cultivated this type of writer-nursing, too. But it must have
been from these quarters that the first rumours of my
activities arose. Presumably it was from the mouths of such
blameless scribes that the term 'The Spider' began to
circulate. This time it had nothing to do with the ancient
piece of amber that my father and I had seen in the
Geological Museum. Twice in my life I've been nicknamed
'The Spider'. So I really must be a spider, after all.
The spider spins everything from itself. Or as the poet
Inger Hagerup puts it: So strange to be a spider with a ball of
yarn inside her spinning all her days. Not all writers do that.
Some are like ants, they get bits from here and bits from
there and subsequently regard what they have meticulously
gathered together as their own. Critics easily fall for the
temptation of believing that nearly all writers belong to
this category. They'll often say of a particular book that
it's 'influenced by', 'takes after' or 'is indebted to' certain
works or trends, current or historical - and this, even when
the author hasn't been anywhere near the books men-
tioned. But critics often assume that all writers are as
educated and bereft of fantasy as they are themselves. The
message seems to be that there are no longer any original
impulses, not in a small country, and certainly not in
Norway. But there was also a third category. The authors
who used Writers' Aid's services were like bees. They came
and drank nectar from The Spider's rose garden and
gathered their raw material, but most took the trouble to
build and work on what they had garnered. They digested
the rose-garden's nectar and turned it into their own
honey.
Certain established writers couldn't abide the idea that I
might be doing the rounds of their fellows, helping other
authors with good bits of literary advice. This was puritan-
ical in my opinion. I've met authors who get worked up
about colleagues taking inspiration from drinking a bottle of
wine, smoking a joint or even going on a trip abroad. The
most unpardonable sin in the eyes of many authors, is that
tyros go on writing courses. Most authors don't admit to
being inspired by anything other than themselves.
During periods of literary renaissance authors apply much
of their intellectual effort to proving that other writers aren't
up to scratch. At the end of the seventies it had begun to get
crowded in the literary corrals of the publishing world, and
once the pen gets full, the beasts begin to bite each other.
When farmers produce too much butter or cereals, they
dump the excess. When writers produce too many manu-
scripts, they begin to dump each other.
Of course, not everything I sold turned into a book, but I
acknowledge my share of the responsibility for the literary
inflation we witnessed in the final quarter of the last century.
The cry went up that too many books were being published
in Norway. So they hired a Danish critic � this too was at
the end of the seventies. The Dane read through every one
of that year's poetry collections and found almost none of
them to be of a reasonable standard. But the problem hasn't
only been the production of too many bad books, but that
there's been a glut of good books, too. We belong to a
word-spawning race. We produce more culture than we are
able to digest.
Over the past few years we've been almost pedantically
engrossed in fighting graffiti in tube stations while at the
same time spending millions building a new National
Library. But the national memory has been spray-painted
as well. Nietzsche compared a person who has over-
indulged in culture with a snake that has swallowed a hare
and lies dozing in the sun, unable to move.
The age of the epigram is past. Under The Quay in
Bergen they discovered a small piece of wood on which
was the runic inscription: Ingebj�rg loved me when I was in
Stavanger. This event must have made quite an impression
on the author, as it does on the reader 800 or 900 years
later. Nowadays, this taciturn scribe would have covered
the memory of future generations with the graffiti of a
400-page novel about his wretched love-tryst with Ingeb-
j�rg. Or he might have tortured his own contemporaries
with catchy pop lyrics like Ingebj�rg was the only girl, she was
the only girl ... The paradox here is that if, during all those
800 years, novels had been written with the same prolixity as
in the 1970s, none of us would have been able to penetrate
the massive literary tradition to get back to that simple,
but charming tale about Ingebj�rg: Ingebj�rg-loved-me-when-
I-was-in-Stavanger. This passionate story is pared to the bone,
but it is still full of conjecture. The reader can guess at things.
The reader has something to build on. You don't build on a
400-page novel.
Writing books had become far too easy, and personal
computers didn't buck the trend. Authors who'd written in
the old way, by hand or on a typewriter, thought that books
written using a PC were second-class literature simply
because the writing process had been made too simple.
These machines were the enemies of literary art, and the
demon in the machine was known as 'electronic word
processing'. A related demon reared its ugly head way back
in the Renaissance, when many people thought that the
culture of writing was threatened by printing. Printed books
could also be read, and by far more people, so it was
impossible to shut one's eyes to the development. But for a
long time, a printed work wasn't considered a proper book,
merely a surrogate.
There was obviously a percentage of writers who got
nowhere with the material I'd sold them. These inflicted a
considerable amount of damage on my business, too. They
had to blame someone, and now at last they'd found a
scapegoat.
