CTV Television, Inc., Canada
SHOW: CANADA AM 7:37:10 ET
May 16, 2013 Thursday
“Da Vinci Codes” author releases newest novel
ANCHORS: BEVERLY THOMSON
GUESTS: DAN BROWN, AUTHOR, “INFERNO”
THOMSON: Two hundred million novels sold worldwide, best-selling books
that end up as blockbuster films. And now author Dan Brown is back
with his latest highly anticipated offering to ravenous bookworms It’s
called “Inferno”. And in it, protagonist Robert Langdon heads to Italy
to tackle Dante’s epic work, “The Divine Comedy”.
I sat down with Dan Brown in New York the day that “Inferno” hit the
book stands.
[Taped segment begins]
THOMSON: Dan Brown, great to be able to catch up with you today.
Congratulations.
BROWN: Thank you.
THOMSON: It’s on sale, on the shelves, Robert Langdon is back.
BROWN: [inaudible] …
THOMSON: Tell me how this is for you. Is it a relief when you finally
get it done and it’s out there and people are going to scoop it up? Or
are you still waiting to find out how it gets digested?
BROWN: No, no, I mean, it’s always a relief. There’s a few moments of
relief. One is when you write the end. And there’s the other one when
it finally is out into the world.
And I know that it suits my taste, I’m excited about the book, and so
I have a pretty good idea that my readers will like it, too.
THOMSON: Well, so, Robert Langdon. It starts with a bang, even a rush
— well, figuratively and literally — and off he goes on the run
again. He is with a lovely woman, Sienna, that we learn. But there
seems to be more twists and turns in this than the previous books.
BROWN: You’re right, there are a lot of twists and turns. I play a lot
with time and a whole lot of different elements, of location and
gender and all sorts of things. So, I had a lot of fun trying to
conceal all the twists and turns.
THOMSON: Well, and the amount of knowledge that you have to have and
the research that you’ve obviously done, all of the artifacts, I mean,
through your other books as well, but through Florence and through, I
mean, Dante. You’re tackling Dante. Who does that? Like, that must’ve
been quite daunting for you.
BROWN: There were moments in the middle of writing this book that I
was asking myself the same question: Who does this? What sort of
maniac would attempt this?
It’s funny, I have written a lot about the fine arts but never about
the literary arts. And so, I was excited to try Dante as something
new. At the same time, it’s also very fertile ground for Langdon.
It’s, you know, “The Divine Comedy”, like the Mona Lisa, is a timeless
classic. It’s one of the best examples of human achievement in its
field. So, it felt like a good match.
THOMSON: How much time did you spend in Florence?
BROWN: Three separate trips to Florence to research the book and
fact-check and be inspired.
The first trip really was just to — I knew that if I’m writing about
Dante obviously I’m going to set the book in Florence. But just to go
and see all the locations again and just say, you know, I never knew
that, I’m going to put that in the book. Or just sort of collecting
the building blocks that would later become the novel.
THOMSON: When I picture you kind of wandering through Florence and
looking at these places, and I wonder, you know, with Robert Langdon,
he’s complicated, he’s fascinated by art and symbols and things. And
you are as well. You would have to be to write about it. How much of
Robert Langdon is in you? Or how much of you is in Robert? I’m not
sure.
BROWN: Robert Langdon is a significantly more intelligent and
interesting person than I am. Obviously, I need to write everything
that comes out of his mouth, but oftentimes the things that he just
throws off the cuff are things it took me a day and a half to research
and write.
But we like the same things. We are similar in that way.
THOMSON: And to study all the different symbols and the codes. When
you get that detailed, and you do in the book of course, some of it, I
mean, you ruffled feathers with “Da Vinci Code”, with, you know,
Catholics and people thinking that, you know, you took some liberties
they didn’t want you to take. Are you worried that anybody would look
at your interpretation of some of this art and the symbols and at this
time?
BROWN: You know, I didn’t anticipate people being upset by “The Da
Vinci Code”, so I’m probably not the person to ask.
THOMSON: [laughs]
BROWN: I hope nobody is upset about this. My hope for this novel is
that people read it, become excited to either discover or rediscover
“The Divine Comedy”, Dante’s writing, all of the incredible art that
Dante inspired over the last 700 years. There is sort of a
controversial topic in it. And I argue both sides of the equation, as
I always do, and leave it to the reader to sort of figure out which
way they fall.
THOMSON: This is “Inferno”. There are three, and I just want to make
sure. So, it’s Purgatorio?
BROWN: Inferno, Purgatorio and Paradiso.
THOMSON: And Paradiso. Does that mean there will be two more books? Or
have you even —
BROWN: That is not something I’m talking about. It’s an interesting idea.
THOMSON: When you describe some of the paintings, if people haven’t
seen them, and the artworks, it is very visual. I mean, you can
picture these rings that you refer to. And the descent into hell and
what people have to go through in order to get to paradise.
Was that one of the things that you wanted to do? Bring that to life
for people that haven’t studied it?
BROWN: Of course. Of course. I mean, my greatest hope for this is that
people are going to rediscover Dante, rediscover the art, become
excited about the things that excite me. That really is all I’m doing
in these books. I’m trying to — I pick topics that I find thrilling
and educational and intellectually challenging. And I try the wrap
them all into a thriller that people can enjoy and maybe take
something away from.
