The Ringmaster's Daughter

slabs of dark chocolate. If visitors came in the morning,

  they'd have tea and fresh rolls with vegetable mayonnaise,

  and if it was an extra special occasion, they'd buy French

  sticks and make great open sandwiches with roast beef,

  prawn salad, ham and liver p?t?.

  My mother assumed I listened to Children's Hour because I

  thought it was fun. She didn't realise I was sitting there

  wrapped in my own thoughts. She didn't realise that

  I was sitting on the pouffe working out how Children's

  Hour might be vastly improved. If radio was claiming the

  attention of every Norwegian child for a whole hour each

  week, I thought the quality of the programme should be

  impeccable. I put together an entire raft of good programme

  ideas - with everything from listener competitions, jokes

  and ghost stories to sketches, animal tales, real-life stories,

  fairy tales and radio plays, all of which I'd written myself. I

  timed each piece and always kept within the sixty minutes.

  It was instructive. An impressive amount could be slotted

  into sixty minutes - it merely required an iota of critical

  faculty. That's something I've always possessed, but un-

  fortunately the same couldn't be said of Lauritz Johnson.

  Even a man of Alf Proysen's stature ought to have asked

  himself how many times we'd want to hear that he'd put a

  two-ore bit in his piggy-bank. Walt Disney had a critical

  faculty, he was divine, he had created his own universe. In

  fact, Walt Disney and I had several things in common. In the

  days before he'd created his own Disneyland, he had also

  been inspired by the Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen. I

  worked out several great Donald Duck stories, intending to

  send them to Walt Disney, but I never got round to it.

  I didn't send in my suggestions to the Norwegian Broad-

  casting Corporation, either. If I had, they would certainly

  have acted on them, but I didn't want to listen to an entire

  Children's Hour that I'd already worked out in my head. And

  so I kept all my sprightly ideas to myself. Not everyone is so

  restrained as that, as splendidly exemplified by the develop-

  ment of television.

  When Norwegian television made its first official broadcast

  in 1960, I was visiting a neighbour and heard the Prime

  Minister's inaugural speech. Prime Minister Einar Gerhard-

  sen pointed out that many people understandably feared

  that television would become a distracting intrusion into

  childhood and family life. They were worried, he said, that

  watching television would adversely affect children's home-

  work and recreational activities in the fresh air and sunshine.

  'The development of television will probably be similar to

  that of radio,' the Prime Minister declared. 'When some-

  thing is new it's natural that people want to get as much of it

  as they can.' But Einar Gerhardsen thought this would right

  itself. Gradually we would learn to be choosy. 'We must get

  better at selecting things with special value,' he said, 'we

  must learn to switch off the programmes that don't interest

  us. Only then will television become really useful and en-

  joyable.' Gerhardsen hoped that television would become

  another tool for teaching and general education, and a

  further channel for disseminating knowledge throughout

  the country. He expected television to be a key to new

  values of heart and mind, and he emphasised that there

  ought to be strict quality controls on programmes for

  children and young people.

  Einar Gerhardsen was an inveterate optimist. He was also

  a good man who fortunately never lived long enough to see

  how television as a medium degenerated. If Einar Gerhard-

  sen had been alive today, he would have been able to flick

  his way through a rich flora of soap operas and fly-on-the-

  wall documentaries on a host of different channels. He

  would have witnessed just how keenly television companies

  compete for quality, especially as regards programmes

  watched by children and young people. He would have

  seen how clever we've become at selecting what is of special

  value.

  I'd actually invited myself over to a neighbour who'd

  bought a television set. I wasn't shy about inviting myself -

  I was eight, after all. The summer holidays had just ended,

  and I was now in the Second Form. This new medium was

  something I had to be in on from the start.

  This neighbour hadn't any children, that was what was so

  good about it, and I don't think he had a wife, either - at

  least I'd never seen him with a woman ? but he did have a

  big Labrador called Waldemar. I made sure I got there early

  enough to play with Waldemar a bit before the first, official

  television broadcast began. My neighbour appreciated this. I

  asked if he thought dogs could think, and he was quite sure

  they could. He explained that he could tell by Waldemar's

  eyes if he was dreaming or if he was just asleep. He could

  read this from his tail as well. 'In that case, he only dreams

  about bones or dog biscuits,' I interjected, 'and maybe

  bitches as well, but I don't think a dog can dream a whole

  play. Dogs can't talk,' I pointed out, 'so I don't think they

  can have very strange dreams.' My neighbour believed

  Waldemar could clearly signal when he was hungry or

  when he wanted to relieve himself, nor was it hard to see

  when he was happy or sad or frightened. 'But he can't tell

  fairy tales,' I insisted. 'There isn't enough imagination in his

  head for it to overflow, and that's why he can't cry either.'

  My neighbour agreed with me there. He said he had to

  make sure he took Waldemar out for a walk so that he didn't

  pee on the living-room floor, but luckily he didn't have to

  worry that Waldemar might suddenly build a puppet theatre

  out of sofa cushions or start drawing Donald Duck cartoons

  on the walls. 'Dogs aren't as communicative as us,' he said,

  'perhaps that's what you mean.' And that was exactly what I

  meant. I said: 'Even so, they may be just as happy.'

