Dan Brown: It's Not My Job To Debate

Posted on April 25, 2006

As the hysteria mounts in the weeks before the release of The Da Vinci Code film, Dan Brown says that it's not his job to weigh in on the debate.

Though he's been hit with lawsuits and rebuffed by the Vatican, author Dan Brown said Sunday it's not his responsibility to address controversies stirred up by his book, "The Da Vinci Code." He said he's happy his best-selling novel about hidden religious history, secret societies and code-breaking has captured popular interest, but leaves the deliberations to others.

"Let the biblical scholars and historians battle it out," Brown told about 850 people at a sold-out writers talk. "It's a book about big ideas, you can love them or you can hate them," he said. "But we're all talking about them, and that's really the point." The talk was a rare chance to catch a personal glimpse of the private author. Among his revelations: When struggling with a difficult plot point, he dangles from a pair of gravity boots to think it out - a habit adopted while figuring out anagrams for his book "Angels and Demons."

The audience also learned that the former prep school English teacher wants to return to the classroom, and that he rarely reads his work when it's done. "The Da Vinci Code" was an exception. "When the galleys came back, I sat down and I read the novel start to finish in one sitting, and I was really happy, really proud of it," Brown said.

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"By the way if anybody in the audience would like to sue me, we have forms out back," Brown said. "Just pick one up on your way out."

As least Brown's sense of humor is still intact. It's really an amazing thing: nuns are protesting, the Archbishop of Canterbury discussed The Da Vinci Code in his Easter sermon, and evangelical churches are organizing a movement to tell their members to be sure not to see the film. From an author's perspective: what's not to love?

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