One of the greatest compliments a reader ever paid me was, you know,
saying, you know, “Reading your books is like getting my vegetables,
but it tastes like dessert.” I thought, what a great way to put it. I
really like that.
THOMSON: Yeah. So, May 14, 2013.
BROWN: Yes.
THOMSON: Done by design? Because backwards it’s the numerals for pi?
BROWN: It is a shocking thing, that the pub date backwards is — who knows?
THOMSON: But it’s just another code, if you will. It’s another way of
— but you designed it that way?
BROWN: Things like that I suppose could happen randomly. But. [laughs]
THOMSON: When you’ve had the kind of success that you have enjoyed,
and when you think about it, the best-selling hardcover adult book of
all time, being “Da Vinci Code”, and it goes right up there. And I had
to laugh because when we were looking at it, there’s the Bible,
there’s “Harry Potter”, there’s “Da Vinci Code”, I mean, exalted
company.
BROWN: Pretty exalted company. I feel very, very fortunate. I worked
hard on the book, but there’s also just a lot of good fortune that
went into having it catch on. And it just spoke to a lot of people.
THOMSON: And then people will inevitably think about a movie down the road.
BROWN: Sure.
THOMSON: Potentially, for this book. And would it be Tom Hanks again?
How much involvement would you have in that?
BROWN: In a movie?
THOMSON: Yeah.
BROWN: Well, I’m very involved in that I have a great relationship
with Sony Pictures and with Imagine Entertainment and Ron Howard and
Tom Hanks and all the smart people that are putting this together. I’m
also not the kind of guy who’s going to tell Ron Howard how to make a
movie. I don’t know anything about making movies. But it’s a wonderful
process to watch. And they come to me from time to time and need bits
of information. And I’m always happy to give it.
THOMSON: Tell me about your house, because you apparently have some
secret passages to it as well.
BROWN: Yeah, my wife and I refurbished or expanded on an old stone
hunting lodge that was built in the late 1800s and that already had a
few interesting characteristics. And we added a few more.
There are secret passageways throughout. There are bookcases that
rotate, there are paintings that rotate, that you step through. In
“The Lost Symbol” the villain enters his lair walking through a
painting. That’s something that that idea came right out of our house.
It’s the way I get to work in the morning.
THOMSON: How have you changed since pre-“Da Vinci”?
BROWN: You know, I hope I haven’t. I don’t know, the writing process
certainly hasn’t changed at all. I still get up and face a blank
computer screen, and my characters don’t care how many books I’ve
sold, they still need a lot of attention. They’re still ornery and go
off and do things they shouldn’t do and you have to rein them in.
The research process is now sort of a double-edged sword in that I
have access to all sorts of people and places I didn’t have access to
before. But I’m trying to keep what I’m writing secret. And so, I’ve
got to go to these places either in a baseball cap and glasses, or if
I’m actually getting a tour from a curator I’ll have to ask, you know,
half the questions I ask have nothing to do with what I’m interested
in. I try to keep people off the trail. I’ll spend all day seeing all
sorts of things that have nothing to do with a book, just in an effort
to keep people off the trail.
THOMSON: And so, what would be the most common thing when people
realize that, “Oh my gosh, that’s Dan Brown over there!”? What do they
say to you?
BROWN: All sorts of things. But usually the only people who come
running up to you are the people who have read your work and like it.
They’re excited, they want to know what you’re working on, what you’re
doing there. Are you there to research something?
I had this great experience at the Palazzo Vecchio where the curator
was giving me a tour of a secret passageway. I pushed my way out
through, we came to a dead end. They said just push the wall, I pushed
the wall, we stepped into the map room in the Palazzo Vecchio. We had
stepped through the map of Armenia, which rotates. And you can step
out through it. And there were all these people in the map room
looking at the map of Armenia, and I stepped out of the wall. And
these people were just shocked. “I’m in the Palazzo Vecchio and Dan
Brown just stepped out of the wall!” [laughter] It was a very funny
moment.
And I think at that point at least the people in that room had a
pretty good idea I was writing about Florence.
THOMSON: You know, even in speaking with you today, I mean, you are so
passionate about not just the writing process and spreading that to
other people, but about art.
BROWN: I am.
THOMSON: Codes.
BROWN: Yes, all of it.
THOMSON: And numbers. And I just wonder, you know, obviously there’s
lots more in your research ahead and many more books and whatnot. But
how in the world would you ever narrow it down? Like, there’s just
this big world that each of these books opens up.
BROWN: Well, do you make maple sugar up in Canada?
THOMSON: We do.
BROWN: Well, you know that you tap a whole lot of trees, you dump
enormous amounts of sap into an enormous tub, and you start boiling.
And when you’re done, you’re left with something that’s just a tiny
little fraction of what you started with. It’s compressed. And all of
the not so sweet parts have sort of drifted away. And that’s kind of
the process.
THOMSON: Dan Brown, it’s a great pleasure to be able to grab a few
minutes of your time to talk about “Inferno”. Congratulations.
BROWN: Thank you. The pleasure’s mine.
[Taped segment ends]