Riffing Brown: Installment Two

The following is an excerpt from the first chapters of the Da Vinci Code. As usual, my comments are in red.

Robert Langdon awoke slowly. Deja vu...didn't he do this in the other book?

A telephone was ringing in the darkness—a tinny, unfamiliar ring. This sounds really familiar. He fumbled for the bedside lamp and turned it on. Squinting at his surroundings he saw a plush Renaissance bedroom with Louis XVI furniture, hand-frescoed walls, and a colossal mahogany four-poster bed. Ooh, how romantic.

Where the hell am I? Purgatory.

The jacquard bathrobe hanging on his bedpost bore the monogram:

HOTEL RITZ PARIS.

Slowly, the fog began to lift. And then he beheld the great monster, rising up out of the lagoon, ominous and threatening...

Langdon picked up the receiver. "Hello?"

"Monsieur Langdon?" a man's voice said. "I hope I have not awoken you?" Anyone else think that this question mark is a little out of place? Anyone? Beuller?

Dazed, Langdon looked at the bedside clock. It was 12:32 A.M. He had been asleep only an hour, but he felt like the undead. Wooden stake or silver bullets?

"This is the concierge, monsieur. I apologize for this intrusion, but you have a visitor. He insists it is urgent." "I love you, Langdon. We must be together, or else I shall die!"

Langdon still felt fuzzy. A visitor? His eyes focused now on a crumpled flyer on his bedside table.

THE AMERICAN UNIVERSITY OF PARIS

proudly presents

An evening with Robert Langdon

Professor of Religious Symbology, Harvard University "Symbology". Interesting, I've never heard of that before...

Langdon groaned. Tonight's lecture—a slide show about pagan symbolism hidden in the stones of Chartres Cathedral—had probably ruffled some conservative feathers in the audience. Most likely, some religious scholar had trailed him home to pick a fight. He's a professor of "religious symbology". Doesn't that make him a "religious scholar"?

"I'm sorry," Langdon said, "but I'm very tired and—"

"Mais monsieur," the concierge pressed, lowering his voice to an urgent whisper. "Your guest is an important man."

Langdon had little doubt. He is, after all, soooooo important himself, it's only natural that other important men come to visit. His books on religious paintings and cult symbology had made him a reluctant celebrity in the art world, and last year Langdon's visibility had increased a hundred-fold after his involvement in a widely publicized incident at the Vatican. Since then, the stream of self-important historians (the first step to recovering from a problem is admitting you have one.) and art buffs arriving at his door had seemed never-ending.

"If you would be so kind," Langdon said, doing his best to remain polite, "could you take the man's name and number, and tell him I'll try to call him before I leave Paris on Tuesday? Thank you." He hung up before the concierge could protest.

Sitting up now, Langdon frowned at his bedside Guest Relations Handbook, whose cover boasted: SLEEP LIKE A BABY IN THE CITY OF LIGHTS. SLUMBER AT THE PARIS RITZ.

He turned and gazed tiredly into the full-length mirror across the room. The man staring back at him was a stranger—tousled and weary. It had, after all, been a long hard night of making Ad Hominem attacks against the Church.

You need a vacation, Robert. Try the bermuda triangle. Nice, private, and cheap...

The past year had taken a heavy toll on him, but he didn't appreciate seeing proof in the mirror. Oh, no! Now Cindy won't go to the prom with me! His usually sharp blue eyes looked hazy and drawn tonight. Eyes can't be drawn. A face can be drawn. A forehead can be drawn. Eyeballs cannot. A dark stubble was shrouding his strong jaw and dimpled chin. With that, Langdon realized that his boyish charm was finally fading. Around his temples, the gray highlights were advancing, making their way deeper into his thicket of coarse black hair. Gee, and there I thought it was brown...which is, y'know, what he said in the other one. Is it brownish-black, dark brown or really black? Although his female colleagues insisted the gray only accentuated his bookish appeal, Langdon knew better. Oh, of course. Those female colleagues again. What the heck is a bookish appeal? I find books appealing. I like sitting on the couch with a blanket, cup of hot cocoa and a G.K Chesterton book. But what's a bookish appeal?

If Boston Magazine could see me now. Oh, poor me...I was so handsome once, and now...now I'm...AGING! Heaven forbid anyone should age. 'cause obviously it's, like, y'know...not natural or anything silly like that.

Last month, much to Langdon's embarrassment, (here Brown is explaining that Boston apparently finds Langdon very intriguing, but he's still very humble as is shown by his embarrassment. Brown seems to think that Langdon is a saint.) Boston Magazine had listed him as one of that city's top ten most intriguing people—a dubious honor that made him the brunt of endless ribbing by his Harvard colleagues. Tonight, three thousand miles from home, the accolade had resurfaced to haunt him at the lecture he had given.

