閱讀丹·布朗 Dan Brown在小说之家的作品!!! | |||||||
丹·布朗早年生活
丹.布朗出生於縮小美國新罕布夏州的艾斯特鎮（Exeter），是傢中老大，母親是一名職業音樂傢，在教堂演奏管風琴。丹.布朗的父親查理布朗（Richard G. Brown）是一名數學老師，撰寫過教課書，退休前是菲利普艾斯特學院（Phillips Exeter Academy）教授高中數學。
菲利普艾斯特學院是間不嚴格的寄宿學校，新老師任教前幾年必須住校，所以丹.布朗和他的兄弟姊妹都是在學校裏頭長大的。艾斯特鎮的社會環境大多是教徒，丹.布朗從小參與教堂合唱團跟主日學校，暑假則在教會營會渡過。他在艾斯特鎮上中小學，讀到9年級之後，轉入菲利普艾斯特學院。
創作歌手
1982年從菲利普艾斯特學院畢業之後，丹.布朗進入艾摩斯特大學（Amherst College），成為古老的塞尤斯倫兄弟會（Psi Upsilon）的一員，他打壁球，參加艾摩斯特合唱團，嚮小說傢艾倫-陸契剋（Alan Lelchuk）學寫作。
丹.布朗1986年拿到西班牙語和英文雙學位之後，涉足音樂界，創作合成音效，自製一捲叫《動物合音》（SynthAnimals）的兒童卡帶，賣了上百捲。他那時自己開了一傢名叫「鬼混」（Dalliance）的錄音公司，在1990年針對成人市場自資發行一張叫《Perspective》的音樂CD，也賣了上百張。1991年，搬到好萊塢追求創作歌手和鋼琴傢的人生大夢。
丹.布朗在洛杉磯進入國傢作麯學院（National Academy of Songwriters），參與不少活動。也是在這時候，他遇到大他12歲的布萊絲-紐頓（Blythe Newlon），學院的藝術創作係（Artist Development）主任。她不尋常地接下丹.布朗栽培計劃，寫新聞稿，舉動活動，並將他介紹給有力人士，1993年，丹.布朗出了一張同名專輯。她和丹.布朗感情上也進展神速，雖然直到1993年為止，朋友都還不知道他們在交往，不過當丹.布朗回到新罕布夏州，而布萊絲夫唱婦隨時，大傢就明白了。他們在1997年結成夫妻。
幫助丹.布朗的歌唱事業外，布萊絲最大的影響莫過於寫作，她對丹.布朗的作品助益良多。他們曾用筆名合寫過幽默小品，推測她應該也在其它作品裏占有重要的角色。在《大》的銘謝頁上，丹.布朗感謝「布萊絲-布朗，感謝她不辭辛勞為我研究背景、提作寫作靈感」。
新英格蘭老師
丹.布朗和布萊絲在1993年搬回家乡新罕布夏州，到他的母校菲利普艾斯特學院擔任英文老師，並在林肯阿剋曼小學（Lincoln Akerman School，一所衹有8個年級250名學生的小學校）教高年級學生西班牙文。
1994年，丹.布朗發行一張名為《天使與魔鬼》（Angels & Demons）的音樂CD，美術設計就是後來為同名小說設計雙嚮圖（Ambigram）的約翰-蘭登（John Langdon）。唱片封面上，同樣也有緻妻子的感謝辭，「送給我孜孜不倦的合力撰稿者、合作製片人、副技師、其他重要的人，還有心理治療師。」
也是同一年，他到大溪地渡假時，讀完席尼-薛爾頓（Sidney Sheldon）的《末日追殺》（The Doomsday Conspiracy），他認為自己可以寫得比他好。於是他開始起草撰寫《數字城堡》，一邊跟妻子用筆名丹妮兒-布朗（Danielle Brown）合寫幽默小品《187種該躲開的男人：給情場失意女的指南》（187 Men to Avoid: A Guide for the Romantically Frustrated Woman），作者介紹寫着，「丹妮兒-布朗現住新英格蘭，教書寫書躲男人。」着作權頁還是列着丹.布朗的名字，這本書付印前就預售了上千本。
作傢生涯
1996年，丹.布朗辭去教職全心投入寫作。1998年出版《數字城堡》，布萊絲為這部小說作足了行銷，她撰寫新聞稿、為丹.布朗敲定談話節目以及記者訪談。幾個月後，丹.布朗和妻子又發表了另一本幽默小品《The Bald Book》，這部小品的作者正式屬名為布萊絲，不過出版商說主要的撰寫人還是丹.布朗。
丹.布朗的前三部小說成績平平，每部小說的初版大約衹有萬本，但是到了第四部小說《達芬奇密碼》，一躍而成暢銷作傢中的黑馬，這部小說2003年一出版隨即登上紐約時報暢銷書排行榜（New York Times Best Seller list）第一名，現在已是有史以來最暢銷的小說之一（儘管也受到了嚴苛的批評）。到2006年全球銷暢量已纍積達6050萬本，丹.布朗前幾部小說也跟着大賣。他的四部小說2004年同時進入紐約時報暢銷書排行榜。2005年，他被《時代》雜志列入年度百大最有影響力的人，《富比士》雜志將丹.布朗評選為2005年百大名流第12名，估計他年收入達7600萬美元，《時代》雜志估計他光是《達芬奇密碼》就有2500萬美元的進帳。
在2004年10 月，丹.布朗和傢人捐款220萬美元給菲利普艾斯特學院，祝賀父親獲得總統榮譽奬，設立「查理-布朗科技基金」，用於「提供電腦和高科技設備給貧睏的學生」。丹.布朗對密碼學、密鑰和密碼興趣濃厚，一直都是他故事裏的主題，評論傢常對書裏的密碼學行話和科技用語進行探究，他的小說已經被翻譯超過40種語言。