It wasn't only beginners who got frustrated when my
synopses didn't make it as a book. Irritation ran high
amongst those who'd previously published a book com-
pletely off their own bat. Publishers did a lot of weeding out
of course, and in the early years I had no influence with
them. The rejection rate has remained steady at ninety-
something per cent. But many a project ran aground before
it got that far. Some of my customers would come back to
undo the deal. This was not merely childish, it was also
expressly contrary to the conditions of sale, but it wasn't a
huge problem. I lost my profit of course, as I couldn't sell
the returned notes to anyone else, but I had little choice.
The customers got their money back. My income was
already substantial and I had to think strategically. I had the
good name of Writers' Aid to consider.
By the very nature of the thing, I couldn't just let my
customers leaf through the material I had for sa
le before they
bought. I couldn't operate a ten-days-on-approval policy.
As soon as I'd allowed a client to read the first page of a
synopsis, it either had to end in a sale, or I had to withdraw
the synopsis from the market. And so, once more, it was
necessary to beat about the bush, and this I thoroughly
enjoyed. I had perfected the art of asking a girl if she'd go to
bed with me, without making her aware of what I was
asking, yet in such a way that she was able to convince me
that, later in the evening, she would. If not, I was the one
who'd break off the tentative process.
Only when I was well established abroad was I able to
permit a German or French writer to buy a synopsis which
I'd let a Norwegian have a go at a few years earlier. On
occasions this caused small conflagrations that I had to go
out and smother, but I was good at putting out fires. Putting
out fires is akin to the act of comforting.
*
An important watershed came early in the eighties when I
realised that I could no longer just take a single payment for
a synopsis which might theoretically end up as a best-seller. I
began negotiating for part of the book's future royalties � for
example, after it sold more than five or ten thousand copies.
I pitched this at a level of between ten and thirty per cent of
the author's royalty, depending on how detailed the synopsis
was and the likely potential it had of becoming a best-seller
in the hands of that writer. This change represented a
considerable financial advance, and it was to turn me into a
wealthy man - but it would also prove treacherous.
While I was negotiating a royalty I always carried a
dictaphone in my jacket pocket. I considered it was in the
best interests of the customer. A verbal agreement is ob-
viously just as binding as a written one; the problem with
verbal agreements is that they depend on both parties
having equally good memories. It is here the dictaphone
has proved indispensable, and there have been times when
I've been forced to refer to it. On a few occasions I've also
had to convince my client of my credentials by indicating
that for many years I'd had a tape recorder wired to my
phone. I was an orderly man - some might even have
One of these frustrated individuals - we'll call him Robert -
visited me once at my flat. He was ten years older than me,
half Flemish, and he'd had his share of problems in the past.
His literary career had had its ups and downs, and at quite a
young age he'd fathered a son who had been slightly brain-
damaged. Obviously, this had placed a strain on his relations
with Wenche, and now she'd taken up with another author.
Wenche and Robert still lived together, but because of their
disabled son their existence together was rather like one of
those old barometers where the man is out when the
woman is in and vice versa. I couldn't tell to what extent
Robert was aware of Wenche's affair with Johannes, but I
knew all the details. The literary establishment was extreme-
ly transparent.
Robert was one of those I'd helped who expected me to
assume more and more responsibility for all aspects of their
lives. Also, his self-image was closely wedded to his literary
merits. Several months earlier we'd been to the Casino and
he'd spent practically the entire evening whining that his
relationship with Wenche had always mirrored his own
literary successes and failures. When he was lucky with a
book, he found favour in the marital bed, but as soon as he
got a bad review he was condemned to bedroom apartheid
at home. I told him Wenche was the one with the problem,
not him.
I didn't cherish such unannounced visits, I'd made that
perfectly plain. I liked to clear away folders and suchlike
before I let anyone through the door - the place could often
be in quite a mess. But Robert was in such a state as he stood
on the landing that I let him in anyway.
'What's the matter, Robert? Got bogged down again?' I
asked before we went into the living-room.
He went right to the heart of the matter. 'I've got a
feeling you're helping other people besides me,' he said.
I saw no reason to deny it. 'OK,' I said. 'Suppose there
are lots of others who come to me. What of it? Aren't you
happy with what you've got?'
I began to think of Jesus' parable of the workers in the
vineyard. Robert was one of the very first I'd helped, and
our terms had been clear. He didn't need to worry himself
about any agreements I'd made with the other workers in
the vineyard.
I sat him down in an armchair and fetched a couple of
bottles of beer. Then I went to the music centre. 'Chopin or
Brahms?' I enquired.
He was silent; he merely inhaled deeply a couple of times
before saying: 'You said it was just me.'
I pretended to turn the matter over: 'Did I really say that?'
His shoulders twitched. They were broad shoulders. He
whispered fiercely: 'I thought it was just us two, Petter.'
'Listen here,' I replied. 'You're probably referring to
something I said ten or twelve years ago. Everything was
different then, I'm not denying it.'