  We weren't able to say more because now it was Einar

  Gerhardsen's turn. My neighbour and I shared a moment of

  national celebration. Waldemar padded out into the kitchen

  and occupied himself with something quite different.

  The new medium had soon become a huge challenge.

  Within a year I'd managed to persuade my mother to buy a

  television set, and soon I was bubbling over with ideas for

  programmes. I didn't send any of them in, but I was

  constantly phoning up the television service telling them

  what I thought.

  One of the programme ideas I'd come up with was to put

  ten people into an empty house. They were to be isolated

  from the outside world and not allowed to leave before they

  had created something totally new. It had to be something

  of lasting significance for people the world over. It might,

  for example, be a new and better declaration of human

  rights, or the world's most beautiful
fairy tale, or a pro-

  duction of the world's funniest play. The participants were

  to have plenty of time - I think I reckoned on one hundred

  days. That's a long time. That's more than enough time.

  And when there are ten of you to fill the hundred days, it's

  really a thousand days, in fact almost three years. If the will is

  there, ten people can do quite a lot in a hundred days. One

  prerequisite was that the participants had to learn to work

  together. Each time they had anything important to

  announce to humanity, they could ring up TV head-

  quarters, and one of the well-known presenters would go

  to the house with a camera crew to hear what they were

  suggesting that was so important for mankind. At the time it

  wasn't normal to use twenty or thirty different cameras to

  make an entertainment programme. There weren't that

  many cameras in the whole of the television service - it

  was before we Norwegians had discovered North Sea oil.

  You were also supposed to have something to say before

  you appeared in front of a television camera. Not everyone

  did, but it was at least regarded as desirable. Even in those

  days there were programmes featuring meaningless gather-

  ings of people, and we were served up things like the annual

  school graduation trips to Copenhagen, but it would have

  been unthinkable to film a gathering or graduation trip

  that lasted a hundred days. It was a different age, a different

  culture, and perhaps even something as remote as a different

  civilisation. I don't say this in my own defence, but today's

  television culture was beyond the bounds of my conception.

  Soon I had a whole notebook full of good programme

  suggestions, but the idea that it would become possible to set

  new viewing records by making a television series hundreds

  of hours long about a gang of giggling girls and itchy-

  fingered youths, surpassed my wildest fantasy. It's unlikely

  that Caesar or Napoleon had sufficient imagination to

  envisage atomic weapons or cluster bombs, either. It can

  be wiser to leave certain notions for the future. There's no

  intrinsic merit in using up all the bright ideas at once.

  *

  I was much alone during my teenage years too. The older I

  got, the more alone I became, but I loved it. I enjoyed

  sitting on my own, thinking. Gradually, as I grew up, I

  concentrated more and more on working out various plots

  for books, films and the theatre.

  As a legacy from my childhood and youth, I had notes for

  hundreds of stories. They were rough drafts of everything

  from fairy tales, novels and short stories to theatre and film

  scripts. I never made any attempt to flesh the material out, I

  don't think the thought ever occurred to me. How could

  I possibly choose which novel I should begin to write when

  I had a whole pile of narratives to select from?

  I was incapable of writing a novel in any event, I've

  always been too restless for that. While thinking and making

  notes my inspiration was of such intensity that my own

  chain of thought was constantly being interrupted as new

  ideas presented themselves, often much better ones than

  those I'd been working on in the first place. Novelists have a

  special talent for slogging away at the same story for long

  periods, often for several years. For me this is too inactive,

  too distracted and preoccupied.

  Even if I'd mastered the mental inertia for writing a

  novel, I wouldn't have bothered to do it. I should have

  lacked the motivation to write the book once the idea had

  been born and had taken its place in notebook or ring-

  binder. The most important thing for me was to gather and

  earmark the greatest number of ideas, or what I later called

  subjects and synopses. Perhaps I may be compared to a

  hunter who loves hunting rare game, but who doesn't

  necessarily want to take part in cutting up and cooking the

  carcase, and subsequently, eating the meat. He could be a

  vegetarian. There's no contradiction in being a crack shot

  and a vegetarian at the same time - for dietary reasons, for

  instance. Similarly, there are many sports fishermen who

  don't like fish. But they still spend hours casting their lines

  and if they get a big fish, immediately give it away to friends

  or some chance passer-by. The most elite sports fishermen

  go one step further: they cast off and reel the fish in, only to

  return it to the water moments later. Good God, you don't

  stand there fishing all day just to save a little money on the

  housekeeping! The whole point of this august catch-and-

  release fishing is that the consumer, or utility, element is

  completely absent. One fishes because it's a balm. Fishing is

  a game of finesse, a noble art. This analogy puts me in mind

  of Ernst J?nger who wrote in one of his wartime diaries that

  one shouldn't grieve over a thought that gets away. It's like a

  fish that gets off the hook and swims down into the depths

  again, only to return one day even bigger ... If, on the

  other hand, one lands the fish, guts it and chucks it into a

  plastic bucket, any further development of the fish has

  clearly been curtailed. Precisely the same can be said of the

  idea behind a novel once it is written out and set in more or

  less successful aspic, or even published. Perhaps the world of

  culture is characterised by too much catch and too little

  release.

