Dan Brown on Robert Langdon and Vittoria Vetra

In 2006, Britain's High Court heard testimony in a trial involving Dan Brown's book, The Da Vinci Code. A claim of plagiarism had been filed against his publisher, Random House, by two other Random-House authors.

In his December 21, 2005 Witness Statement, Brown told the court how he created the character of Robert Langdon. The following paragraphs, from that public document, address the issue:

Robert Langdon

43. Robert Langdon is amalgam of many people I admire. In the early 1990's, I first saw the art work of John Langdon. John is an artist and philosopher, a close friend of my father and, I think, one of our true geniuses. He is most famous for his ability to create "ambigrams" - words that read the same both right side up and up side down (see, for example, his book Wordplay (D.46)). John's art changed the way I think about symmetry, symbols, and art - he looks at art from different perspectives. I was so impressed by the artwork of John Langdon that I commissioned him to create an album cover for my new CD of music (called Angels & Demons), which dealt with many of the religious themes that already interested me. John did the artwork, and the CD was released in 1999 with John's ambigram on the cover. Later, when I. published a novel of the same name, Simon & Schuster used the same ambigram on the hardcover edition.

44. John and his name are part of the inspiration for the protagonist of Angels & Demons (Robert Langdon) who also appears in The Da Vinci Code and in my next, as yet unpublished, book. John also created the ambigrams used in Angels & Demons. I commissioned him to create ambigrams for the word "illuminati", as well as the Illuminati diamond - the fusion of the elements, earth, air, fire and water, which represents the fusion of science and religion historically, and features in Angels & Demons (Corgi, page 520).

45. As a tribute to John Langdon, I named the protagonist Robert Langdon. I thought it was a fantastic name. It sounds very "New England" and I like last names with two syllables (Becker, Langdon, Sexton, Vetra, et al). Every character has his purpose, and with Langdon I wanted to create a teacher. Many of the people I admire most are teachers - my father is the obvious figure from my own life. My father had introduced me to the artwork of M.C. Escher (he lectured worldwide on symmetry and M.C. Escher). (I mentioned the Mobius Strip - a twisted ring of paper, which technically possessed only one side - in Angels & Demons, Corgi, page 133.) John Langdon is also a teacher.

46. Another teacher I greatly admire is Joseph Campbell, a religious historian; symbologist, and partial inspiration for my character. Roughly around about this time, I watched a TV program, "The Power of Myth", in which Bill Moyers interviewed Joseph Campbell about the deeper meanings of symbols and art from many different cultures and creeds. I recall being impressed by Campbell's open-minded and unthreatening delivery, especially when he spoke about controversial topics like myths and untruths in religion. I recall thinking that I wanted my character Robert Langdon to have this same open-minded tone.

47. In choosing what characters to include in a novel, I select characters who have sets of skills that help move the plot along and also permit me to introduce information. Robert Langdon is a symbologist and art historian for the same reason that the heroine in Digital Fortress is a cryptologist; these characters help decipher clues and teach the reader.

48. For my heroine in Angels & Demons, I chose the name Vittoria Vetra. Vittoria is a scientist - a Marine Biologist who specializes in the new field of Entanglement Physics. I've spoken to physicists about this new field and the incredible experiments they are now running, some with the hope of proving God exists. Some experiments have been run in hopes of proving unseen communication between separate animal entities. One such experiment I read about involved a sea turtle egg. Sea turtle eggs are unique in that a nest of hundreds of eggs will all hatch at the exact same moment. In an effort to determine how this took place, scientists removed one egg and placed it in a terrarium halfway around the globe with a video camera. As soon as the eggs in the nest started hatching, the eggs on the other side of the globe started hatching simultaneously. I find these kind of experiments fascinating. I wanted a character who could credibly share this kind of information with my readers.

49. Angels & Demons is the first Robert Langdon novel - The Da Vinci Code was the second. It was a real joy for me to write, and a breakthrough in terms of finding my own style (although I can only say that with hindsight). I intend to make Robert Langdon my primary character for years to come. His expertise in symbology and iconography affords him the luxury of potentially limitless adventures in exotic locales. It was also a book in which Blythe [Brown's wife] could be more involved, as she has a great love of art and art history. In Angels & Demons I was able to really develop the "nuggets" of information idea that I had started to play with in Digital Fortress. In that book I found the history behind the phrase "without wax" fascinating, and with this new book there was a lot more to play with. I thought, with the right background, story and characters, this could make for a lot of fun for both me, in researching and writing the book, and hopefully for any readers of the book.

50. Angels & Demons, like all my books, weaves together fact and fiction. Some histories claim the Illuminati vowed vengeance against the Vatican in the 1600's. The early Illuminati - those of Galileo's day - were expelled from Rome by the Vatican and hunted mercilessly. The Illuminati fled and went into hiding in Bavaria where they began mixing with other refugee groups fleeing the Catholic purges - mystics, alchemists, scientists, occultists, Muslims, Jews. From this mixing pot, a new Illuminati emerged. A darker Illuminati. A deeply anti Christian Illuminati. They grew very powerful, infiltrating power structures, employing mysterious rites, retaining deadly secrecy, and vowing someday to rise again and take revenge on the Catholic Church. Angels & Demons is a thriller about the Illuminati's long awaited resurgence and vengeance against their oppressors. But most of all, it is a story about Robert Langdon, the Harvard symbologist who gets caught in the middle. Much of the novel's story is a chase across modem Rome - through catacombs, cathedrals, piazzas, and even the Vatican's subterranean Necropolis.

