The trouble with Hole: An interview with Jo Nesbø, Part II

In preparation for a review of Jo Nesbø's novel The Snowman upon its U.S. release, I bring back this second part of my interview with Nesbø from last year. His recent anointing in some quarters as the next Stieg Larsson makes his comments here perhaps more pertinent than ever.

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In the second part of his interview with Detectives Beyond Borders, Jo Nesbø discusses future English translations of the first, second and eighth Harry Hole novels [the five translated to date are books three through seven], philosophical musings on celebrity and revenge in Nemesis, and his place in Scandinavian crime fiction. He also talks about how Hole (pronounced approximately HEU-leh in Norwegian) got his first name — and did not get his second.

(Read Part I of the interview with Jo Nesbø.)

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Detectives Beyond Borders: Can you talk a little about why you chose the name Harry for your protagonist?

Jo Nesbø: It's like the most corny name you can think of. It's even an expression in Norwegian, to be Harry. It's like the cliché of a redneck.

In the Seventies what we meant with Harry was someone who dressed like Elvis. It was someone from the rural areas coming to the city not knowing how to dress. That was why I wanted the name. `How can you call somebody Harry?' It's not a funny name, but it's an uncomfortable name. It's a normal name in one way, but on the other hand, a guy living in Oslo named Harry, it gives the character character.

There was an English musician born in Norway that suggested the name really was `Hairy Hole,' that I was playing with that. I told him no, I wasn't. I really laughed hard when he suggested that. No, I didn't think about that, but I wish I had, you know.

There's a big wave of Nordic crime fiction. Do you consider yourself part of that?

I am part of that whether I consider myself part of it or not because it's sort of a commercial label. It doesn't necessarily have much to do with Scandinavian writers having the same style. When I've been asked what I think are the similarities between Scandinavian authors, I would say that they were either from Denmark, Norway or Sweden.

I think my style is probably closer to some of the American writers — Bukowski, Hemingway — than to other Scandinavian writers. Then again, I write from Oslo, so the atmosphere would probably be similar to Stieg Larsson or Henning Mankell.

For me, my inspiration doesn't come mainly from Scandinavian crime writers. It comes from Scandinavian literature, like Knut Hamsun, Henrik Ibsen, lots of other Norwegian and Danish and Swedish writers.

What have readers in English missed by not having The Batman, The Cockroaches (Books 1 and 2 in the series, which take Harry to Australia and Thailand) and The Leopard (Book 8) available in their language?

The Leopard will be translated, hopefully next year. The first two books, there are enough references to them in the third and the fourth and the fifth books. That's why we decided we can start with the third book, because you will get the rest of the story.

The series is now so established in the UK, they want to translate the first two, also.

Also by Don Bartlett?

I hope so.

Are you deliberately more philosophical in Nemesis? And do Americans prefer a simpler, more compact, less complex story like Nemesis [shortlisted for the best-novel Edgar Award for 2010]?

[Laughs] The first part of the question, the short answer is, I don't know.

Number two, no, I don't necessarily think so. I think that nominations — I have to answer this carefully — nominations sometimes tend to be the result not only of what you did in your last novel, but in the novel before that.

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(Read Part I of the interview with Jo Nesbø.)

© Peter Rozovsky 2010

Rolling Stones and scary snowmen: An interview with Jo Nesbø, Part I

Jo Nesbø is touring two countries promoting two novels. The Snowman, newly published by Random House Canada (and also out in the United Kingdom) has elements of horror stories, and it continues a theme put forth in The Redbreast, Nemesis and The Devil’s Star of scary characters within the police.

The Devil’s Star, out in hardback in the United States from HarperCollins, brings to a conclusion a confrontation between one of those characters and Nesbø’s protagonist, Inspector Harry Hole.

In the first part of an interview with Detectives Beyond Borders, Jo Nesbø talks about his fascination with Jim Thompson, his early attraction to ghost stories, and Norway’s shaky national identity. He also answers a question posed in a scene long a favorite here at Detectives Beyond Borders: Are the Rolling Stones the world’s greatest rock and roll band?

(Read Part II of the Detectives Beyond Borders interview with Jo Nesbø here.)

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Detectives Beyond Borders: What attracts you about having monsters or psychotic villains within the police?

Jo Nesbø: The enemy within is always more scary than when you have the defined enemy. I’m a fan of Jim Thompson and his title The Killer Inside Me, which may be a somewhat cheesy title, but it’s a title that grabs me. To me it’s a scary idea that the killer is inside you, behind you. Also, I like to write about closed milieus, where you have a society within a society.

Like the Salvation Army (A key setting in The Redeemer)?

Right. That is parallel to the police force. Loyalty is very important, and you have certain rules that enable people to get power over other people. … You can have more dramatic conflict than in open societies.

You liked to write or tell ghost stories when you were young. Is there a connection between The Snowman and that earlier preference for ghost stories?

I didn’t come up with the stories, I told traditional ghost stories, then added a bit.

I think the reason why they asked me to tell the stories, I thought for while it was because I was a great storyteller. Later on, I think it was my big brother who told me the reason why he wanted me to tell the stories was because when I told them, they could hear the fear in my voice.

Are the Rolling Stones the world’s greatest band or the most overrated band?

The Rolling Stones are a great band and the world’s most overrated band.

Why do your novels include so many prominent and thematically important references to music?

People use music in so many ways, to say who they are. … You use a T-shirt to tell the world `I’m the kind of guy who listens to the Doors,’ and that is interesting to me because it’s just sounds, but it isn’t just sounds. They project ideas, basic values. I don’t really like Joy Division, but I wish I liked to listen to Joy Division.

Myself, I like jazz, and I like rock, but I like pop, the smoothest pop music, easy-listening pop music. I love that. [But] I thought it would be too confusing for people to have [Harry] like pop music. You’d have to explain it, so I put in some references. I try not to do it too much.

For example, you read George Pelecanos; to me, sometimes it’s on the verge of being too much. Everybody, every single character, is listening to a special radio channel. Well, they don’t. But then again, I love the references.

Talk a bit about some of the satirical fun you poke at Norway.

We’re a young and, in a way, an insecure nation. … It’s a very young nation, and it is trying very hard to find itself. Like any nation, it needs pillars to build an image of a nation on.

In Norway the most important things are probably the explorers of the South and North Poles, and Thor Heyerdahl, and the war, the myth about the resistance movement during the war.

Up until 1917, Norway was one of the poorest countries in Europe. In the Seventies, we found oil, or the Americans found oil, actually, off Norway. In the Eighties were booming times, and Norway quickly became one of the richest countries in the world. It’s like a guy with an inferiority complex that has suddenly had some success and who can’t quite cope with it.

Norwegians are so focused on what's going on in Norway now. If you read the newspapers, it's all local news. So many of the stories are `What do they think about Norwegians?'

It’s pride and insecurity going together. You see that in many countries. Norway has always had the same relationship to bigger countries, Sweden especially, Denmark, maybe the same way that Canada feels toward the United States, like a bigger brother. Canada is a nicer country, but that’s not enough.

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(Read Part II of the interview with Jo Nesbø.)

© Peter Rozovsky 2010