Book letter#4 Perhaps this is exactly the year we need Christmas novels – Siss Vik’s book letter

Hi! My name is Siss Vik and I am a literary journalist at news. In this book letter’s menu comes our long-awaited top list of 2022 books. For the poem of the week, we have had a robot write a Christmas poem. The main issue is my meeting with the students at Samlaget’s writing school for people with minority experience. We’re rolling! 24 hatches with Christmas glue As a 19-year-old, I got my first part-time job: four intense weeks serving at a Christmas party place. Since then I’ve only had jobs that are insanely hectic in the weeks leading up to Christmas. Thus I associate Advent with stress. I have had neither the time nor the need to read any cozy literature. In Great Britain, some authors and publishers with a flair for getting rich at Christmas have invented the genre of the Christmas novel. (So, I’m aware that both Charles Dickens and Amalie Skram wrote Christmas stories, but here we’re talking about a more controlled thing.) Christmas novels are light, humorous books with red spines, cursive writing and snow and cuddles on the cover: Christmas chick lit. Various challenges loom for the main character, but they are preferably resolved in time for Christmas Eve, also on the love front. Think Hallmark Christmas movie on Netflix. Last year we received our first newly written Norwegian Christmas novel. Then I was in Studio 2 and complained about what I thought was an unnecessary import. CHRISTMAS CHRISTMAS: New Norwegian and foreign Christmas novels. Photo: Javier Auris / news Last year, Ingvild H. Rishøi showed with the novel “Stargate, a Christmas story” that you can write quality literature about Christmas, but it is quite sad. Last week there was a report that one of this year’s Norwegian Christmas novels, “Jul på Himmelfjell”, was sold to an American publisher for a RECORD sum. I understand well that it can be a hit in the USA, because the novel is full of Norwegian exoticism: A female mountain climber takes over a family hotel in Western Norway and must get the business up and running by Christmas. Could she also find a new boyfriend before December 24? The chapters are divided into calendar slots, numbered from 1 to 24 December. Since the trend is here to stay, I had to look inside the red binders. On the audiobook app, I downloaded “The Christmas Bookshop”. It is a Scottish novel set in a used bookstore in Edinburgh. On the reading board I got the aforementioned “Christmas in Himmelfjell”. Although it is not great literature, I must say it is a pleasant way to get ready for sleep in this busy time. New surveys among young people show that they worry about war and the climate crisis. They say they want normalcy and relaxation in their free time. Adults can also relate to it. So this year it will be a Christmas novel throughout Advent! 24 cool book tips from 2022 Then news’s ​​critics have scrutinized their bookshelves and reading boards in search of what has impressed, touched and seduced them in 2022. After meticulous soul-searching, they have made a discerning selection of three favorites each. As with all summaries of the year, it is easy to remember best what you read last, but here are also books from early autumn and this spring – a good starting point for gift ideas. If you want to go more in-depth, you can listen to “Åpen bok”‘s annual summary. Book gifts you can order from Godstolen I’ve heard on the radio that people are reluctant to give used gifts for Christmas. The exception here must be books! Modern books can seem a bit gaudy and can have cheap binding, while older books are often stylish and hand-stitched. And what smells better than an old book? Some are lucky enough to have a used bookshop nearby, where they can get very good help from real bibliophile proprietors. Otherwise, antiquariats in the Nordics have joined together in a virtual bookshop at antikvariat.net. There you can look up titles and authors, and buy the book at the touch of a button. You can also enter special requests. They do the searching for you. CLASSICS: Good reading for young and old Photo: Siss Vik / news When it comes to price, you can find everything from a 25 kroner bargain to collector’s editions costing thousands of kroner. Such a gift often seems more exclusive and tailored than a brand new book. Otherwise, Bookis is a Norwegian online bookstore for used books, where people buy and sell books among themselves. If you are desperately looking for a book that has been sold out from the publisher, you may be lucky and find it here. Spy Norwegian murder list for minorities One dark evening in January, I call Det Norske Samlaget. I will be a fly on the wall in the first session of a special writing course. Nynorskforlaget has looked at its staff of writers and realized that it is too one-sided: Too white, too adult, too straight, too able-bodied. For the series of pamphlets called “Norsk røyndom” they recruited some new voices. But where does the road go next? This is where the right investment must be made, if Nynorsk literature is to keep up with contemporary Norway! The publisher has announced ten places at a writer’s school in Nynorsk. The criteria for applying? You must have minority experience. This piqued my curiosity, and just as much my skepticism, I must admit. As a Westerner by blood, I love Nynorsk. But I had plenty of fellow students at Eastern schools who had confused Spynorsk’s murder list over their Nynorsk word lists. With this announcement, I envision urban youth from immigrant families who will suddenly convey their innermost thoughts in literature on Ivar Aasen’s national language. In the publisher’s premises this Friday evening, I quickly see that my prejudices are put to shame, in several ways. Publishing manager Edmund Austigard gives a welcome speech about why they have invited to this specific writing school. He emphasizes that Nynorsk is a minority language and a counterculture, a written language that is fighting for its place in the larger society, and that must constantly adjust its identity. He reassures the students: The publisher has very good language cleaners and proofreaders, who have juxtaposed inflectional forms in their spinal cord. Everyone should get good help. The publisher’s eternal Nobel Prize candidate, Jon Fosse, looks down on the group from a large portrait on the wall. No pressure, like. The presentation round reveals an impressive language competence: Persian, Sami, French, Spanish, English, Shetland-Scottish, etc. Nynorsk competence, on the other hand, is variable. Amelia Gomez Snerte makes a strong case. She