In the wake of the brazen heist at the Louvre in Paris this past weekend, many are saying, “real life has once again echoed fiction.” In Dan Brown’s "The Da Vinci Code," a crime unfolds in the Louvre. We spoke with Dan Brown about the recent heist at the Louvre and the relationship to his book, "The Da Vinci Code."
Brown’s brand new novel is "The Secret of Secrets" and he will be our guest on the Book Show on November 4 at 3 p.m.
I spoke with Author Dan Brown yesterday about his famed 2003 novel and how the huge success of that novel was a great surprise.
Dan Brown: I had written three books that I thought were, you know, good. I was proud of them. I thought they were as good as Da Vinci Code, and they sold no copies. Zero. Well, not zero, but in publishing terms: zero. I think my mom bought a couple. And so I remember with Da Vinci Code, sitting down when I was finished and reading it. I haven't done that with any one of my books. When I was done, I sat down and I read it, and I thought, You know what? When you're a creative person, all you have to guide yourself is your taste. You write the book that you want to read, and then you hope people share your taste. That really is the only honest way to do things. You can't chase somebody else's style. You say, this is the book I'd want to read, and I hope people share my taste. And I read DaVinci Code, and I thought, this is the book that I would want to read, and if nobody buys this, then I should not be a writer, because nobody shares my taste. And fortunately, it seemed to some people did share my taste. And the funny thing is, they went back to my first three novels, which I hadn't changed a word on, and they all went to number one, and people loved them. And I've had people say I like "Deception Point better than "Da Vinci Code" or whatever it is, you know. So I guess it's, it's a nice message for any, any of your listeners who are writers, you know, you may have written a number one bestseller and you just don't know it. It may just be, you know, sitting in a drawer or just has not been published to its full potential.
Joe Donahue: Obviously, anyone who's read the book knows that The Louvre is central to the novel "The Da Vinci Code." What do you make of the break in? And it has to, I mean, I would think it would be of special interest to you, given that you had dedicated so much time to this place.
Dan Brown: Yeah. I mean, it was, it was painful to read about. I hate to see things like that. Because one of the most important roles of museums is to make these artifacts of beauty and historical significance visible to anyone. And what's going to happen is these spectacular jewels are no longer visible to anyone. They're visible to whoever ends up buying them and putting them away as a personal trophy. And you know, that always makes me sad. And in fact, in this novel, there's a, there's a mention by Langdon about he sees a very nice piece of art that's in a private collection, saying that's just, it just bothers him when important pieces of work are taken and put in private collections, such that somebody can, you know, say to their friends, hey, look, this is a, this is a Picasso over my over my mantelpiece. And isn't it great that you get to enjoy it? So I would just it was painful to read about. And I feel feel badly for, you know, I feel badly for The Louvre, feel badly for the security people there, who I'm sure work incredibly hard to protect that stuff, and now, you know, feel like they failed.
Joe Donahue: I asked you the question because I've heard not less than 10 times in the last 72 hours that this is like, it's out of a Dan Brown novel.
Dan Brown: I disagree. I hope that if it were in one of my novels, it would be an incredibly intricately planned, ingeniously disguised attack, and nobody would know that they'd been there, and the jewels would be used for some beautiful cause in humanity, and fakes would be put there, and nobody would ever know. This was sort of an ugly smash and grab — that I'm sure required some planning and a whole lot of guts, but not a particularly interesting robbery. As far as I'm concerned.