2006年，哥倫比亞電影公司（Columbia Pictures）推出由丹.布朗同名小說改編的電影《達芬奇密碼》，朗-霍華擔任導演，湯姆-漢剋斯飾演主角羅柏-蘭登，奧黛莉-朵杜飾演蘇菲-納佛，伊恩-麥剋連爵士飾演李伊-提賓。這部電影被認為是2006年最令人期待的影片，5月17日在坎城影展首映，評語卻是一片唱衰。
丹.布朗列名為電影《達芬奇密碼》的執行製片，為電影設計了不同的密碼。丹.布朗自編自奏的歌麯《Phiano》也收錄在電影原聲帶裏面。
主要小說作品
1998年 Digital Fortress 數字城堡
2000年 Angels and Demons 天使與魔鬼
2001年 Deception Point
2003年 The Da Vinci Code 達芬奇密碼
其它軼事
* 丹.布朗會在閣樓他的寫作間玩網球，他凌晨4點就起床工作，書桌上擺放着一隻古董沙漏，用來提醒他要適時休息。
* 丹.布朗告訴書迷，他使用倒吊鞋（Gravity Boots）倒立來剋服創作瓶頸。他說，「頭下腳上倒挂起來，使我整個想法都煥然一新，有助於解决劇情上的挑戰。」
* 丹.布朗小說中的人名多是取自身邊的真實人物。羅柏-蘭登來自創造《天使與魔鬼》雙嚮圖的約翰-蘭登。總司庫卡羅-凡特雷思卡的名字來自漫畫傢朋友卡拉-凡特雷思卡。羅柏-蘭登的編輯瓊納斯-佛剋曼，就是以丹.布朗真實生活的編輯傑森-佛剋曼命名的。李伊-提賓爵士取自《聖血與聖杯》（Holy Blood, Holy Grail，《達芬奇密碼》的主要取材對象）的兩位作者之名。
* 丹.布朗在2006年3月的審訊聲明（當時《聖血與聖杯》作者控告丹.布朗抄襲，後判駁回）裏說，在他小時候，父親會在生日和聖誕節時，用提示和密碼設計尋寶遊戲，讓他們兄弟姊妹循線找到禮物。同樣的事件他也將之寫入角色的童年。
* 不少人評論丹.布朗的小說裏（尤其是《達芬奇密碼》）隱含有反的思想。丹.布朗以徒自居，他表示造成討論風氣反而是好的，最後反而能證明真理的不可動搖。
* 丹.布朗的暢銷書《達芬奇密碼》是他首部登上大銀幕的作品，不過卻是主角羅柏-蘭登係列的第二個故事，他第一次登場的《天使與魔鬼》電影版也正在籌拍中。
* 小說中蘭登跟丹.布朗一樣，母校都是菲利普艾斯特學院。
* 在2005年的電影《黑道比酷》（Be Cool）裏有一幕史密斯飛船演唱會的場景，根據資料顯示，丹.布朗夫婦就坐在前排。
* 電影《達芬奇密碼》裏，丹.布朗夫婦的身影曾出現在前段一個書店場景裏面。
Brown's novels that feature the lead character Robert Langdon also include historical themes and Christianity as recurring motifs, and as a result, have generated controversy. Brown states on his website that his books are not anti-Christian, though he is on a 'constant spiritual journey' himself, and says of his book The Da Vinci Code that it is simply "an entertaining story that promotes spiritual discussion and debate" and suggests that the book may be used "as a positive catalyst for introspection and exploration of our faith".
Early life and education
Dan Brown was born and raised in Exeter, New Hampshire, USA, the eldest of three children. Brown grew up on the campus of Phillips Exeter Academy, where his father, Richard G. Brown, was a teacher of mathematics, and wrote textbooks from 1968 until his retirement in 1997. Both of Brown's parents are also singer/musicians and served as church choir masters, with his mother serving as church organist. Brown was raised as an Episcopalian.
