(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
[case prose] After the debate at the Literature House just over a week ago, one might think that it was unnecessary to say more about the season's cultural talk, ie Dagbladet's award for the most influential Norwegian post-war prose. The summer browns in the hall, with panelists Andreas Hompeland, Karianne Bjellås Gilje, Henrik Thue, Jan Arild Snoen and Einar Lie in the lead, also got to talk empty this Thursday evening.
But when we go home, figuratively speaking, Knut Olav Åmås publishes Norway. A diagnosis, a book that collects snapshots and future prospects, written by a total of ten such talkers as, for example, Civita boss Kristin Clemet and Blitz veteran Stein Lillevolden. With his always well-developed sense of timing, Aftenposten's debate editor has thus delivered an input according to the "show, do not tell" method, and that to one of the few unresolved topics in the debate at Litteraturhuset: What does it really take for does non-fiction gain real influence?
The will to power
I Norway. A diagnosis is the implicit answer that the critical and the technocratic cultures of knowledge should approach each other. Or to put it another way: the intellectual must play the game of power. And the practical politician should think bigger thoughts. This tone in the book is undoubtedly connected with Åmås' commitment to improving the functioning of the public, but it is also relevant in relation to the debate on Dagbladet's election, where precisely the lack of practical-political texts among the 25 selected was pointed out, and where the question of what that is, a non-fiction book changing society remains unanswered.
If one is to believe Åmås' preface, the intention is to discuss the country's development over the next ten years: «Yes, what kind of Norway do we really envision today? … How can we get there – what measures and changes, what policy and way of thinking does this require of Norwegian society? » he asks. That Norway. A diagnosis not always living up to the ambition of combining thought weave with a will to influence may show how difficult it is to find texts with these qualities. Børge Brende, for example, writes so flatly that one suspects him of not having given up hope for a few more years in a Cabinet seat, while Lillevolden hardly wins in political circles for his impressive but steadfast counter-perspectives this time either. Janne Haaland Matlarys, for her part, attempts to analyze school politics in light of the Norwegian fear of elitism, and with references to both the PISA surveys and Plato's dialogues, she may be approaching the ideal of the power-hungry academic.
That said, she has a significantly poorer score than Martin E. Sandbu, who probably contributes to the book's most important post. Not only does "Peer Gynt og rennistist" open with a fictitious report from a corrupt and hard-core Norwegian oil community in Equatorial Guinea in ten years, warning us of the obvious dangers of the internationalization of the Norwegian oil industry. The article also points out how a swollen state money bag may undermine democracy in Norway. When the state becomes independent of tax revenue, it weaken the social contract between government and citizens.
The national myths
The gap in Åmås' book is partly large, but the majority of the texts dance around a few common points: UNDP's annual overview of human development, which for six years until 2007 had Norway at the top, Gro Harlem Brundtland's famous statement that it is typically Norwegian to be good, and creative suggestions for how the oil wealth should be used.
In this way, Norway's self-reliance is at the center of many of the discussions. Nina Dessau, Gabi Gleichmann, Arne Ruth and Sara Azmeh Rasmussen see the Norwegian mythologies of the border zone as they write about the environment, the alternation between self-glorification and self-whipping, Norwegian extraction and the role of religion. Lillevolden, for his part, writes that "the defense of the Norwegian nation-state has been developed into a left-wing project, while international solidarity has only become an ornate ideological sub-chapter to distinguish itself from the more unpleasant nationalism".
Thus pointing Norway. A diagnosis also against a new topic in the debate on the important case prose, which was hardly mentioned in the commentary around Dagbladet's award: Is it not as a reflection on Norway's place in the world, and the world's place in Norway, that prose has one of its most important tasks today?
If so, this book represents a beginning. At times it is also very good.
Reviewed book:
Knut Olav Åmås (ed.)
Norway. A diagnosis
Schibsted (2008)
266 pages