51. Although there are some similarities with my first book - the murder, the chase through a foreign location, the action taking place all in 24 hours, the codes, the ticking clock, the strong male and female characters, the love interest - I think the real advances I made in the second novel were as follows.

Advances in Angels & Demons

(a) The idea of the thriller as academic lecture

52. I tried to write a book that I would love to read. The kind of books I enjoy are those in which you learn. My hope was that readers would be entertained and also learn enough to want to use the book as a point of departure for more reading. When I was researching the book, I would learn things that fascinated readers. Rome was a location that allowed me to immerse myself in the history of religion, art, and architecture. For example, I visited the Pantheon. The docent talked to me about the history of the building - specifically its use as a pagan temple before being converted to Christian church. We talked about Constantine's role in converting the pagans (including the Mithraics and the cult of Sol Invictus). Although I was familiar with Constantine, I learned about the cult of Sol Invictus, which was new to me, in particular its role in the choice of some of the dates of Christian holidays. This led to the section in Angels & Demons where Langdon is giving a lecture to his class about Christianity and Sun Worship. He mentions Sol Invictus and Christianity borrowing from the previous religions.

(b) Hidden information and secret societies

53. Angels & Demons, like The Da Vinci Code after it, features a secret society. I had played with the subject of secretive organizations and hidden information in the first book in a high-tech setting. In Angels & Demons, however, I found far more interesting aspects to include. For example, the design of the Great Seal on the U.S. dollar bill includes an illustration of a pyramid - an object which arguably has nothing to do with American history. The pyramid, I learned, was actually an Egyptian occult symbol representing a convergence upward toward the ultimate source of illumination: in this case, an all seeing eye. The eye inside the triangle is a pagan symbol adopted by the Illuminati to signify the brotherhood's ability to infiltrate and watch all things. In addition, the triangle (Greek Delta) is the scientific symbol for change. Some historians feel the Great Seal's 'shining delta' is symbolic of the Illuminati's desire to bring about 'enlightened change' from the myth of religion to the truth of science. All of this research and reading about the Illuminati led me also to learning more about Freemasons. This research was something I would come back to when I started to write and research The Da Vinci Code and also the book which I am currently writing.

54, Another group I read about while doing research for Angels & Demons was The Knights Templar. In Angels & Demons, the Templar Crusades play a major role in the back-story of one of my main characters (the Hassassin). I found Templar history fascinating. My recollection is that I had considered including more material on the Templars but decided to set it aside because I could not make all of Templar history fit into the tight framework of this novel.

55. I have asked myself why all this clandestine material interests me. At a fundamental level my interest in secret societies came from growing up in New England, surrounded by the clandestine clubs of Ivy League universities, the Masonic lodges of the Founding Fathers, and the hidden hallways of early government power. I see New England as having a long tradition of elite private clubs, fraternities, and secrecy - indeed, my third Robert Langdon novel (a work in progress) is set within the Masons. I have always found the concept of secret societies, codes, and means of communication fascinating. In my youth I was very aware of the Skull & Bones club at Yale. I had good friends who were members of Harvard's secret "finals" clubs. In the town where I grew up, there was a Masonic lodge, and nobody could (or would) tell me what happened behind those closed doors. All of this secrecy captivated me as a young man.

(c) Codes and treasure hunts

56. Angels & Demons built on the writing devices I first used in Digital Fortress. In my first book, the cracking of the code is what accelerates the reader through the pages. In Angels & Demons, I moved away from the straight binary codes into the much more interesting device of clues wrapped up in poems or riddles. The snippets of verse in Angels & Demons are useful tools for releasing information and moving the plot to the next stage. One challenge when "presenting the reader with a complicated code is to control the flow of information so the overall mystery is not overwhelming. Finding a plot device that enables me to dole out information in bite size pieces is helpful. In Angels & Demons, I accomplished this by delivering the code in short snippets of verse, which enables the reader a chance to stay one step ahead of Langdon. Langdon, as a teacher, symbologist and art historian, satisfies dual prerequisites for my hero - that of being a credible teacher and also of being knowledgeable enough to decipher the clues in the artistic treasure hunts I create.

(d) The plot and the writing

57. I think that the plot and writing of Angels & Demons is better than that in Digital Fortress. In this second novel, I laid down a very strict outline of what was going to happen in this book and worked hard to stay on track while fleshing out the story.

58. I tried to write a book that I would love to read. I wanted every single chapter to compel the reader to turn the page. I was taught that efficiency of words is the way an author respects his readers' time, and so I trimmed the novel heavily while I was writing. In Digital Fortress, the action takes place within twenty four hours, and I specifically set out to do that again in Angels & Demons. I compressed the plot and action to intensify the pace of the read, and I tried to keep the reader abreast of where the characters were physically, at all times. That seems to help the reader's feeling that he is right there the entire time. In addition, I tried to end every chapter with a cliff-hanger.

59. All of my books have a very similar style, and I believe it to be the elements of this style (e.g. doling out information slowly) to which my readers react. All of my novels use the concept of a simple hero pulled out of his familiar world and thrown into a world that he (or she, in Deception Point) does not understand. I use strong female characters; travel and interesting locations; a romance between a man and woman of complementary expertise; a ticking clock (all my novels are set in 24 hours). Structural elements are consistent in every book. I think that it is not so much what I write which is compelling but how I say it. I must admit, however, that I did not realize this until my first three novels became huge bestsellers after The Da Vinci Code. The hard part of writing a novel is not the ideas but rather the nuts and bolts of the plot and language and making it all work.