"Ladies and gentlemen.. ." the hostess (oh no. It's a female. You know what that means.) had announced to a full-house at The American University of Paris's Pavillon Dauphine, "Our guest tonight needs no introduction. You wouldn't know him anyway. He's an obscure little--oh, whoops, sorry. He is the author of numerous books: The Symbology of Secret Sects, The Art of the Illuminati, The Lost Language of Ideograms, (an ideogram is a character meant to express an idea without giving the pronunciation of an idea. Chinese characters are roughly ideograms, and as far as I know people still write using Chinese characters...) and when I say he wrote the book on Religious Iconology, I mean that quite literally. Many of you use his textbooks in class." Since obviously Religious Iconology/Symbology (which is it, Danny?!) is a huge field that lots of people are studying.

The students in the crowd nodded enthusiastically. "AHHOHMIGOSH IT'S LANGDON!!!!! WE LOVE YOU!!!!"

"I had planned to introduce him tonight by sharing his impressive curriculum vitae, however ..." I have the feeling that somehow "impressive curriculum vitae" is actually a codeword for virility. Anyone else get that drift? She glanced playfully at Langdon ("ooh, Langdon, I'm glancing at you playfully! I love you so much! You're so hot!"), who was seated onstage. "An audience member has just handed me a far more, shall we say ... intriguing introduction." Literary flirting has never been so embarrassing.

She held up a copy of Boston Magazine.

Langdon cringed. Where the hell did she get that? Brown seems to like using 'X the hell'. Well, I don't blame him entirely--his writing makes me want to cuss, too.

The hostess began reading choice excerpts from the inane article, and Langdon felt himself sinking lower and lower in his chair. Inane article, once again showing Langdon's humility. Saint Langdon, patron of conspiracy theories, speak for us... Thirty seconds later, the crowd was grinning, and the woman showed no signs of letting up. I have this sneaking suspicion this crowd was mostly female. "And Mr. Langdon's refusal to speak publicly about his unusual role in last year's Vatican conclave certainly wins him points on our intrigue-o-meter." (gag) intrigue-o-meter? INTRIGUE-O-METER? WHAT ON EARTH IS THAT? I'm getting embarrassed just reading this! The hostess goaded the crowd. "Would you like to hear more?"

The crowd applauded.

Somebody stop her, Langdon pleaded as she dove into the article again. Oh, Langy, you're so humble...

"Although Professor Langdon might not be considered hunk-handsome like some of our younger awardees, this forty-something academic has more than his share of scholarly allure. Here we go again. His captivating presence is punctuated by an unusually low, baritone speaking voice, which his female students describe as 'chocolate for the ears." Those female students...'chocolate for the ears' indeed. I didn't even know that was possible.

Now, let's be frank. I don't know ANYONE, male or female, who will describe someone physically in that much depth, let alone in front of that person. My conclusion? Danny's crushing on his character again, and wants us to, too.

The hall erupted in laughter. So did I, when I read this the first time. And then I started crying.

Langdon forced an awkward smile. He knew what came next—some ridiculous line about "Harrison Ford in Harris tweed" But the author believes it, doesn't he? he uses 'ridiculous' to show Langdon's humility, even while implying the opposite is correct!—and because this evening he had figured it was finally safe again to wear his Harris tweed and Burberry turtleneck, he decided to take action. You, sir, are no Indiana Jones. Just saying.

"Thank you, Monique," Langdon said, standing prematurely and edging her away from the podium. "Boston Magazine clearly has a gift for fiction." Oh yes, I agree entirely. He turned to the audience with an embarrassed sigh. "And if I find which one of you provided that article, I'll have the consulate deport you." Thank God!

The crowd laughed.

"Well, folks, as you all know, I'm here tonight to talk about the power of symbols ..." "And this is my senior picture. As you all can tell, I was a very striking lad, with an arrestingly deep baritone voice, mysterious brown-with-grey-whisps and black hair and an alleged Harrison Ford lookalike. I was a paragon, a symbol of virility. Aren't I wonderful?" "Yes, Langdon! You are!"

Brown's apparent crush on his Gary Stu alter ego is mildly unsettling, or at least I find it so. If anyone else has other opinions, then please do share--I'd really like to think that Dan has only unconsciously made himself an idealized alter ego that he proceeds to turn into a superheroic destroyer-of traditions. But, you know, when the Author mysteriously appears on the jacket of the book wearing the same Harris tweed and turtleneck as the character did in the first chapter...well, minds start turning.

For more information, see this article on the "Mary Sue" archetype and this one on author surrogates. Both are very applicable to all of Brown's works involving Langdon, in my opinion.