The Ringmaster's Daughter Part 10

Or you might choose to let the human race die out. That is your prerogative. What goes through the mind of the very last person on earth? He or she is now quite alone in the cosmos ...

Finally, a piece of advice: don't write a word before you've read the Icelandic Sagas. And a saying: You'll forge your own path as you tread it.

Good luck!

I would rapidly form an idea of what the individual wanted - I mean what they were willing to pay for - but I also had to evaluate carefully which notes this or that person was capable of working on. Above all I had to ensure that I didn't cast pearls before swine. If a bad writer was let loose on a Rolls Royce of a synopsis, it would be like throwing it in the dustbin. People would quickly smell a rat, too. I'd learnt this way back when I was building up Homework Help; I couldn't give a B-A answer to a typical D pupil. So it wasn't simply a question of how much money a customer had to spend. Rather, I had to weigh up the quality of the material for sale against the quality of the writer I sold it to.

Writers' Aid was a differentiated inst.i.tution.

In certain circ.u.mstances I might even part with valuable notes for rewards other than money. If I was fond of a female writer, she might get something to write about in return for nothing more than a good time. I considered that generous, as the woman was spared the feeling that she'd had to buy something from me for money. 'You can take this idea,' I might say, just take it away with you, but in that case you'll stay an hour longer?'

Women are much better at exchanging gifts and services than they are at doing business. They often turn very affectionate after receiving a good, ready-to-go outline for a play or a novel. It doesn't matter if they're married or otherwise attached - prospects of power and fame have always made women randy and ready for love.

Even in cases like these, the authors could most certainly be counted on to be discreet. Women have an impressive ability to conceal the fact that they use s.e.x as a bartering tool.

It wasn't just I who sold something to the women, it was every bit as much the reverse - it was they who sold themselves to me.

I'd ceased picking up girls on the street. I thought I'd outgrown that. But it was great to have recourse to an amorous interlude without having to mix it up with all sorts of sentimentality. A little love was nothing to get worked up about.

An important segment of the market was authors who'd published a novel or a collection of short stories six or eight years before, but had produced nothing since. They were the frustrated. They often continued to move in literary circles. Some had a.s.sumed a dejected mien, but as soon as they had access to a thoroughly worked-up novel synopsis, they soon brightened up and were generally willing to pay handsomely. In the worst cases, I would often include a ready-written draft of the first four or five pages just to get them going and on the right tracks.

Another group was authors who wrote well, who had a finely honed style, but who were still frustrated because they had nothing to write about. This was the group I liked working with best. They required so little - and I couldn't allow myself to go too far anyway. I couldn't just hand out a sheaf of notes that was positively bursting with narrative imagination or bubbling with perceptive insight to someone who was known for his solid character depictions, and leave it at that. But something to narrate - a story, an intrigue - could help this kind of author scale new heights. Some of them were said to have had 'a breakthrough' in their authors.h.i.+p. I like the word. There is something wonderfully liberating about things beginning to happen, something exploding and suddenly breaking through. Often all that's required is a pinch of dry gunpowder.

One particular reason I liked the people in this group was that they usually took good care of what I entrusted to them.

They didn't hurry or waste what they'd been given to manage. Maybe they weren't exactly great writers, but they were good craftsmen, they were wordsmiths. Writers' Aid went hand in glove with this group. Here one could really talk about a genuine symbiosis. It's undeniable that my authors had an ability that had missed me out completely: they had the serenity of mind to sit down and work on a single novel for two, three or even four years, and they did so with the greatest pleasure, not to mention enjoyment.

They were frequently aesthetes to their fingertips. They loved embroidering with language, doing intimate character descriptions and dwelling on all their characters' sensual perceptions. As far as I was concerned a lot of this exquisite literary inlay seemed rather artificial and fussy, if not down- right feigned and false. In contrast to such pretentious sensualism, I for my part found it hard enough to concen- trate on the plots, and they weren't something I'd constructed or invented, but were more like a flock of birds I simply opened my arms to and embraced with great enthusiasm.

