Heteroglossia

I have just come home from Norway. Yes, again. And yes, another PhD examination. I will not repeat the whole procedure, but there was a trial lecture and the defence itself, and there was an elegant examiners' dinner, an elegant lunch with the candidate and supervisors, and an elegant doctoral dinner with family and friends.

A slightly new aspect this time was the mixture of languages. The thesis was written in English, and the defence was in English. Neither the candidate, the supervisors nor the examiners are native English speakers. That's not unusual in the Nordic countries. The unusual was that both examiners are native Russian speakers. Who spoke Russian non-stop, much to everybody's amazement. But why would they be amazed? Didn't they look us up when they invited us to examine? Didn't they know that we were both nomadic subjects with a heavy luggage of languages? Perhaps our current affiliations were more important than our eclectic academic past.

On the other hand, my fellow examiner was perplexed that I could talk to Norwegians. "So you speak Norwegian?" "No, I speak Swedish". "Do they speak Swedish?" "No, they speak Norwegian". How very confusing. At the doctoral dinner it turned out that the candidate's sister spoke Hebrew, so suddenly she and my fellow examiner had a secret language. And I could help showing off and saying "Good morning" in Lithuanian when we met over breakfast. I could certainly have managed some Yiddish (bad German can always pass as Yiddish), but that would have been too much.

I cannot be sure, but I believe this Babel babble made me particularly tired.

The wisdom of Old Mrs Pepperpot

When I finished my keynote talk at a conference this past Monday, the session chair informed the audience that the speaker had a blog and had written a post about giving a keynote talk. I felt a bit akward because the post was in fact about this particular talk. I must be more careful in what I write.

The conference was about Little Old Mrs Pepperpot, or rather about her creator, Alf Prøysen. It is always exciting to go to a conference wholly devoted to a single author, and it so happened that many years ago I was in the same place, Hamar in Norway, at a conference devoted to Tormod Haugen. The author was sitting in the front row. This time Prøysen wasn't sitting in the front row, but if he had been, I think he would be very pleased. His all oeuvre was given detailed attention: children's books, picturebooks, songs, poems, short stories, newspaper columns and even a sculpture of Mrs Pepperpot. I must admit my ignorance: I didn't know much about Prøysen beyond Mrs Pepperpot, and what I had known I had forgotten. At the exhibition in the library I saw a book that I once had translated into Russian (it wasn't printed, but broadcast in a children's radio programme, which Prøysen would have liked). Apparently this book is as indispensible on Christmas Eve in Norway as Donald Duck is in Sweden. I like the idea of a national poet on Christmas Eve better than an international icon. 

At least half of the conference participants were not children's literature people, which is another thing I liked about it. When people outside children's literature for some reason or other have to talk professionally about a children's book or a book about childhood, they look at it with fresh eyes and therefore see things that we child lit experts miss because we think they are too obvious. It has been ages since I read or heard such a brilliant formal poetry analysis. More like this, please!

I have repeatedly reflected on why small nations frequently produce crosswriters. Using a bit far-fetched evolutionary criticism, a small nation cannot afford too much specialisation. For better and for worse. 

I also enjoyed Prøysen museum. I am quite sceptical about writer museums because most of them are terribly boring, showing the writer's manuscripts, his desk, her typewriter, his teapot, her suitcase. Seen one, you've seen them all. This one had taste and tact, and it made me want to know more about Prøysen. It wasn't a cute theme park about Mrs Pepperpot. (Afterwards we were taken to the cottage where he was born, which was like hundreds of other cottages where writers were born, full of authentic artefacts. It wasn't half as interesting). 

My talk, titled "The wisdom of Old Mrs Pepperpot" was about learning from books. But of course we also learn from museums, conferences, pictures, conversations and a bowl of ice cream at a sidewalk cafe in the city of Hamar. 

In an interview for the local newspaper I dared to state that Prøysen has been more influential than Ibsen. Will I ever be admitted to Norway again?

