The Dan Brown Code
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
How did it happen, this astounding success story? How did it come to pass that Dan Brown’s fourth novel, “The Da Vinci Code,” became the bestselling hardcover fiction title in the history of the United States?
After more than a year and a half on the best-seller list, this excellent thriller has about 10 million copies in print in this country. This includes the recently released “The Da Vinci Code Special Illustrated Edition” (Doubleday, 480 pages, $35), a gorgeous volume issued in time for Christmas, with a reported first printing of 550,000 copies. Full-color illustrations abound, showing the historic figures and landmarks referred to in the book, maps, and reproductions of the paintings that figure so heavily in the plot.
With more than a million additional copies in print around the world, the “Da Vinci Code” has made a very nice young man a very rich nice young man.
Why? What’s it all about? His first three books didn’t sell zip. Oh, sure, now that so many millions loved “Da Vinci,” all the previous titles have made it onto the best-seller list, but that was only on those extraordinary coattails.
Is it the extraordinary writing style of Mr. Brown? I don’t think so. He’s unlikely to be compared with F. Scott Fitzgerald anytime soon.
Is it because he brought new insight into Christianity in general, and the Catholic Church in particular? Well, how many thousands of books analyzing religion do you think have been written during the past couple of hundred years, and how many have hit best-seller lists?
Is it because of the special genius the author brings to noting and explaining the hidden secrets in the works of Leonardo Da Vinci? Come on. Aside from the iconic “Mona Lisa” (as it is popularly called) and “The Last Supper,” most people couldn’t name, or even recognize, another Da Vinci painting. More people in America know Madonna, the pop singer, than all the Madonnas painted by all the Renaissance painters combined.
Gee, do you think it might be because Dan Brown wrote a story, a piece of fiction, that is so intelligent, so wonderfully plotted, that readers couldn’t help turning pages until the very end?
If you have been living off roots and berries in an isolated cave somewhere for the past couple of years and don’t know about this national phenomenon, here’s the short version:
The curator of Paris’s Louvre is found murdered, and American symbologist Robert Langdon is called in to help decipher the curious riddles the dying man left. As he and a French cryptologist unravel bits and pieces of the puzzle, they learn that Leonardo Da Vinci left a series of important clues in his various works – clues to secrets that could have powerful and significant influence in the history of civilization. The painter and inventor was a member of a secret society, the Priory of Sion, which wanted to pass along its powerful, though dangerous, secret to future generations.
The Priory of Sion, Mr. Brown tells us on a page titled “Facts,” is a genuine organization that numbered among its members Victor Hugo, Botticelli, and Sir Isaac Newton, among others. Its secret, the struggle to learn it, and the battle with an evil mastermind who wants the secret for himself provide the structure of “The Da Vinci Code.”
Granted, some of this is hyper melodramatic, and the characters generally have the depth of spray paint, and I’ve been told by people who know a lot more about religious history than I do that not all the facts are accurate. But, hey, you know what? I don’t care. I want to remind those carpers that this is a work of fiction, and it gripped me from page one and never let go.
You think it’s all champagne and roses, being Dan Brown? As seems to happen nowadays to anyone who enjoys great success, someone else wants a bite of the apple. It happened to J.K. Rowling when various people recognized elements of their unsuccessful little books in her Harry Potter series, and now Mr. Brown has been sued by at least one writer who noticed similarities between his own work and “The Da Vinci Code.”
The litigious author, Lewis Perdue, wrote a paperback original, “The Da Vinci Legacy,” in 1983. It was recently reissued, obviously in an attempt to cash in on the success of Mr. Brown’s mega-hit.
There certainly are some similarities. The heroine in both books comes into a room with her eyes “flashing”; in one she has red hair, auburn in the other; she is a strong woman, helping the hero escape, in both books. An art expert in one book, a curator in the other, are murdered.
Mr. Brown and Doubleday have since filed their own lawsuit, demanding that Mr. Perdue declare that “The Da Vinci Code” does not infringe on Mr. Perdue’s copyright, blah, blah, blah. Through his lawyer, Mr. Perdue states that Doubleday displayed “a regrettable disregard for common decency” by ignoring “Mr. Perdue’s attempt to resolve this issue out of court. Instead, they answered his olive branch with a lawsuit.”
Now, I don’t know Mr. Perdue, but resolving an issue out of court means a payoff in the form of a settlement. And that does not resolve the issue, but leaves the door open for anyone else who has written a thriller with an art background to go after Mr. Brown again. And only a lawyer would describe a lawsuit as “an olive branch.”
I’m not a lawyer, I don’t know the fine points of plagiarism, and I haven’t done a line-by-line comparison of the books, but I know this. “The Da Vinci Code” is structured in precisely the same way as Mr. Brown’s earlier books. Some may call this formulaic. For the millions now reading and enjoying his books, I say it’s art.
Mr. Penzler is the proprietor of the Mysterious Bookshop in Manhattan and the series editor of the annual “Best American Mystery Stories.” He can be reached at openzler@nysun.com.