It was here, in the tension between the spontaneous and the elaborate, that the real symbiosis between authors and Writers' Aid lay. I gave birth to the plots in my imagination in a totally natural way, when I was out walking for instance, and then the literary artists could painstakingly colour them in. They were far better at it than me anyway.

Although what each one could achieve was limited, there were lots of them, many working at once, and all for me. I liked the thought that perhaps there wouldn't be any stories left to tell after my mortal span had ended. I would have used up all the fireworks, I would have set them off all at once. After me, silence would reign. There would be no more to think about, there would be nothing left to ponder.

I was at the controls of a mighty machine, I was arranging the greatest literary festival of all time, and I was doing it in total secrecy.

A third group of customers comprised those who hadn't published anything at all, but who were convinced they were destined to be authors all the same. This was initially the single largest group, and its members weren't frustrated.

They had fame in their sights and were giddy with expect- ation. They were potential literary debutants. They only became frustrated when they realised that they'd paid through the nose for a substantial synopsis they could never make anything of. And so my invisible hand helped to uncover many a self-delusion. I thought this a valuable service as well. Revealing people's flights from reality can be a good deed. Writers' Aid acted to a large extent as a catalyst for self-perception. I had to wipe away many a tear. I found good use for my psychological talents.

I've always considered myself a tolerable psychologist. A knowledge of people is obviously the most important thing for a psychologist, and I felt I'd had a lot of experience, especially after visiting all those theatres and cinemas at an early age. In addition, I'd learnt a lot when I'd flown over the city and peered in through the windows at domestic life.

I'd looked in on my fellow countrymen, and not everyone can boast of that.

A psychologist must also be able to comfort, and this was something I mastered with time. To comfort is not to be stuck for words, and in a way that's close to giving free rein to one's imagination. When Calvero comforts Terry at the beginning of Limelight, he uses his own wealth of att.i.tudes and outlooks. Calvero is a drunkard and a failed clown, an excellent combination in this context. As a rule it's easier to comfort another human being if you've been through the deepest despair yourself.

Terry is lying on Calvero's bed with her long, dark hair spread out over the white bedclothes. The doctor has gone, and now she comes round after her attempted suicide.

Calvero turns towards her and says: Headache?

Terry: Where am I?

Calvero: You are in my room. I live two floors above you.

Terry: What happened?

Calvero: Well, I came home this evening and smelled gas coming from your room. So I broke in the door, called a doctor and together we brought you up here.

Terry: Why didn't you let me die?

Calvero: What's your hurry? Are you in pain? (Terry shakes her head.) That's all that matters. The rest is fantasy. Billions of years it's taken to evolve human consciousness, and you want to wipe it out? What about the miracle of all existence? More im- portant than anything in the whole universe. What can the stars do?

Nothing, but sit on their axes. And the sun - shooting flames two hundred mega thousand miles high - so what? Wasting all its natural resources. Can the sun think? Is it conscious? No, but you are. (Terry has fallen asleep once more and is snoring loudly.) Pardon me, my mistake!

Several times, later in the film, Calvero has to struggle to ignite the flame of life in the unhappy ballerina who is still in bed with paralysed legs, and on one occasion he says: Listen! As a child I used to complain to my father about not having toys. And he would say: (Calvero points at his own head) This is the greatest toy ever created. Here lies the secret of all happiness!

These potential debutants often harboured unrealistic expectations of what Writers' Aid could do for their prospective literary careers. Once they got hold of a fine novel outline, they imagined that the rest would be a piece of cake. It's nothing of the sort, of course. Having a good idea isn't enough, not even a detailed and well-constructed synopsis. Perhaps the synopsis shouldn't be too detailed, shouldn't be too tightly worked. You also need the ability to tell the story right through, to establish a plausible nar- rative voice and to master a few elementary stylistic tricks.