  There's another reason why I never wanted to write a novel,

  or start 'writing', as people often say. I considered it far too

  affected. Ever since I was a boy, I've been as scared of being

  affected as I was that my father might begin expressing

  gooey sentiments in that tunnel of love. If there was one

  thing I really hated as a child, it was being patted on the head

  or chucked under the chin. I found it unnatural, I didn't

  know how to respond to such advances.

  This doesn't mean that I consider affectation a bad

  characteristic - not a bit of it ? I love affected people, they

  have always amused me immensely. The vain are only

  eclipsed in my estimation by pure poseurs or those who are

  in love with themselves. Such people are even more fun to

  observe than the ones who are only moderately self-centred.

  I've always been able to pick out the most inflated characters

  in a crowded room. They are easy to observe, it's not hard

  to notice the peacock once its fan is spread. I find it more

  amusing to talk to the slightly vainglorious than to con-

  verse with people whose inflated egos are partly or wholly

  concealed by a cultivated interest in others. The vain

  always do their utmost to be as funny and entertaining as

  possible. They aren't lazy. They usually pull out all the

  stops.

  Unfortunately, I'm congenitally bereft of vanity myself. It

  must be dull for the people about me, but it's something I've

  had to learn to live with. I would never have permitted

  myself to pull ou
t all the stops. This is doubtless a mean

  attitude to life, I admit as much, but I've never allowed

  myself to dance to another's tune. I'm not denying I'm

  clever, but I couldn't have stood the thought of someone

  telling me so.

  I would never have managed to do anything as pretentious

  as write, publish and present some novel or collection of

  short stories, thereafter to clamber up on to a pedestal and

  take my applause. And another thing: writing novels has

  become all too commonplace. Only the naive write novels.

  One day it will be as common to write novels as it once was

  to read them.

  Watching Limelight with my mother really brought home

  to me the brevity of life. I realised that in a little while I

  would die and leave everything behind. Unlike vain people,

  I had the ability to think this thought right through. I had no

  difficulty in picturing full theatres and cinemas long after I

  myself was gone. Not everyone can do that. Many are so

  intoxicated with sensual impressions that they're not able to

  grasp that there's a world out there. And therefore they're

  not able to comprehend the opposite either ? they don't

  understand that one day the world will end. We, however,

  are only a few missing heartbeats away from being divorced

  from humanity for ever.

  I've never tried to embellish what I am by showing off to

  others or posing in front of the mirror. I'm only on this

  planet for a brief visit. It's largely because of this that I've

  found it refreshing to talk to vain people.

  Speaking to little children or watching a comedy by

  Holberg or Moliere can have a particularly cleansing effect

  on the mind. In a similar way it's been a benison to meet the

  conceited. They are just as innocent as small children, and it

  is precisely this trust that I've caught myself envying. They

  live as if something can be achieved, as if something is up for

  grabs. But we are dust. So there's no point in making a fuss.

  Or as Mephistopheles says as Faust dies: What matters our

  creative endless toil, when at a snatch oblivion ends the coil.

  *

  My mother died just before Christmas 1970, while I was in

  my Sixth-Form year. Her illness came on quite suddenly. She

  was sick for only a short while, a month at home attending an

  Out Patients' clinic and then a few weeks in hospital.

  My father and mother were completely reconciled in the

  weeks before she died, even before she was admitted to

  hospital. My father told me he'd wrecked my mother's life,

  and she said exactly the same about him, she said she'd

  ruined his life. And so they continued their lamentations and

  reproaches right up to the last. The difference was that they

  no longer blamed each other, now they only blamed

  themselves. The sum total of all this woe added up to

  much the same. It wasn't a matter of any great concern to

  me if my mother and father tortured each other or if they

  merely tortured themselves.

  It was a fine funeral. My father made a long speech about

  what a wonderful person mother had been. He also went

  into what he termed "the great fall from grace' in their lives.

  During recent days they'd managed to find their way back

  to one another, they'd forgiven each other's shortcomings,

  he said. And so they'd managed to fulfil the vow they'd once

  made before the priest. They had had their better days and

  their worse days. But they'd also managed to love one

  another until death parted them.

  There wasn't a shred of dissimulation in my father's

  eulogy, he really did love mother in the weeks before she

  died. To me it had seemed rather late in the day and I felt he

  might have kept away for the few weeks she had left.

  Perhaps he loved her even more in the days immediately

  after her death. He didn't do it just to gain attention.

  The idea was that I should say a few words by her coffin

  too, but I couldn't do it. I was really broken-hearted. I think

  I mourned her more than father, and that was why I

  couldn't say anything, it wasn't the moment for witticisms.

  If I hadn't cared so much about my mother's death, I should

  certainly have made a moving speech. I didn't realise it

  would affect me so deeply. I simply rose from my pew and