Brown's interest in secrets and puzzles stems from their presence in his household as a child, where codes and ciphers were the lynchpin tying together the mathematics, music and languages in which his parents worked. The young Brown spent hours working out anagrams and crossword puzzles, and he and his siblings participated in elaborate treasure hunts devised by their father on birthdays and holidays. On Christmas, for example, Brown and his siblings would not find gifts under the tree, but would follow a treasure map with codes and clues throughout their house and even around town in order to find their hiding place.[dead link] Brown's relationship with his father inspired that of Sophie Neveu and Jacques Sauniere in The Da Vinci Code, and Chapter 23 of that novel was inspired by one of his childhood treasure hunts.
After graduating from Phillips Exeter, Brown attended Amherst College, where he was a member of Psi Upsilon fraternity. He played squash, sang in the Amherst Glee Club, and was a writing student of visiting novelist Alan Lelchuk. Brown spent the 1985 school year abroad in Seville, Spain, where he was enrolled in an art history course at the University of Seville. Brown graduated from Amherst in 1986.
Songwriter and pop singer
After graduating from Amherst, Brown 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 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.
He also 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 Conway, New Hampshire.
In 1993, Brown released the self-titled CD Dan Brown, which included songs such as "976-Love" and "If You Believe in Love".
In 1994, Brown released a CD titled 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." The CD included songs such as "Here in These Fields" and the religious ballad "All I Believe."
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.
Writing career
While on holiday in Tahiti in 1993, Brown read Sidney Sheldon's novel The Doomsday Conspiracy, and was inspired to become a writer of thrillers. He started work on Digital Fortress, setting much of it in Seville, Spain, where he had studied in 1985. He 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". The book's author profile reads, "Danielle Brown currently lives in New England: teaching school, writing books, and avoiding men." The copyright is attributed to Dan Brown.