Even so, it isn't here that the problems usually lie. If one hasn't learnt to write after twelve years' schooling, it's never too late to go on a writing course. There are many writing courses, there's plenty of demand for them. The shortage is in having something to write about, and that can't be taught in schools. There is no course in finding something to write about. But I was there, and this want became my niche.

Many beginners lacked something as fundamental as experience of life. It's a post-modern misconception that you can write first and live later. But many young people want to become writers mainly because they want to live like writers. This is putting the cart before the horse. You must live first, and then decide if you have something to say afterwards. Life itself is the determining factor. Writing is the fruit of life. Life isn't the fruit of writing.

In order to run Writers' Aid as efficiently as possible, I once put together some instructions which I called 'Ten tips for the aspiring author'. I wasn't some common-or-garden schoolteacher. I considered it beneath my dignity to keep on repeating myself. So it was better to stick some standard letter into the hands of any of my clients who clearly stood in need of it. This was also done in full confidence. I specified that the ten tips had been written for the recipient personally and that, naturally, they weren't to start flas.h.i.+ng a private letter about at the university or in town. The letter's heading wasn't 'Ten tips for the aspiring author', but 'Dear Anders' or 'Dear Anne Lise'.

Gradually, as I also a.s.sumed a certain pastoral responsi- bility for those who had no future as authors, I had to give some thought to that too. Lots of young people had to be debriefed. This was why I wrote 'Ten tips for those who have chosen not to become authors'. That, too, was a choice worthy of respect. I'd faced it myself. The first paragraph began: It is possible to have a completely fulfilled life on a planet in this universe without being a writer. You aren't the first who has had to look about for other work.

I never tried to ingratiate myself with great writers. When a great writer has nothing to say, he does something else, like chopping firewood. A great writer doesn't try to find something to write about, he only writes when he has to.

I was no great writer. I've always had the need to unload my thoughts, and so have had to live with a kind of mental incontinence, but I've never felt forced to write a novel.

Nor, for that matter, have I ever chopped firewood.

Whenever I was recruiting a new client, I always proceeded with the greatest circ.u.mspection. I had to avoid reaching the stage of revealing that my object was to sell the author a literary idea, before he or she had a chance to retreat. I had to be able to withdraw my wares before it became apparent to the person opposite that we were talking about buying and selling. Like a cat, I could whip round in a fraction of a second and say that I'd only meant to ask the author for his opinion of something I was writing on my own account. True, I had said 'Would you buy it?', but I'd only meant to ask if he'd liked what I'd let him read. And so sometimes the whole thing would end up being turned on its head. All at once I'd be the one who had to sit and listen to an experienced author's comments. It was humili- ating.

I was good at beating about the bush. It was something I'd perfected in the days when I tried to pick up unknown girls and get them to come out to the theatre or cinema. Beating about the bush is a type of improvised theatre, or a balancing act without a safety net. You can fall a long way, but it's an excellent method of honing creativity.

Nevertheless, sometimes my services were turned down after they'd been fully revealed. A few raised their eyebrows, a few shook their heads, and others protested loudly. It wasn't because they didn't like what I had to offer - quite the opposite, I think they liked it a good deal. They realised the value of what they might easily make their own. I could see temptation tearing away at them, even if only for an instant or two, and such moments were a delight. But in the long term such incorruptibles posed a considerable security risk to Writers' Aid.

The incorruptibles were unsullied. They had nothing to lose in mentioning my offers to other authors. Some of them needed special attention for a long time afterwards, and I cultivated this type of writer-nursing, too. But it must have been from these quarters that the first rumours of my activities arose. Presumably it was from the mouths of such blameless scribes that the term 'The Spider' began to circulate. This time it had nothing to do with the ancient piece of amber that my father and I had seen in the Geological Museum. Twice in my life I've been nicknamed 'The Spider'. So I really must be a spider, after all.

The spider spins everything from itself. Or as the poet Inger Hagerup puts it: So strange to be a spider with a ball of yarn inside her spinning all her days. Not all writers do that.