'But I thought it was just going to be us two,' he re-
iterated.
I had little patience with such whinging. It was too late to
complain about other participants in the greatest literary
pyramid sell of all time when for years you've made yourself
dependent on The Spider's largess. But ingratitude is the
world's reward. No sooner had Professor Higgins taught
some passing flower-girl to speak properly, than she de-
manded to be allowed to fill the role of his one and only
love.
'Do you think you would have liked knowing that I was
supplying half the literary establishment with things to write
about?' I asked him. 'Would you have entered into our
collaboration then?'
He shook his head. 'No way,' he said.
'But you liked the reviews you got for your latest novel,' I
pointed out, 'and Wenche did too. You got an eight-page
synopsis from me, and you got it cheap. By the way, I agree
with the man who said that your writing can be sloppy. You
should have asked me to go through your manuscript. You
know I don't charge much for a read-through.'
He drew himself up. 'Who are you helping?' he demanded.
I put a finger to my mouth. 'Are you mad?' I said.
He looked at me innocently. He obviously still thought
that we shared an exclusive confidence. 'Would you have
liked me to tell Bent or Johannes about you?' I asked.
'Oh, come on, Robert. I think you're tired. Tell me your
news. How are things at the moment?'
'Dreadful,' he said.
He didn't look too good. It was remarkable how grey his
hair had turned over the past year. Added to which, he was
the sort of man who kept a good head of hair for a long time,
but then suddenly began to lose it.
'Have you told anyone about me?' he queried.
'Of course not,' I replied, which was no more than the
truth. 'I'm discretion itself. I'm bilateral to my fingertips.
You've got nothing to worry about there, at least not if you
behave decently.'
Some weeks later he came back, unannounced yet again.
I was annoyed. I found it intolerable that certain authors
tried to intrude into my private life. I'd had a strong aversion
to footsteps on the stairs from the days when snotty kids
wanted to get me out into the courtyard to play cowboys
and Indians. I could have had a visitor, I could have been
conducting an interesting seminar with a woman writer. Or
I could even have been sitting deep in concentration. Before
visitors arrived I like to ensure that I'd shovelled Metre Man
into the bedroom. Strangely enough, this was something he
accepted without protest.
This time it was clear that people had been conferring. I
guessed they had been talking about how I'd been doing
consultancy work in a big way. I also assumed that all of the
participants had denied that they were customers of mine
themselves. Guesswork has always been a forte of mine.
Making suppositions is akin to inventing plausible stories.
This was the first time it occurred to me that someone
might do me harm one day. I already felt pressurised enough
to deem it necessary to tell Robert about the tapes. I'd also
had cheques from him on several occasions and these I'd
photocopied for form's sake. I told him I'd worked out a
system by which my bank box would immediately be
opened if anything happened to me. I reckoned that this
would calm him down. At first he was exasperated and
irascible. He was a large man and a good deal taller than
me. I'd also been witness to his ungovernable temper on a
couple of occasions. But soon the placidity of resignation
descended on him, and I was pleased on his account. It's
never good to live with the empty hope that something will
avail when you're actually in a hopeless situation. If you find
yourself in a dismal fix, clinging to unrealistic expectations
that a miracle cure can make things better is only rubbing
salt into the wound, and apathy is almost the better part as a
state of mind. I spoke to him in a friendly and forbearing
manner, yet another type of author-therapy. I said that no
one would get to know about what he'd purchased from
me. I poured him some liberal glasses of whisky and asked
how things were with Wenche.
It was a couple of years before I saw him again. He was
pale and told me he'd had writer's block. This time he
wanted to try writing a crime novel, he said, and I let him
choose between two synopses. It was generous of me.
Robert knew that the synopsis he saw but didn't buy
would immediately become worthless. It had to be taken
from the file of notes for sale and put into the file of stories
that could freely be used at parties. I couldn't completely
cease being a raconteur, having pithy stories up my sleeve
was a good advertisement.
The synopsis he took away with him was entitled Triple
Murder Post-mortem and was perhaps loosely inspired by the
Beatles' number 'Lucy in the sky with diamonds'. The notes
ran to almost fifteen pages, but the story in brief was as
follows:
In the Flemish city of Antwerp there lived three brothers: Wim,
Kees and Klas. Wim had a large birthmark on his face and had
been tormented by his two elder brothers throughout his childhood.
In his early twenties he met the love of his life, a strikingly beautiful
girl called Lucy, but his brother Kees managed to steal her from him
just a few weeks before they were due to be married. Family unity
wasn't improved when the brothers' parents died within a short time
of one another. Their parents had made a detailed will, and the
terms of the inheritance left little doubt that Wim had been short-
changed. This was purportedly due to some chicanery by his elder
brothers. Klas, who was a lawyer, had been especially instrumental