In 1996, Brown quit teaching to become a full-time writer. Digital Fortress was published in 1998. His wife, 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 subsequently wrote Deception Point and Angels & Demons, the latter of which was the first to feature the lead character, Harvard symbology expert Robert Langdon.
Brown's first three novels had little success, with fewer than 10,000 copies in each of their first printings. His fourth novel, The Da Vinci Code, became a 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, with 81 million copies sold worldwide as of 2009. 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.
Brown's third novel featuring Robert Langdon, The Lost Symbol, was released on September 15, 2009. According to the publisher, on its first day the book sold over one million in hardcover and e-book versions in the U.S., the U.K. and Canada, prompting the printing of 600,000 hardcover copies in addition to the five million first printing. The book takes place in Washington D.C. over a period of 12 hours, and features the Freemasons. Brown's promotional website states that puzzles hidden in the book jacket of The Da Vinci Code, including two references to the Kryptos sculpture at CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, give hints about the sequel. This repeats a theme from some of Brown's earlier work. For example, a puzzle at the end of the book Deception Point decrypts to the message, "The Da Vinci Code will surface."
Brown has stated that he has ideas for about 12 future books featuring Robert Langdon.
Characters in Brown's books are often named after real people in his life. Robert Langdon is named after John Langdon, the artist who created the ambigrams used for the Angels & Demons CD and novel. Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca is named after "On A Claire Day" cartoonist friend Carla Ventresca. In the Vatican Archives, Langdon recalls a wedding of two people named Dick and Connie, which are the names of his parents. Robert Langdon's editor Jonas Faukman, is named after Brown's real life editor Jason Kaufman. Brown also said that characters were based on a New Hampshire librarian, and a French teacher at Exeter, Andre Vernet. Cardinal Aldo Baggia, in Angels and Demons, is named after Aldo Baggia, instructor of modern languages at Phillips Exeter Academy.
In interviews, Brown has said that his wife is an art historian and painter. When they met, she was the Director of Artistic Development at the National Academy for Songwriters in Los Angeles. During the 2006 lawsuit over alleged copyright infringement in The Da Vinci Code, information was introduced at trial which showed that Blythe did research for the book. In one article, she was described as "chief researcher".
Influences and habits
In addition to Sidney Sheldon, Dan Brown has been quite vocal about a number of other literary influences who have inspired his writing. He appreciates wit and humor, as shown when he talked about Shakespeare's Much Ado About Nothing: "I didn't understand how funny this play Much Ado About Nothing truly was until I became an English teacher and had to teach it. There is no wittier dialogue anywhere." He also lists personal friend, mystery writer Harlan Coben, and Robert Ludlum's Bourne series of books. On Ludlum, he states, "Ludlum's early books are complex, smart, and yet still move at a lightning pace. This series got me interested in the genre of big-concept, international thrillers." Recurring elements that Brown prefers to incorporate into his novels include a simple hero pulled out of their familiar setting and thrust into a new one with which they are unfamiliar, strong female characters, travel to interesting locations, and a 24-hour time frame in which the story takes place.
Because of the research-intensive nature of his novels, Brown can spend up to two years writing them. In order to remain focused on such projects, Brown ensures that when he chooses a theme for the novel (what he refers to the "big idea"), and its subject, that they be those that can hold his interest. In Brown's view, the ideal topic does not have an easily defined right or wrong view, but presents a moral grey area that can lend itself to debate. Because his favorite subjects include codes, puzzles, treasure hunts, secretive organizations and academic lectures on obscure topics, he tends to incorporate those into his novels. Because Brown considers writing to be a discipline that requires constant practice, he has developed a routine to maintain his abilities. He rises at 4:00am when there are no distractions (a practice he began with Digital Fortress when he had two daytime teaching jobs) and when he feels most productive, in order to give symbolic importance to the first order of business each day. He keeps an antique hourglass on his desk, so that he can stop briefly every hour to do push-ups, sit-ups and stretching exercises in order to keep his blood flowing. Brown does his writing in his loft. He has also told fans that he uses inversion therapy to help with writer's block. He uses gravity boots and says, "hanging upside down seems to help me solve plot challenges by shifting my entire perspective."