More Norwegian memories

I had some other interesting trips to Norway. Once I went to a conference for Nordic association of Slavic studies. I was the only children's literature person there and felt quite out of place professionally, but there were many good friends there, and we had fun.

Yet another time I was invited to a conference wholly dedicated to the brilliant Norwegian children's writer Tormod Haugen. It was a bit intimidating because he was there, sitting in the front row, and there I was, saying a lot of things about his books. He was the sort of writer who says: "I never thought about it, but I guess you are are right".

The craziest visit was when we got a network grant from the Nordic Foundation for Advanced Studies, and one of the conditions was that a member of the steering group should attend a workshop on how to run a network. The workshop was in Oslo, and it would make sense for the Norwegian member to attend it, but it didn't work, so I went instead. We were met in the airport, taken to the conference hotel just by the ski-jumping trampoline, fed morning till night with information on running networks (and very good food) and taken back to the airport. I didn't see much of Oslo that time.

Today we went to Vigeland park, because if there is one place you have time to see in Oslo, that's the place. However, we did all the essential sightseeing while walking from the bus station to our hotel.

Norwegian memories

The first time I was in Norway was for just fifteen minutes. We were visiting some friends on the West coast of Sweden, and Staffan made a point of taking me to see what a national border looked like in the civilised parts of the world. It was a small road, but there was a proper sign: “National border. Import of certain goods prohibited. See brochure”. No border patrol with dogs, no customs (to ask for the brochure), no barbed wire. We stopped at the first village, bought an ice cream and turned.

But the first time I was in Norway for real was rather funny. I went to a conference – surprise! - at Oslo University, called “Dimensions of the Marvellous”. I was doing my PhD on British fantasy and thought it was a conference just for me. At the same time and on the same campus, there was a large international Feminist Book Fair. I was invited by the Fair organisers to give a talk on female fantasy writers. There I was in my dual role: paying huge conference fees and being paid a modest speaker fee at the Fair. Fantasy was the common point. It was high summer, and the Fair people, predominantly women, were wearing all kinds of weird multicoloured clothes. The conference people, mostly male, were strictly academic, tie and suit. When I mentioned at one of the conference coffee breaks that I was doing a talk at the Fair, the reaction was a disappointed: “So you are one of those...”

I never met the Fair people again, and I made very few professional contacts at the conference, except one. Professor Jacques Barchilon, from University of Colorado, happened to be in the session in which I gave my paper. He liked it. He told me that he was starting a journal on fairy tales and asked whether I would contribute to the first issue. I did. The coming issue of the journal, Marvels & Tales, is a tribute to Jacques Barchilon.

Un-Christmas shopping

My flight home is at 10 pm. I have booked this flight because it goes to Stansted rather than Heathrow or Gatwick. The alternative would have been seven in the morning, and given that I got to bed at half past midnight, as expected, it didn't feel attractive. So I have a whole day in Oslo, without any special plans or obligations. I have negotiated with the hotel to keep the room at a reasonable cost, and I have brought student essays and other work, and I even have a book.

I have eaten far too much the last two days, beginning with a light, but delicious lunch on Thursday, a sumptuous dinner at the most posh restaurant in town (thanks, University of Oslo), another extravagant meal at other fancy place between the sessions and then the doctoral dinner yesterday which was not only plenty of food, but also plenty of speeches. Hence late bedtime.

Yet, full as I was yesterday, I still have to eat something today, which means I have to go out. It is very crowded, there are demonstrations, street musicians, Christmas shoppers, and outside one shop a huge sign: “Guaranteed no Christmas music”. I don't know Oslo well, so I walk down Karl Johann Street till I find a place that looks good and have a nice mixed grill at a price that would buy a three course dinner with wine in Cambridge. Then I spot a hobby shop and binge. It's the same chain where I used to buy stuff in Stockholm, but I know my needs better now. I take my time. I tell myself that I don't really need four plastic angel heads, but myself replies that, painted gold, they would fit nicely over the door in the big dollhouse. Then I consider going to a bookstore, but decide that I've done my shopping for this year.