launch in early 2007.

The Da Vinci Code is a mystery/detective novel, published in 2003.

The novel has helped perpetuate popular interest in speculation concerning the Holy Grail legend and the role of Mary Magdalene in the history of Christianity. According to the premise of the novel, the Vatican knows it is living a lie, but continues to do so to keep itself in power.

Dan Brown's novel was a smash hit in 2003, even rivalling the sales of the highly popular Harry Potter series. It spawned a number of offspring books and drew glowing reviews from the New York Times, People Magazine and the Washington Post. It also re-ignited interest in the history of the Roman Catholic Church. As well as re-invigorating interest in the Church, The Da Vinci Code, itself pre-figured by other Grail books such as The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail by Michael Baigent and others, and Umberto Eco's Foucault's Pendulum, has also spawned numerous "knockoffs" (as they are referred to by Publishers Weekly), or novels that have a striking resemblance to The Da Vinci Code, including Raymond Khoury's The Last Templar, and The Templar Legacy by Steve Berry.

It is a worldwide bestseller with more than 60.5 million copies in print (as of May 2006) and has been translated into 44 languages. It is thought to be the eleventh best-selling book of all time. Combining the detective, thriller and conspiracy fiction genres, the book is the second book by Dan Brown to include the character Robert Langdon, the first being Brown's 2000 novel, Angels and Demons. In November 2004, Random House published a "Special Illustrated Edition", with 160 illustrations interspersed with the text.

In 2006, a film adaptation, The Da Vinci Code, was released by Columbia Pictures.

This book concerns the attempts of Robert Langdon, Professor of Religious Symbology at Harvard University, to solve the murder of renowned curator Jacques Saunière of the Louvre Museum in Paris. The title of the novel refers, among other things, to the fact that Saunière's body is found in the Denon Wing of the Louvre naked and posed like Leonardo da Vinci's famous drawing, the Vitruvian Man, with a cryptic message written beside his body and a Pentagram drawn on his stomach in his own blood. The interpretation of hidden messages inside Leonardo's famous works, (which relate to the concept of the Sacred feminine) including the Mona Lisa and The Last Supper, figure prominently in the solution to the mystery.

The main conflict in the novel revolves around the solution to two mysteries: What secret was Saunière protecting that led to his murder? Who is the mastermind behind his murder and the murder of the three other sénéchaux (keepers of the secrets of the grail)?

The novel has several concurrent storylines that follow different characters throughout different parts of the book. Eventually all the storylines and characters are brought together and resolved in its denouement. The unraveling of the mystery requires the solution to a series of brain-teasers, including anagrams and number puzzles. The solution itself is found to be intimately connected with the possible location of the Holy Grail and to a mysterious society called the Priory of Sion, as well as to the Knights Templar. The story also involves the Roman Catholic organization Opus Dei.

The novel is the second book of a trilogy by Brown in which Robert Langdon is the main character. The previous book, Angels and Demons, took place in Rome and concerned the Illuminati. Although Angels and Demons is centered on the same character it is not necessary to read the book in order to understand the plot of The Da Vinci Code. The next book is tentatively scheduled for release in 2007. Its working title is The Solomon Key, and it is understood to concern Freemasonry.

Characters in "The Da Vinci Code"

These are the principal characters that drive the plot of the story. It seems to be Dan Brown's style that many have names that are puns, anagrams or hidden clues:

· Robert Langdon · Jacques Saunière · Sophie Neveu · Bezu Fache · Silas · Bishop Manuel Aringarosa

· "The Teacher" · André Vernet · Sir Leigh Teabing · Rémy Legaludec · Lieutenant Jérôme Collet · Guardian of the Rosslyn Trust

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