ETERNAL OPTIMIST Origin Dan Brown Doubleday
Bestselling author Dan Brown talks religion, science and his new novel, which happens to be about God
Dan Brown is once again taking on the big questions.
“Will God survive science?” asks the author of the blockbuster The Da Vinci Code and other philosophical-religious thrillers during a recent interview. “All the gods of our past have fallen. So the question now is: Are we naive to think the gods of today won’t suffer the same fate?”
His new novel is Origin, already a chart-topper on Amazon.com, and for Brown fans a familiar blend of travelogue, history, conspiracies and whodunit, with asides on everything from the poetry of William Blake to the rise and fall of fascism in Spain. Brown protagonist Robert Langdon, a Harvard “symbologist,” is in Spain and back in danger. A former student, Edmond Kirsch, has been assassinated just as he’s ready to unveil a scientific-technological breakthrough that he promises will bring about the downfall of Western religion and revolutionize how people think of life and death.
Langdon, with the help of a prince’s wayward lover and a voice of artificial intelligence named Winston, attempts to find out what Kirsch had planned.
The Da Vinci Code outraged many church officials and scholars with such suggestions as Jesus and Mary married and had children. Brown acknowledged the controversy led him to avoid larger religious questions in his followup novel, The Lost Symbol, but his skepticism remains. Born in New Hampshire and a longtime resident there, he remembered visiting Boston’s Museum of Science as a boy and being confused by the theory of evolution and how it contradicted the story of Adam and Eve. Back home, Brown asked a priest about the differences.
“This guy said, ‘Nice boys don’t ask that question.’ I did what every little boy does, I started asking the questions,” he says. “I gravitated toward science. Faith became difficult for me.”
Brown, 53, has the time and money to research his settings firsthand and spent extensive time in Spain over the past few years.
The country appeals to him, he said, because of its blend of old and new, of supercomputers and deep roots in Western religion.
Digital devices have changed the world for today’s children, he says.
“The miracles for kids today — they have nothing to do with Noah’s Ark. They have to do with an operating system. When I was a kid, the miracles of my life were the resurrection, a candlelight service on New Year’s Eve, the virgin birth and the three wise men.
“Things have changed a lot and it takes numerous amounts of magic to impress on a child that something is special — because they have something special every day of their lives.”
As to what his friends in the clergy — and he does have some — think of his books, Brown says they “would fall into three categories: Those who essentially say, ‘We’re going to have to agree to disagree.’ Those who would say, ‘Hey, this is actually a really interesting dialogue. It’s making me think about religion in a new and exciting way. Thank you.’ And those who essentially say, ‘We can’t be friends anymore.’
“You know what — those are outliers. The primary reaction I get, from atheists to the deeply devout, is that the dialogue is critical.”
After writing about Christianity, why has Brown never written about Eastern religions?
“I spent some time in India and thought I might write about Hinduism,” he says. “But it’s so far removed from my experience, I couldn’t even get my mind around it to write about it.
“Christianity, Judaism and Islam share a gospel, and it’s the one I grew up with . ... Hinduism is not monotheistic. That’s my tradition. And this is a religion of many gods. I can’t decide whether it feels more advanced or less advanced. It’s just so different.”
Brown says he may yet write a book that doesn’t include Langdon. “I think Langdon wouldn’t mind a vacation,” he says. “He’s had a tough few years.
“He’s the man I wish I could be, clearly. He has a knack for falling into fascinating situations. He’s far more daring than I am. I probably would run away from most of those adventures.”
Yet throughout it all, Brown remains an optimist.
“We have plenty of technologies we could use to destroy the planet and we don’t,” he says.
“There’s more love on this planet than hate, there’s more creativity than destructive power. I know it’s a strange day to be saying that, but there is more love than hate by exponential factors and we’ll find a way to express that.”