The Ringmaster's Daughter

by Jostein Gaarder

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

  called me pedantic.

  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.

  'Are you helping Johannes?'

  '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<
br />
  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