Press
Music and writing
Does Pål H. Christiansen listen to music while writing his books? What is his personally favourite music and where are the links between music and writing? These and other questions were subject of some e-mails exchanged between the Norwegian writer and webmaster/pr-consultant Annette Schwindt in summer 2007. The following interview has been taken from those e-mails:
Annette: Do you listen to music while writing?
Pål: From time to time. But this is no rule.
Annette: Or does listening to music inspire you for writing?
Pål: Yes. I'm always getting into a creative mood by listening to music I like. But this is in a more general way. Music lifts me up and give me the feeling that things are possible to achieve, to fulfill ones dreams and goals, that of course I will manage to write that novel I am struggling with. Things like that.
Annette: Is there something you always wanted to write but haven't dared to approach yet? Is there something as a "right time" for a writer and his subject?
Pål: It seems like my books are coming when they are ripe. I am not sure if it has anything to do with theme, it is more like they need time to develop somewhere in back of my head. I have been working with a novel some years now that develops very slowly. I am sure it will be a good novel when it finally is finished.
Annette: While reading "Fjodor går bananas" I noticed that in this book music is an important thing even though it is not as important as in "Drømmer om storhet". But it marks the moment where Fjodor loses his fear and starts to misbehave. The music that Palle plays there is Vikingarna. What kind of music is this and is there any connection between the sort of music and Fjodors change?
Pål: There is no connection between the kind of music and Fjodors change, I wouldn't say that. Christer Sjøgren & Vikingarna from Sweden are great "tanzband"-stars in Scandinavia. This is a kind of music I am not very interested in myself, but my text "called" for something like this, and I had to obey the text. This is how I work; the text is more king than me in a way. It is like painting a picture, and you have to do something up there in the corner to get it right! Christer Sjøgren as a person is quite popular in Norway, I think, and the use of Vikingarna and tanzband music gives the story a certain twist I felt was right.
Annette: Does music play a role in your other books too? And if so, which music is it?
Pål: I remember referring to good old Tom Jones in "Kongens Løv". The mother in the story likes him a lot, just as my mother did back in the 1960-ties and 70-ties. In "Neer" the father is whistling "Strangers in the night". This was quite popular tune in my childhood, performed by Frank Sinatra. But music doesn't play a big part in my other books.
Annette: What role does music have for your writing in general?
Pål: I am a great lover of music, although I listen less and buy less record than in younger days. I grew up in a family with three brothers (four with me), all of whom had their own preference in music and three of us playing one or more instruments. So music were around all the time, and I expressed myself first through music, although I knew I wanted to write from about the age of ten. Good music is taking me into a dreamlike world, and that kind of world I also want to get my readers into.
Annette: This dreamlike world you mention is a surreal one. Does that reflect your concrete taste of music?
Pål: No, I wouldn't say that. What I meant to say is that music puts me in a certain mood or takes me into certain mental landscapes that are something differant than the reality around you, and in my writing I also create a own world.
Annette: What are your favourite bands, musicians or songs and do they have something in common with your dreamworld in writing?
Pål: When I started listening to music in the 1960-ties it was the Beatles that interested me the most. My true love in music in my teens was the american singer and songwriter James Taylor. He has some wonderful songs, and I got completely hooked on "Carolina in my mind" when I was about thirteen. I remember learning the intros to many of his songs on the guitar and playing these intros for my friends. But I was too shy to sing the whole songs for them! I listened to lots of different music int these years, but I had a sort of affinity to american artists like Crosby, Stills & Nash and most of all Neil Young (besides JT, of course). Patti Smiths record Easter made a deep impression. She is both a poet and Rock’n Roll lady. I'm not sure whether there is some connection to my writing in the my earlier music taste. For some years as a grown up I didn’t listen to anything else but a-ha, but now I have started listening to my old records again.
Annette: The main character of "Drømmer om storhet", Hobo Highbrow, is stuck in such a dreamworld that sometimes almost drifts into being a nightmare for him. Then Fjodor is causing a kind of nightmare to Palle and in "Neer" the constant return of the dead father is a classical nightmare. You always turn things into fun though. Have you ever thought about making a horror-story out of such a nightmare situation instead of a funny one?
Pål: No! That kind of stories I'm not very interested in.
Annette: What made you start to write dreamlike stories at all? Why not psychological realism (like Jonathan Frantzen) or satirical stories (like Ephraim Kishon)?
Pål: I guess it's a way to stand reality. A way to describe how it may feel to exist in i world among objects, stuck between chairs, trees, cars... I am also conscious about language, all things written or said is not reality istelf, it's words, and I want my readers to have the same consciousness about this, that my words are not pointing at the actual world itself, but is part of a text that may or may not touch them.
Annette: Or is it the absurd in every day situations that inspires you and then you just exagerate them? That's what I do and most of the time I don't even have to exagerate because reality is already more absurd than I could ever invent it (see the t-com story). People often ask me what I do to always get into such absurd situations. I don’t think this is something particular with me but that things like that happen to anyone any time. I just have my eyes open to see it and then write it down. Would you say that this is the same with you?
Pål: Yes, this is also true. Life is absurd in itself! And humour makes it easier and much more fun to live. I love exagerating when writing, from the kind of exagerating François Rabelais did to Thomas Bernhard's rather mean descriptions of his country Austria. Literature is often about "blowing up" a trait or phenomen and see what happens then. In "Drømmer om storhet" I am writing about the teenage dreams still living in a mature man, and let these dreams take as much room as with a fourteen years old standing before the mirror night after night, pretending he is some kind of pop star.
Annette: Do your children do that now too? What music do they listen to and do you find it inspiring in any way?
Pål: Isn't every child doing this? A couple of years back they were all sitting before the television singing along with this Sing Star karaoke thing. I like most music they play except rap music, that I find awful, with a few exceptions, like Eminem.
Annette: Have you had special experiences connected with music and writing?
Pål: Apart from trying to write some lyrcs in my younger days, the experience with a-ha is the most special. I wanted to write an essay about a–ha or something, and ended up writing a whole novel about this Hobo and his love for their music. There might be some kind of connection between my way of writing and a-ha. a-ha makes pop music with serious undertones. A reviewer wrote about my novel "Humle & Honning" that it was like a pop single. I liked that.
Annette: Do you think the process of composing and writing (as well as listening to music and reading) is comparable?
Pål: The process of composing and writing is much the same I think, and lots of writers wants their sentences to have a rhytm and feel that their work are bad without it. And things like variation and repetition is often there, as in music. But music is less intellectual though, you can just let yourself drift away when listening to it, when reading you actually have to read and think about what you read.
Annette: You mean literature is only for the intellectuals and music for the masses? What about all that mass-compatible books out there? And what about music that you cannot just consume?
Pål: No, no. I just meant that reading and writing is involving words, and the use of words in general means a more intellectual approach. I often listen to pop-music without thinking much, but you can’t even read one of those books you are refering to without thinking.
Annette: For me there is always a concrete music related to concrete experiences or periods in my life. Some music is even connected to certain people. The first music I can remember was from Harry Belafonte and Abba, the music that my parents listened to. And on the other side the "Schlagermusik" from the radio in my grandmother's kitchen while she was cooking lunch. Do you have memories that are related to music?
Pål: Your point is interesting. I have a terrible bad memory myself, therefore music seldom gives me very clear memory of scenes and happenings from the past, but more a feeling and general mood from a certain period in my life.
Annette: Are there other things that make you clearly remember things from the past? Which ones?
Pål: Oh, this is difficult to say much about. For me things suddenly pops up, glimpses of the past, and anything can make this happen, music is just one of them.