(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
- I'm looking for silence in a big city. It's a paradox when I come from the country. Actually, I was going to move out of town to write a novel.
The author Bjørn Skogmo looks at me through a large and freshly cut beard. He has settled in Oslo and is currently publishing his second short prose book: "Under attitude".
- I did not know what short prose was, until I contacted the publisher, says Skogmo.
- I tried to write poetry for many years, before I met Jon Michelet, who suggested that I might try to write prose.
Haste
There is no little man sitting on the other side of the coffee table. With his big hands, his tall figure and the sleeves of the denim jacket folded, I am reminded once again that the man was born and raised in the country's largest forest nutrition municipality, Ringerike. But Bjørn Skogmo is concerned with completely different things.
- In contrast to the novel, the prose text can stop along four lines. While the prose text may continue long after it is finished, the novel has a goal.
Skogmo shows me a page from his latest book, which consists of no more than a few lines. The rest of the page is white.
- The text is minimal, you just have to trust that it is a story there. A short prose text can be based on a newspaper notice or a news release.
- So then it will be short prose?
- Yes, it will probably be a sales product of my time. We have these ultra-modern coffee shops. Business people stress to and from. They have a dusty Hamsun and a pile of interior magazines on the bedside table. Everyone is so busy. They do not have time to read. But my books consist of small short stories that can be read standing on the tram on the way to work. I may have made books specially designed for stressed business people?
old Radicals
It shakes his beard when Bjørn chuckles. With big, but well-groomed hands – a little too well-groomed for a big bear from the woods, I think, he lights a Prince. Arms and legs move incessantly. He changes sitting position again. But all this takes place in calm movements.
- Communication became important to me. I grew up in Ringerike, and I remember that it was very important for me to get a moped, and then a car when the time was right. Moving to increase its radius became important. A hike to Paris in 1969 would turn out to open unknown and important doors. I was 21 at the time, and then I was very young to travel on such a long trip. But today it is old. The young people have traveled the world before they are 21 years old today, he says.
Bjørn Skogmo was born at Ringerike in 1948 and describes himself as a bit reluctant as old radicals. He has been a factory worker at Norske Skog and freight forwarder at SAS. In 1970-72 he was an apprentice in Drammensavisen Fremtiden, and in 1980-82 he studied as a journalist in Oslo. Then he got a job in the trade journal Work Environment and later in other trade journals and organizational magazines. In 1998, he had his last permanent job.
Bjørn Skogmo has been visible in the literary environment through, among other things, prose texts in journals such as Vinduet, Samtiden, Bonniers Litteräre Magasin, Vagant and others.
dirty Realism
- Your books are classified within the genre "dirty realism". This is a genre even well-read librarians do not know…
- Yes, yes. That's right. But in a way, I would say that dirty realism is not a new phenomenon. Authors have written such books before, but it is perhaps only recently that we describe these as dirty realism. In dirty realism in Norway, the village is important. The authors often come from the village, as we all more or less do. They describe this reality, but then they have often moved from the village to the city, as I have done.
- I have found a statement from the film director Karin Julsrud, who has said that dirty realism describes a reality we do not want to see…
- Yes, or even a reality we do not see. It freezes the moment.
Bjorn spins the small coffee cup with his big hands around his asshole.
- You know Sirius – I think it's the star closest to Earth. An English engineer discovered that it was moving, after they had invented binoculars that made it possible to observe this. It turned out that there was a huge star behind Sirius. This was then called Sirius B.
Bjørn Skogmo smiles.
- So we see what has the strongest light, or strongest focus. We are preoccupied with strange things that spring up and overshadow our reality – entertainment. I'm a little concerned about this. I do not want more entertainment. I have tried to break this word, so to speak. By dividing this word in two, in the title of the book – "Under attitude" – I have destroyed it.
Fairytale
Bjørn scratches his forehead, moves his hands over to the Princepack and lights a new cigarette. I talk about my attempts to analyze what the author may have meant by his title, and the conversation slides far beyond what was supposed to be the framework for this interview.
- What inspires you?
Skogmo mentions Asbjørnsen and Moe and that his roots come from a place with a long fairytale tradition. The oral traditions have meant a lot, he emphasizes. That with trolls, dark spruce forests, superstitions and mysteries. The magic – and Saturday children's class. This is surprising. Here is a man who has published two books on human emptiness, anxiety and sorrow. About fates who smoke rolling, drink alcohol and are big consumers of television. They do not read books, are social clients and have just been told that their boyfriend is over. In short, a dirty realist inspired by the Norwegian folk tales and Saturday children's class. How does this work?
- There is a lot of misery in the fairy tales. Here we find gray living rooms, scary figures and poverty. The fairy tales tell about events, about external things. The action is dramatic. The folk tales are also about the big world, getting out, and right here it is exactly like dirty realism. At least as it appears in my texts.
- And the Saturday children's class?
- Yes, you say something. It's harder. Ha, ha, ha! But what the Saturday children's class was very good at, was this with entertainment and knowledge. With it I discovered that the world is much bigger. It's this fairytale mindset. The Saturday children's class made me aware that adventure is about a bigger world – getting going, that too, says Bjørn Skogmo.
It is perhaps here that the Norwegian adventures, the dirty realism and the Saturday children's lesson have a common audience. Namely, everyone who wants to get away, those who want to discover that the world is much bigger than they thought. Bjørn Skogmo who comes from a small place in Norway, and something about us all coming from a small place. And someone wants out.
