Author talks courts, 'Da Vinci Code,' and movie in home state

PORTSMOUTH, N.H. -- What with the crush outside the Music Hall, it might have been the pope, the president, maybe even Paris Hilton. But, no, it was reclusive author Dan Brown in the first public appearance since courts in London and the United States rejected charges of copyright infringement against his giant bestseller, ''The Da Vinci Code."

Looking relaxed in a trademark combination of sportcoat over black shirt and pants, Brown, 40, joked that ''my agent tells people the only way to get me to appear in public is to sue me for plagiarism. There are forms in the lobby."

Last week, a federal appeals court upheld a judgment quashing a copyright infringement suit by novelist Lewis Perdue against Brown. Two weeks earlier, a British court had rejected a similar claim by nonfiction writers Michael Baigent and Richard Leigh.

In a talk before a friendly home-state crowd, part of a ''Writers on a New England Stage" series, Brown was a mixture of mild and feisty about the long-running controversy dogging his novel, which has spawned many other books attacking its speculative theme. The book posits a Catholic conspiracy to hide the survival of Jesus and his marriage to Mary Magdalene.

''My feeling is, these books are wonderful," Brown said, although he noted he had not read them. Their strong disagreement with him, he said, ''creates a dialogue which is vigorous and powerful. Religion has only one true enemy: apathy. The best antidote to apathy is passionate debate." He quoted a British priest, whom he did not name, as having said that ''Christianity has survived Galileo and Darwin; it can surely survive Dan Brown."

Although many Catholic priests and nuns have enjoyed ''The Da Vinci Code," Brown said, its theme of ''the sacred feminine" has particularly resonated with some nuns. He criticized the Catholic Church for declaring ''that women are unfit to be priests," and for dismissing the recently uncovered Gospel of Judas, in which Judas's betrayal is desired by Jesus. In a wide-ranging discussion of religion and science, Brown avoided endorsing any definite point of view, other than to say that most people ''worship the gods of their fathers" and that his own Christian faith was a work in progress. Other than the Catholic Church, the principal object of his criticism seemed to be any kind of dogmatism.

A former musician and English teacher at Phillips Exeter Academy, Brown's success has been remarkable. The movie version of ''The Da Vinci Code," starring Tom Hanks, Audrey Tautou, and Ian McKellen, opens in theaters May 19.

With 43 million copies sold worldwide since 2003, and a record 160 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, ''The Da Vinci Code" is the biggest-selling adult hardcover work of fiction in history. Forbes magazine estimates that Brown had earned $76.5 million in the year ending last June.

Not that it's easy being a rich and famous author. Brown recently had a six-foot security fence built around his house in Rye, N.H., to keep the curious at bay, and the litigation has at least slowed him down. His publisher announced Friday that his long-awaited next novel won't be published this year, as originally expected.

David Mehegan can be reached at mehegan@globe.com.