The Q&A: Per Petterson

PER PETTERSON'S novels are works of art in which very little happens. His stoic characters often spend their days toiling at hard physical labour, in contemplative isolation or listening to the silence of the Norwegian countryside, which he describes in sparse and tender prose. Mr Petterson is a master at economising language, and his melancholic landscapes are often fraught with anxiety.
 
“It’s Fine By Me” was first published in 1992, but the novel was recently translated by Don Bartlett into English and published by Harvill Secker in Britain. Set in Oslo in the late 1960s and early '70s, the novel is narrated by Audun Sletten, a rebellious teenager who is full of contempt for authority. He spends his days reading Ernest Hemmingway and Jack London and longs to become a writer himself. He wishes to escape his dreary life in an Oslo suburb, where he lives with his mother who is on the run from an abusive, drunken husband.
 
Mr Petterson published his first collection of short stories, "Aske i Munnen, Sand i Skoa" ("Ashes in My Mouth, Sand in My Shoes"), in 1987 and has published seven novels since, five of which have been translated into English. His breakthrough novel was "Ut og stjæle hester" (2003), translated as "Out Stealing Horses" in 2005, which won several prizes including the 2006 Independent Foreign Fiction Prize and the 2007 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. Richard Ford, an American novelist, has called Mr Petterson, “a profoundly gifted novelist”.
 
He spoke with us about being an existentialist writer, his penchant for working-class solidarity and a longing for silence.
 
In “It’s Fine By Me” you quote from Tolstoy’s “Anna Karenina”, writing that "All happy families resemble one another, each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." Does this describe your own family?

The quote I was reminded of when I wrote the book. It seemed truer to me than anything else said about families. To say that a family is happy I think is to diminish it, taking out what is interesting. Growing up I don’t think my family was any happier or unhappier than anyone else’s. My mother and father should have been divorced or never even married. On the other hand, I remember many moments of happiness.

You lost your own mother, father and brother in tragic circumstances in 1990 [they were among 159 people who died when a ferry caught fire]. Do you feel any regret over the relationship you had with them?
 
What happened to my family was tragic. But, in hindsight, to say it in a cynical way, it made it even more interesting, sharper. When people die, their lives become literally “outstanding”.

Your novels often describe working-class people, a community that is in decline in the West.

I’m aware of how different it is today than, say, in the 1930s. The world has made fantastic progress, for the good of us all, in medicine, electronics and science. But as societies, in the West, in many ways we have moved 100 years backwards. We all seem to accept the way the world is moving, like a law of nature. But it isn’t. I strongly believe that weak trade unions make our societies less civilised. There is far too little work written about in contemporary literature.
 
Is this political writing then?

Well I come from a working-class family. They’re the people I know and the people I love, I guess. I do not write about them for political reasons, but because, as I see it, most interesting things—social, political, emotional—take place there. It’s a bottomless well for an author like me.

In “Out Stealing Horses" you write a great deal about solitude and silence. Is this distinctively Norwegian?

This longing for silence and stillness is a very common trait in Norway. At least up to recent times you could have asked any number of Norwegians, and they would share this longing for withdrawal, at least a temporary one. It’s the closest we come to joining a monastery, or a Norwegian version of Buddhism.      

How do you feel being labelled an existentialist writer?

I am comfortable with that, although I feel closer to the early writings of Knut Hamsun. Existential within a recognisable society, you could say. Philosophically I am, or at least have been, a follower of Sartre. I am very interested in the choices we make, or don’t make, in life-defining matters. That moment of “angst” and its consequences can be such a cruel thing.

Your books often deal with loneliness. Do you think that most people feel alone in the world?

We are locked up in our own minds, although we instinctively reach out to each other for compassion, solidarity, understanding, and we often succeed, it should not be forgotten. But we cannot know each other. You could call that loneliness, or you could call it character; making us who we are, being different from one another, which is a good thing. The unending conversation with ourselves, we all have, but it ought not to be the only conversation. How can we know ourselves, when there is no one to compare us with? We define each other, to a large extent, and that is also as it should be. But we don’t want to be alone, I am sure.
        
How much does nature influence your writing?

I don’t know if nature is a direct literary influence on my writing, but it is certainly important to me. I take great joy in writing about it. It is something I have taken with me from my childhood; the body exposed to the threat of the physical world and at the same time being at home in it. But of course, I write about it because it is there, especially here in Norway. If you go 15 minutes out of any town, you are in the woods, looking out on the sea, or up in the mountains. Not writing about it would seem strange.

How important was winning the Dublin IMPACT award in 2007 for your writing career?

What happened with “Out Stealing Horses” was like a freak accident, it seemed to me then, and it still does. Obviously, it did something to my career, although that kind of response will not happen again. My confidence as a writer, in fact went down a little. All the fuss made me very self-conscious, and I had much more trouble writing “I Curse The River of Time”. “Out Stealing Horses” came relatively easy to me.

Your books are all slim volumes. Do you believe less is more in writing?

I would like to write something that is longer, but I am not able to stretch it beyond 250 pages. It’s my limit now, at least. Less is not always more, but then of course, more is not always more either.