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A news page for Abovoenterprises. Quotes from this page may be used freely with reference to the source. If you wish to speak your own piece on this page, you're welcome to us (in english) with your comments in a signed attachment. 150305 I’m very pleased to have seen that I was utterly mistaken about Anne Oterholm, the new chair woman of the Norwegian Authors’ Asscn. (Den norske Forfatterforening.) Anne Oterholm is as far from a power seeking slint of any old polit bureau as one can get, that description applies to someone else entirely. So much for mixing up names. I wish more authors dared having a stronger personal profile, that they were less humble so that their names stick both to their appearance and their way of turning out a message in an assembly. And I wish Anne Oterholm all the guts she needs both for profiling her fighting spirit, clear views and her sympathetic character. That lady is a stayer. Mona Lyngar 100305 The Norwegian Authors Association (Den norske Forfatterforening) arranges their general assembly this week-end. They were recently criticized for awarding grants to the same authors over and over, leaving lots of members to their own means. This recurring issue is a plague on most of our meetings. Why, don’t the members trust those they elect to the deciding Literary Board? One new best selling member, I’m sad to hear, Unni Lindell, is also murmuring of her reluctance to share her book-club earnings with fellow low income authors. The Association has a solidarity fund from which one can apply for economical support. This fund is founded on a fraction of authors’ book-club earnings. Oh yes. It must be terrible to renounce 3% of your earnings to colleagues in need, instead of leaving it to the book-club – which seems to be the alternative. Solidarity and compassion are of no interest to some until they need it themselves. All visual art sales are taxed with 3% to a similar fund. I’ve never met a painter og sculptor who complained about this. Rather the opposite, they are happy to contribute. Why don’t complaining authors turn their discontent to the more blatant squandering of the money their writing accumulates, garden parties and publishing director’s weekly dinners, the flooding of alcohol into thereby complying guests, not to mention coctail parties that make their publishers a laughing stock abroad, like investments in Airbus aeroplanes and private villas? To take a cue on Der Spiegel’s term Schwarzdruck, is gibberish. We all now know how cheating never happens in the State of Norway, where nothing ever is rotten, but honest, clean and just. Mona Lyngar 090305 No news are said to be good news. I heartily disagree. Some news don’t reach the headlines because they’d harm local or international trade, diplomatic relations, or the reputation of much admired persons. That’s no news. This not being so hereabouts, we are as of to-day happy to congratulate the fine author Britt Karin Larsen with the women’s day nomination as one of the most powerful women in our county. She is speaking up for an oppressed minority, fighting for their recognition. The fact is that some of the Romani people has been treated no better in Norway than they were treated in Hitler’s Germany. The same goes for the mentally ill and the retarded. These facts are spoken of and quickly forgotten. Like women’s rights, a vulnerable issue, still so young. Mona Lyngar 080305 Making a fool of oneself is risky. Others often feel they are the target. So much for preoccupations. Perhaps it’s less timeconsuming to make a fool of someone else. This someone will immediately reciprocate. Then one’s spared the effort of stealing a march on him. Mona Lyngar 070305 Talking of respect for privacy, the theologist Solveig Oestrem was exquisitely disloyal to her former friend, the author Hanne Oerstadvik. Publishing her disgust for the author’s alleged use of their friendship in her novels, was no more ethical than a breach of confidence from an author. It goes without saying that any accusation flaunted, will collaps in the accusers face once the wind turns. It always turns, at some point. And no, Esmeralda*, I wouldn’t dream of revealing that nasty episode you never forget. The journalist who raped you will remain at loose. Nobody would beleive it anyway, and if presented in a novel from these parts, well – rest assured that it would have been read as nothing but a mediochre self portrait. So really, nor Per, Paal or Espen** have it coming to them. Neither had you, whatever the lore. Have a peaceful Monday. Mona Lyngar * Esmeralda is a fictionous name. **Per, Paal and Espen are characters from Norwegian fairy tales. 040305 The news are trying. Our time is quickly up for empathy. There are chores and business to attend to, sips of wine with friends and talking parrots to enjoy. The Brits, Danes and the Ams are surely not going to execute atrocities again, no more than the UN soldiers will, or those opposed. Germans don’t. Norwegians never did. Not for long. See? The people next door couldn’t have. Really. I never. You neither. None of it happens here. Not now. If so, blame the temptations of power, of beauty, and childrens’ innoncense. Send the invoice to poverty. Let it pay. Fear not. Mind not. Talk to the parrots. They won’t mention it when you’re trying too. Mona Lyngar *The barrister Tor Erling Staff once put forward that it might be a pleasure for children to be used by grown-ups. Perhaps this commendation was an advertisment to get more clients to defend. Isn’t Staff well enough off, or was he simply not well? *Talking of the UN soldiers’ behaviour in Africa, Kofi Annan’s face expressed more than words ever could. I admire that man. 030305 Marianne Hamsun, Knut Hamsun’s daughter in law, lamented the Norwegian trait of degrading all who raise above mediocrity. Using the word mediocre is my choice. Mrs. Hamsun was far more diplomatic and kind. The latest Norwegian Hamsun biography drops brick after brick on private family matters which no one but the long gone participants can know for a fact, far less interpret correctly. Some of Knut Hamsuns living relations are struck as well. But pooh! to their feelings, as well as to anyone’s personal integrity – living or dead. Common decency doesn’t exist for some writers when they are at a loss for ideas. By all means, apart from a few linguistic blunders, those biographic tomes make a good read for anyone wanting to dive with Ingar Sletten Kolloen into the knickers of fame. Having nourished on the name of a genius, though, any biographer may next churn out a mediocre novel and get it praised as a masterpiece. Gyldendal knows. Mona Lyngar 020305 The author Anne Oterholm is aghast in Dagbladet. Last week she bitterly vented her imminent resignation as second in command of the Norwegian Authors’ Asscn. Members of the election board don’t wish her to gain more power as their new chair woman. Might that be due to Oterholm appearing as a slip from an outdated politbureau? Personally I distrust anyone coveting power, even though the secret agenda is to enhance sales. Being chair woman of the Authors asscn. might tease the tills. Whimpering won’t. Mona Lyngar 010305 The tsunami catastrophy hit us. Some Norwegian journalists challenged authors to, as artists, address the news readers. We were supposed to be of comfort to the readers. I presume the paper people found difficulties phrasing everyone’s anguish and awe. Most articles, poems or comments remain unpublished after having reached the news desks, while their ideas and mode of expression, find their way into the columns anyway. OK by me if the cause is good. But the safe and well fed Norwegian who into the bargain possesses funds to buy a daily paper, needs comfort least of all. To nourish a market for tragedy by making people sorry for being lucky, is a business ‘newsters’ thrive on without artistic aid. Really, spending time with a homeless person, we have a lot of them in Norway too, seems far more important than writing an article about the catastrophy of being homeless. Mona Lyngar
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