Exclusively for "Vreme" Robert Čoban
Robert Langdon in Prague attends a lecture by his colleague and partner, the noetic scholar Catherine Solomon. It presents the results of research that reveal new insights into the nature of human consciousness. However, a series of events suddenly interrupts their work: there is a murder, the disappearance of Catherine and the theft of an important manuscript. Langdon embarks on a search that takes him through Prague, London, New York... When the Serbian edition of Dan Brown's new novel hits bookstore shelves in December, readers will have the opportunity to read what happened at the end of the story.
Last week's worldwide promotion Romanian Secret of secrets (Secret of Secrets), of the latest literary work of the famous Dan Brown, was organized in the Czech capital, where his story takes place. When we arrived in Prague that evening and went out for a walk in the center, we felt like in Šerbedžija's song "outside it was falling drunkards instead of snow". Because, half an hour before midnight in the center of Prague, it seemed that no one was sober except us. On one billboard I saw an advertisement for "Secret of Secrets Tour". The witty Czechs quickly took advantage of the author's global popularity and made a tour of the locations where the novel takes place.
The next day at noon exactly, we sit in the area of the baroque Chapel of Mirrors in the Clementinum complex, in the heart of the old town in Prague, and wait for the writer to appear. The sounds of the organ, which should add drama to the moment, mix with the murmur of journalists from all over the world. Dan Brown appears, a long applause follows, and Bohuslav Svoboda, the mayor of Prague, stands up from the front row and symbolically presents the writer with the "keys to the city".
During the nearly one-hour press conference, we had the opportunity to ask Dan Brown everything we wanted to know about the new novel and his views on life and the current situation in the world. We learned that that morning Petr Pavel, the president of the Czech Republic, organized a breakfast for the famous writer. "I didn't know it would be breakfast, so I ate a giant omelette at the hotel. When I realized that food would also be served in the Presidential Palace, I said to myself: Just don't make it an omelette! Of course, an omelette just arrived, and since President Pavel ate so sweetly, I had to get back to work," said the writer with a smile.
Braun has been to Prague seven times, the first time as a student with a backpack on his back, when it was still Czechoslovakia. This city, which, as he says, has been the "mystical capital of Europe" since the Middle Ages, he considered for 15 years as the location where he would set the plot of his book. A journalist from Poland asked him if he had considered other locations besides Prague, so we learned that in Krakow there is a church with a very interesting blue ceiling with stars that have a symbolic meaning, and that city is also on the "short list" of some future Brown novels. The writer told how he was particularly interested in the topic of "human consciousness" after his mother died of leukemia eight years ago: "If someone had asked me ten years ago what happens to human consciousness and the experiences gained throughout life after a person's death, I would have answered - they disappear, that's the end, like when you turn off the computer. However, after my mother's death and many conversations with experts in the field, I am getting closer to the opinion that after the body dies, human consciousness continues to exist for some way!", says Brown and adds that his attitude is not based on religion because he does not consider himself a believer, but on scientific knowledge.
I was wondering what he thought about streaming platforms as a place for movie premieres, since they will Secret of secrets to be the first film based on his book that will not premiere in cinemas but on ‒ Netflix. "My three previous books have been made into films, and I can tell you that it is not easy to make a two-hour film out of a very extensive and complicated novel. Based on my new book Secret of secrets Netflix will make eight one-hour episodes!” Brown revealed.
This was followed by a question about the main villain of the new novel - the American intelligence service, the CIA. Journalists were interested in whether the CIA tried to stop the publication of the novel and whether it was being monitored. Brown replied with a smile: "As far as I know, no!"
The famous writer also talked about how he views the opinion that today's world is "turned upside down" and that we are close to the cataclysm of humanity: "The human race has survived for thousands of years because we have a built-in sense of avoiding danger. If you have beautiful flowers and trees in a garden, and in one corner - a tiger, everyone will focus their attention on that tiger because we have a feeling to protect ourselves from danger! That's why I think that, no matter how much it seems to us that it has never been worse - the human race will survive and challenge which we now face!”
Journalists were considerate and no one asked a question about the topic that filled the pages of the Czech and world press in those days. Namely, Brown appeared in Prague in May of this year with his longtime partner, Dutch rider Judith Pietersen (34). In the past, the writer has repeatedly pointed out how Da Vinci Code it might never have been created if it weren't for his ex-wife Blyde, whom he also called the most talented woman he had ever met. That was until the divorce in 2018, when Blyde even filed a lawsuit, and as she stated, Brown led a "life full of lies." Allegedly, he had as many as four mistresses, and he spent the joint money on buying gifts for them. One lover was a personal trainer, another a politician from the Caribbean, the third a hairdresser, and the fourth mentioned Dutch horse rider, for whom, as the press wrote at the time, he also bought a stallion worth 350.000 dollars, as well as a special truck for its transport. Then Brown denied everything and pointed out that his wife got half of everything they earned, and that she was not cheated at all.
That was the "official story" until the book came out The Secret of Secrets, in which the author begins by thanking his fiancee Judith Pietersen. On his Instagram account, during his stay in Prague in May, Brown shared a photo of him and Judith on a romantic walk along the Charles Bridge.
DanBrownDogDan Brown and
his dog
Winston
After the press conference in the Chapel of Mirrors, we had time to drink a couple of Czech beers in the garden of the restaurant under the Astronomical Clock and sort out our impressions before going to the bar of the "Four Season" hotel, where a "meet & greet" meeting with the writer was organized. Brankica Đukić, co-owner of "Solaris" from Novi Sad, which is the Serbian publisher of Braun's books, presented Braun with a comic strip made by her colleague from "Solaris", Saša Radonjić. Brown was touched by the gift because the comic also features his favorite dog, Winston. It is interesting that "Solaris" became Brown's publisher since the first novel Digital fortress 1998, when the writer was far from his current world fame. And they were lucky enough to (p)remain the publisher of one of the most popular writers of the 21st century.
In the evening, in the Great Hall of the Lucerna Palace from 1909, a gathering of the writer and readers was held. Hundreds of them with purchased tickets formed two long "snakes" on the left and right sides of the palace patiently waiting for their turn to enter the hall. The host of the program asked those present how many had read the book, how many had started to read it, and how many had bought it and not yet read it. The number of hands raised revealed that Dan Brown has a truly loyal readership in the Czech Republic. Those present who had not read the book were warned that there would be spoilers during the talk, to which Brown replied that there would be TV series novels are not read to find out what happened but to enjoy how it happened: "You don't watch James Bond movies to see if he will stop the villains from destroying the world and get the most beautiful woman to bed. You know he will! You watch them to enjoy how he does it all!"
