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Here it may seem as if the editor has chosen the victim’s story, rather than the author’s. The novel “I grew up almost like it was mine” is a very good novel.
You will survive. But this may be a serious scratch in the paint for an editor who reveled in the glow of free speech when he published Karl Ove Knausgård’s Min Kamp.
On Thursday, the Swedish Academy awarded this year’s literary Nobel Prize to American poet Louise Glück.
As usual, a short justification is included. His poetic voice is praised, but then an interesting line arrives. The academy writes that Louise Glück makes “the existence of every human being universal.”
That’s basically what writers do. They use their lives and the lives of others to write about how tremendously complex, hilarious, horrible and wonderful we humans can be. A realization captured in the old quote “I am a human being, nothing human is unknown to me” (Tirentius).
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The reality debate was based on principles
That understanding has become a very minor pain in the ongoing debate about the literature of reality. Just think of Vigdis Hjort. Not to mention seasoned authors like Karl Ove Knausgård and Thomas Espedal. In both cases, they met with self-acknowledging readers who threatened to go to court.
In this debate about reality, Norwegian editors and lawyers have been principled. A novel is a novel.
Oktober Publishing now believes that the author has broken with the trust that a publisher should have in its authors and that they therefore have the full right to break the contract. – We should know, they say, – that the subject of the novel overlaps with the content of the verdict against its author.
A publisher is legally responsible for their posts and needs to know if there may be serious accusations of plagiarism or false descriptions of people.
Should have been open
In the name of hindsight, Per-Marius Weidner-Olsen should have been open about his own story. This would give the editor a chance to prepare for the reactions.
But having said that:
Experienced editors know very well what traps an author can end up in.
They are used to readers recognizing themselves. Readers who sometimes take novels to court too, because their own lives unfold horribly in a text.
But art freedom is wide in Norway, and it has been a long time since an author and publisher were convicted for their fictional publications.
What questions did the editor ask?
Per-Marius Weidner-Olsen submitted his manuscript to one of the best fiction publishers in Norway.
According to Weidner-Olsen, he was quickly summoned to a meeting with a clearly enthusiastic editor.
So what questions did they ask the rookie? Was he asked if anyone could recognize him in his novel? Did they ask you if there were things in your life that the editor should know about?
Mute the not These questions, it is no wonder that a newcomer writer with ambitions has refused to tell a past of which he is certainly not very proud.
In asking the questions, one must ask whether an ex-convict is obligated to report to his editor about a crime he has long served.
Bad and complex novel
It is easy to understand that the victim in the case against Weidner-Olsen reads his novel in a different way than the rest of us.
He experiences that the novel leaves the victim partly to blame for the abuses committed against her. For her, it’s a double assault.
But such reading does not necessarily make Weidner-Olsen’s novel worse. On the other hand, it makes it worse and more complex.
In the same way that when Aftenposten was able to say that Vigdis Hjort’s description of a father’s funeral in the novel Arv og Miljø was a true copy of his own father’s funeral. In a novel where the same father is accused of being the abuser of his daughter.
A few novels have a great human cost. Some feel too good again. As the ex-wife of October editor Geir Gulliksen. She experienced that her novel Story of a Marriage delivered it. In Morgenbladet, Gulliksen replied: … the attempt to uncover true facts behind novels is speculative and revealing in a way that fiction almost never is. “
Geir Gulliksen believes first of all in good fiction, not in how novels arise.
The certificate of good conduct must not accompany the author.
The publisher has a great responsibility to their authors, and the rule is that an editor supports their authors through thick and thin.
Sometimes publishers have to weather the storm.
Unless there is information that the publisher is keeping hidden from us, it may at least appear that Oktober’s post has failed Weidner-Olsen. Both when they started working with it, and when they finish it now.
If you read it in a slightly malicious way, it may appear that the publisher is rejecting this author’s right to use his own miserable experiences to write a novel.
One may think what one wants from an abuser who has abused his position, but has received his sentence and has served his sentence.
It is a good principle of Norwegian justice.
And it should also be a good principle that it should not accompany a certificate of good conduct with an author.