is half Cuban, but grew up on an organic small farm in Hemsedal with her mother and grandparents who were “ultra-active target people”, as she says. Marta Tveit, on the other hand, is a diplomat’s child and has attended international schools where Nynorsk shone through its absence. Several have had exceptions from side goals at school, and thus start at zero. One Bergen has even said he is willing to let go of the characteristic en endings in order to attend the school. The question that arises further is whether these people have anything in common? Minority experience, what is it now? FIRST COLL OUT: (Fv .top) Helene Larsen, Camilla Haugen, Soma Lotfollahi, Christina Violeta Thrane Storsve, Bjarne Bjørnevik, Amelia Gomez Snerte, Maria Abdli. Seated (front): Mona Huang, Marta Tveit, Alexander Petersen, Kristina Kassab Liland Photo: Minotenk/Samlaget On day three I stop by for lunch. The students have had time to get to know each other better. I take hold of Alexander Petersen and ask how it has gone. As an active representative of the Handikapforbundet, he is used to writing journalistically about the conditions for people with disabilities. But writing fiction is a completely new experience for him. NEW LANGUAGE: Alexander Petersen is tired of writing about the consequences of a handicap. At the writing school, he will learn to write about his experiences, from the inside. Photo: Silje Rognsvåg / news Alexander quickly felt at home with the other writing students, he says: – It has been incredibly nice, because there is so much diversity in the term minority. Here I get to be part of a community. – Have you found out if you have anything in common? – Our minority rights experiences are very different. Nevertheless, there are enough common features of the feeling of outsiderness that we can talk together in a common language. We understand each other in a different way than the world understands us, you might say. On the presentation evening, I was seated at a table with Soma Lotfallhi, who is a Kurd from Iran. I have followed her a little extra throughout the year. You will meet Soma in the next book letter. There you will also hear a bit about how the coal has fared as a whole. Poem of the week Like the rest of Medie-Norge, we in the book group are hooked on testing out new forms of artificial intelligence (AI) that have recently been made available. Last week you could see how AI designed new covers for well-known Norwegian bestsellers. This week we have been given access to a chatbot which, with artificial intelligence, can help with everything from writing speeches, fairy tales and chronicles to analyzing poems, answering complicated questions and coding apps. It is difficult enough to write speeches, but the highest form of language must be lyrical. So of course we had to ask Chat GPT to write us a Christmas poem! The order was: Write a poem in Nynorsk about Christmas in rhyme. We prayed for the words snow, love, Jesus and hope. Here is the result, on his first attempt: I immediately react to the fact that Christmas has the wrong gender in Nynorsk. Jul is indeed feminine in both Nynorsk and Bokmål. And Jesus lies in the air in snow, as he says in the first verse?! On the other hand, maybe Jesus is found in every snowflake that descends here in the northern hemisphere? It can be a poetic image, if you add goodwill. What do you think? Can Herborg Kråkevik and the others who make Christmas booklets save a lot of money by getting a chatbot to write Christmas poems in 2023? Impressed by Chat GPT’s Christmas poem? This beautiful Christmas poem actually brought tears to my eyes You, this wasn’t bad at all done by a machine Chat GPT, go home, you’re drunk Show result Distinguishing between the mortal and the immortal While I was folding clothes one evening, I heard Christine Koht spoke to Vegard Larsen in “Drivkraft” about how she has experienced being terminally ill. When the active comedian and presenter was diagnosed with cancer, doctors gave her a 6% prognosis for survival. Now she sat there in the studio, admittedly weakened and still in pain, but bright and alive. Being seriously ill has given Koht a new look at life, which she describes in the book “Dødsfrisk”. One of the new things in her life is that she now divides people she meets into mortals and immortals. The immortals are the easiest to explain. There are people who get violently agitated because they have to stand in a queue, or scold their loved ones and storm the door without apologizing. Christine Koht has learned that life is a gift, and that death can strike anyone, at any time. Only a person who sees themselves as immortal would risk that the last thing they did was yell at a loved one, she reasons. A mortal, on the other hand, will have the main focus on enjoying small and big things. Mortals know that life is short and precious. This may sound a bit Chinese fortune cookie when I summarize it here, but for Koht this insight has been anything but free or painless. LOVE: His wife Pernille Rygg has co-written the book Dødsfrisk together with Christine Koht. Photo: Stig Jaarvik / news Koht’s words of wisdom made me exhale slowly and lower my shoulders, where I stood by the clothes rack. I haven’t bought a single Christmas present, and we haven’t done the washing up for Christmas. The worst thing is that I can’t find the light cords for the advent stars that were supposed to light up the living room and kitchen through the darkness of December. But I will celebrate Christmas with my closest, insh Allah. The most important thing is that we are together, and that we can share the joy of Christmas with others. Then we get to christen the dust mites behind the sofa as Christmas dorm bunnies, it almost sounds cosy. Thank you Koht, for the Christmas peace and for the perspective. A look ahead My colleagues in “Open book” have put together a candy box of classic Christmas stories. This cozy gift will be on news Radio on Christmas Eve, and will be a perfect accompaniment to wrapping the last Christmas presents, I think. On Wednesday I was at Oktober publishing house’s Christmas lunch, and there I gathered a small group for a Christmas greeting to you in the next book letter. It will be released on Christmas Eve itself! Good luck with your Christmas shopping, and remember: Don’t wear too thick a jacket when you go shopping. PS: My mailbox is always open for mail from you, whether it’s praise or praise. And by the way, I’m a dog for Christmas cards, if anyone wants to send them to me and news’s ​​book team. Violet advent greeting from Siss



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