So step 3 (after step 1 and step 2), was to arrange an interview. Easy peasy. Step 4: do the interview, step 5: write about it. Both step 4 and 5 should be pretty straight forward too, but… here is what I ended up writing. It’s been translated from Norwegian (by me), except I’ve left off the first paragraph because it was just a condensed version of step 2, and a summary of how we arranged to meet, when and where.
“Times passes, and the morning of the interview arrives. After several days of sunshine and sparkly autumn colours, it is raining as I walk with my butterflies to the interview. A few clouds I won’t complain about -they match the atmosphere in the dim foyer of the National Theatre, where we arranged to meet. Harstad and I sit down there, at a small, round marble-topped table. It’s not ideal; the walls throw our voices back at us, the doors open and shut noisily and there are no drinks available (I’m thinking coffee); but it doesn’t matter, as soon as the conversation gets going we could have been anywhere.
The theme was supposed to be icons, and we start with the most obvious: Buzz Aldrin. Second mann on the moon is now in a Louis Vuitton ad, and Harstad talks about his own idolization of Buzz, the disappointment when it turned out he wasn’t the anonymous number two he had initially thought. The experience is similar to Mattias’, the main character of Harstad’s first novel, and I guess that’s no surprise. When I ask how much and how many of his stories are autobiographical Harstad gets shy or secretive, I can’t quite read his crooked smile, but he answers that that is something he would prefer not to be known. And anyway – couldn’t we argue that everything in his books is in some way autobiographical? The words and thoughts are his, after all? Well, that’s exactly it, I object: often the words are not. He cuts and pastes from here and there, and in those cases, I say, I get the feeling that he has applied the scissors to specific works/specific people precisely because this or that paragraph does mean something. To himself. What about that quote by Churchill, for example? “The era of procrastination, of half-measures, of soothing and baffling expedients, of delays, is coming to a close. In its place we are entering a period of consequences.” Yep, replies Harstad, that’s why he writes what he does. It’s like therapy, treatment of PTSD; I’m surprised it’s that serious, but understand when he explains: “I was born into the war between Iran and Iraq, I started school after Santa Ana and San Salvador fell, I had my first kiss to the sound of Milosevic speaking to the crowds in Kosovo, I finished primary school and Bush invaded Iraq.”
Or… no. That’s too serious for a Wednesday morning. Instead I arrive a bit early, the sun is shining and I sit on the steps of the theatre to wait. I’ve got music on the brain and in my ears, and when Harstad arrives I don’t see him until he asks “What are you listening to?” Thus he’s the one to ask the first question, the truth is The Cure but I answer The Cardigans, and the conversation is instantly underway. Harstad likes The Cardigans, for real, he often uses their songs when he’s dj LACKTR for his friends and at book launches, but his favourite band is The Police. And favourite author? Hm… Gunilla Bergström? He laughs, the books about Albert Åberg were not his favourite when he was little (strangely enough, since he’s used the main character in his own books later); he didn’t like the illustrations and thought the dad was scary. I wonder whether that’s why the dad is portrayed as such a loser in his own books, but instead ask why he made Albert’s mum be called Emma. There are so many things I want to know about the characters, about why and what and what they would have done in this and that situation – we gossip away as if they were all old friends; Albert, Mattias, Leni, Victor, Sarah, Milla. When I mention Milla there’s no reply. Harstad might, might not, have had a friend who committed suicide on the same day as her.
There are many different versions of this interview. What they have in common is that they only take place in my head. Harstad didn’t show up. First I figured there must have been some misunderstanding, maybe I was in the wrong place, at the wrong time, on the wrong day. But no. Then I tried to give him the benefit of the doubt – he had been to a booklaunch in France, and though he reckoned he’d be back in time something might have happened. I waited for two hours, in the end I was tired, pissed off, a bit sad and disappointed – and that’s when I felt the first inkling of paranoia. Was it something I said? Had I scared him off? Could he, heaven forbid, have read the Letter, and put two and two together? The Letter I wrote in March, after a night of no sleep caused by his book Hässelby, where I (a tad exaggeratedly) thanked him for a super book and somewhat unsubtly begged him to teach me to write? Perhaps it was interpreted as slightly more fanatical than I remembered it? Could he have changed his phonenumber and email address, moved houses, skipped the country, because of that? Don’t be silly, said rational-Hanne to herself – being called a hero, a literary god, a beacon of wordly light isn’t that bad. And anyway, I’m sure he would’ve been polite enough to let you know he would be taking out a restraining order against you.
In fact, it is probably more likely that he’s had some sort of brain-attack and ended up at a psychiatric hospital on the Fareo Islands. Or that he was suddenly invited to go to Graceland, or given an offer he couldn’t refuse in Hong Kong. My speculations are based on the only source I have; his books. It is also from them in them that I come across the most chilling alternative: deconstruction. When I once again mail him, and this time get an “Undeliverable: return to sender” in reply, I almost call his agents. But I don’t. I’m afraid of their answer, what if they say that he’s vanished, that his apartment is empty as well, that there is almost nothing left there. The furniture as good as gone. Most of the clothes. Plates, glasses, pans. Everything on the sink in the bathroom, the books, everything packed into grey boxes on the floor. Even the wallpaper has been removed.
The only thing I’m left with then, is a pile of questions. And a packet of Lucky Strike.”
——–
So, um, yeah… you should read his books, when they’re translated into English! (It will also make this make more sense.)
with Tonje and Henrik, and though we were both quite tired (after a day of doing almost nothing) it was AWESOME. The songs were wonderful (“well, of course”), and the Kings themselves were way funnier than I expected! There was even dancing and crowdsurfing. And out of tune whistling! Lovely.