Some are like ants, they get bits from here and bits from there and subsequently regard what they have meticulously gathered together as their own. Critics easily fall for the temptation of believing that nearly all writers belong to this category. They'll often say of a particular book that it's 'influenced by', 'takes after' or 'is indebted to' certain works or trends, current or historical - and this, even when the author hasn't been anywhere near the books men- tioned. But critics often a.s.sume that all writers are as educated and bereft of fantasy as they are themselves. The message seems to be that there are no longer any original impulses, not in a small country, and certainly not in Norway. But there was also a third category. The authors who used Writers' Aid's services were like bees. They came and drank nectar from The Spider's rose garden and gathered their raw material, but most took the trouble to build and work on what they had garnered. They digested the rose-garden's nectar and turned it into their own honey.

Certain established writers couldn't abide the idea that I might be doing the rounds of their fellows, helping other authors with good bits of literary advice. This was puritan- ical in my opinion. I've met authors who get worked up about colleagues taking inspiration from drinking a bottle of wine, smoking a joint or even going on a trip abroad. The most unpardonable sin in the eyes of many authors, is that tyros go on writing courses. Most authors don't admit to being inspired by anything other than themselves.

During periods of literary renaissance authors apply much of their intellectual effort to proving that other writers aren't up to scratch. At the end of the seventies it had begun to get crowded in the literary corrals of the publis.h.i.+ng world, and once the pen gets full, the beasts begin to bite each other.

When farmers produce too much b.u.t.ter or cereals, they dump the excess. When writers produce too many manu- scripts, they begin to dump each other.

Of course, not everything I sold turned into a book, but I acknowledge my share of the responsibility for the literary inflation we witnessed in the final quarter of the last century.

The cry went up that too many books were being published in Norway. So they hired a Danish critic - this too was at the end of the seventies. The Dane read through every one of that year's poetry collections and found almost none of them to be of a reasonable standard. But the problem hasn't only been the production of too many bad books, but that there's been a glut of good books, too. We belong to a word-sp.a.w.ning race. We produce more culture than we are able to digest.

Over the past few years we've been almost pedantically engrossed in fighting graffiti in tube stations while at the same time spending millions building a new National Library. But the national memory has been spray-painted as well. Nietzsche compared a person who has over- indulged in culture with a snake that has swallowed a hare and lies dozing in the sun, unable to move.

The age of the epigram is past. Under The Quay in Bergen they discovered a small piece of wood on which was the runic inscription: Ingebjrg loved me when I was in Stavanger. This event must have made quite an impression on the author, as it does on the reader 800 or 900 years later. Nowadays, this taciturn scribe would have covered the memory of future generations with the graffiti of a

400-page novel about his wretched love-tryst with Ingeb- jrg. Or he might have tortured his own contemporaries with catchy pop lyrics like Ingebjrg was the only girl, she was the only girl ... The paradox here is that if, during all those 800 years, novels had been written with the same prolixity as in the 1970s, none of us would have been able to penetrate the ma.s.sive literary tradition to get back to that simple, but charming tale about Ingebjrg: Ingebjrg-loved-me-when- I-was-in-Stavanger. This pa.s.sionate story is pared to the bone, but it is still full of conjecture. The reader can guess at things.

The reader has something to build on. You don't build on a 400-page novel.

Writing books had become far too easy, and personal computers didn't buck the trend. Authors who'd written in the old way, by hand or on a typewriter, thought that books written using a PC were second-cla.s.s literature simply because the writing process had been made too simple.

These machines were the enemies of literary art, and the demon in the machine was known as 'electronic word processing'. A related demon reared its ugly head way back in the Renaissance, when many people thought that the culture of writing was threatened by printing. Printed books could also be read, and by far more people, so it was impossible to shut one's eyes to the development. But for a long time, a printed work wasn't considered a proper book, merely a surrogate.

There was obviously a percentage of writers who got nowhere with the material I'd sold them. These inflicted a considerable amount of damage on my business, too. They had to blame someone, and now at last they'd found a scapegoat.