Greetings, writers—
I went back and forth about putting Wednesday’s post behind a paywall, and in the end I did, not because I’m trying to yank more paying subscriptions out of this list, but because I really did worry that it had the potential to spoil a certain popular Christmas experience. I mean, it might’ve spoiled it for me if I hadn’t done that for myself already.
Of course it’s possible I’m just too sensitive. My dad used to torment me by finding the most miserable Charlie Brown Christmas tree at the tree lot, putting his arm around it protectively, and saying in the world’s saddest voice, “Oh, but don’t you want to take me home? I’m so small and lonely, and nobody loves me. Will you love me?” And this would totally make me teary. It’s very funny now, and it was a little bit funny back then—I remember laughing and crying, because, by the way, I wasn’t six when he was doing this; I was in high school.
All this is to say that if you want to read the Wednesday post, you can email me and I’ll try to send it to you. It’s kind of amusing, if I do say so myself.
Today’s post actually comes to you from Norway, which is cold and wonderful and very dark for 18 hours a day. Also, everyone is beautiful and extremely well-dressed. As someone who wears long underwear daily during gentle Portland winters, I was amazed to see Oslo women braving 19 degree evenings in cocktail dresses and stilettos.
Did I look at a guidebook before I got on the plane or learn a Norwegian phrase? Barely. But I did get onto our public library’s app and check out a bunch of audio and e-books by Norwegian writers. I’ve read a little Jon Fosse and a touch of Karl Ove Knausgård (But how can you read a touch when his books are 800 pages long, you ask? Answer: I read some essays. Also the first few pages of My Struggle, more of which I refused to read out of what I then called “principle,” and which is a story for another time), but no Knut Hamsun, no Per Petterson, not even Jo Nesbø. I thought for a second that Pär Lagerkvist might’ve been Norwegian (The Dwarf is a wicked little book), but he’s Swedish.
One of the titles I checked out is a story collection called Evil Flowers by Gunnhild Øyehaug, translated from the Norwegian by Kari Dickson. Here is the first line:
As I sat on the toilet menstruating, a fairly large part of my brain fell down into the toilet bowl.
You didn’t think you were going to read a sentence like that today, did you? Neither did I!
In the story, the “I” is an ornithologist who loses the piece of her brain that holds all her knowledge of birds. So she googles the word “bird.”
It was a living creature, and I could see that they all had that tip coming out of what I’d come to realize was their head, but the tip varied in size and shape, and was actually called a beak. And birds could fly – I had to laugh out loud when I discovered that. These were creatures that could actually fly!
Birds are pretty crazy, if you think about it. (Oslo has many gulls, many magpies.)
In case you were wondering, the woman’s quest to regain her ornithological knowledge leads to a more personal and painful understanding about her own self. It’s a bizarre and powerful little story.
Today’s prompt, inspired by Øyehaug, is this:
Write 5-10 wonderful, wild, surprising first sentences. Should the spirit move you, pick one and write what follows it.
Here are a couple of others, just for kicks.
“Hubert gave Charles and Irene a nice baby for Christmas.” Donald Barthelme, “Will You Tell Me?" in Come Back, Dr. Caligari
"It was the day my grandmother exploded.” Iain Banks, The Crow Road
Happy writing—
Emily