Film adaptations
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 Sir Leigh Teabing. It was much anticipated and served to launch the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, though it received overall poor reviews. It currently has a 24% rating at the film review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, derived from 165 negative reviews of the 214 counted. It was later listed as one of the worst films of 2006 on Ebert & Roeper, but also the second highest grossing film of the year, pulling in $750 million USD worldwide. 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. In the film, Brown and his wife can be seen in the background of one of the early book signing scenes.
The next film, Angels & Demons, was released on May 15, 2009, with Howard and Hanks returning. It, too, garnered mostly negative reviews, though critics were kinder to it than to its predecessor. As of September 2009[update], it has a 36% meta-rating at Rotten Tomatoes.
Copyright infringement cases
In August 2005, author Lewis Perdue unsuccessfully sued Brown for plagiarism, on the basis of claimed similarity between The Da Vinci Code and his novels, The Da Vinci Legacy (1983) and Daughter of God (2000). Judge George Daniels said, in part: "A reasonable average lay observer would not conclude that The Da Vinci Code is substantially similar to Daughter of God".
In April 2006, Brown won a copyright infringement case brought by authors Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh, who claimed that Brown stole ideas from their 1982 book Holy Blood Holy Grail for his 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code. It was in the book Holy Blood Holy Grail that Baigent, Leigh, and co-author Henry Lincoln had advanced the theory that Jesus and Mary Magdalene married and had a child and that the bloodline continues to this day. Brown even alluded to the two authors' names in his book. Leigh Teabing, a lead character in both the novel and the film, uses Leigh's name as the first name, and anagrammatically derives his last name from Baigent's. Mr Justice Peter Smith found in Brown's favor in the case, and as a private amusement, embedded his own Smithy code in the written judgment.
On March 28, 2007, Brown's publisher, Random House, won an appeal copyright infringement case. The Court of Appeal of England and Wales rejected the efforts from Baigent and Leigh, who became liable for paying legal expenses of nearly $6 million USD. A contributing factor for the outcome of the case is that these authors presented their work as nonfiction. Fiction writers often draw upon nonfiction resources for content research.
Philanthropy
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."
Criticism
Brown's prose style has been criticized as clumsy. Much criticism also centers on Brown's claim found in the preface to The Da Vinci Code that the novel is based on fact in relation to Opus Dei and the Priory of Sion, and that "all descriptions of artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals in [the] novel are accurate".
In an interview with Matt Lauer on The Today Show in September 2009, Brown responded by saying, "I do something very intentional and specific in these books. And that is to blend fact and fiction in a very modern and efficient style, to tell a story. There are some people who understand what I do, and they sort of get on the train and go for a ride and have a great time, and there are other people who should probably just read somebody else."
Works
CDs
* SynthAnimals, a children's album
* Perspective, 1990, Dalliance. Music CD
* Dan Brown, 1993, DBG Records
* Angels & Demons, 1994, DBG Records
* Musica Animalia, 2003, a children's CD comprising 15 tracks songs portraying animals in poem & song. Proceeds benefited for the Families First charity.
Humor writing
* 187 Men to Avoid: A Survival Guide for the Romantically Frustrated Woman, 1995, Berkley Publishing Group (co-written with his wife under the pseudonym Danielle Brown). ISBN 0-425-14783-5, Scheduled for re-release in August 2006
* The Bald Book, 1998, co-written with his wife Blythe Brown. ISBN 0-7860-0519-X
Novels
* Digital Fortress, 1998
* Angels & Demons, 2000
* Deception Point, 2001
* The Da Vinci Code, 2003
* The Lost Symbol, 2009
Films
* The Da Vinci Code, 2006
* Angels & Demons, 2009