Seattle, Washington: The Second Stop On My American Tour

1.
I'm in Seattle, Washington on my book tour.

I've been here several times before. The Seattle area is absolutely gorgeous. It looks a lot like Sweden and Norway and I love Sweden and Norway, even though you're not supposed to admit that when you're Danish.

I've done several lectures before at University of Washington and those semi-Scandinavians keep on inviting me back. I don't mind at all. I'm totally in love with the UW campus. It looks like a wet dream for any sophomore and God knows I'm a sophomore at heart.

At UW I'm presenting The Tsar's Dwarf in a class called Masterpieces in Scandinavian Literature. The poor students are forced to read Hans Christian Andersen, Søren Kierkegaard, and Peter H. Fogtdal. But I'm the only one who has been invited. Hey, I might not be the best Scandinavian writer around but at least I'm not dead.




2.
Yesterday I did a presentation of The Tsar's Dwarf at Elliott Bay Book Company, a wonderful independent book store in downtown Seattle. A lot of construction was going on outside, so traffic was a mess. The sun was shining, too - a rare occurrence in the state of Washington.

I would lie if I told you there were a lot of people there: I counted three friends from UW, an American couple who told me they had a thing for midgets, some nice Danes from Microsoft, a Norwegian from Wisconsin with a name I couldn't spell, and a few other people who escaped before I could force them to buy my book.

But what a great book store. Elliott Bay Book Company is the kind of place where you could get lost for days. And the great people at Elliott named The Tsar's Dwarf Book of the Week, so I'm not complaining about anything!




3.
A few quotes from the two reviews in Seattle I'm aware of:

Seattle Times:: "This is the first novel to appear in English by Peter H. Fogtdal, a Danish writer who splits his time between Copenhagen and Portland. It shouldn't be his last; the guy has talent — especially in his rendering of his narrator's biting, contrarian, misanthropic voice ...

With an obvious fondness for the negative twists in his narrator's character, Fogtdal suggests how a vigorous, questioning, nihilistic mind can be a source of strength for a social pariah. And through Sørine he casts a steady eye on the more general whys and hows of existence. "Which," she asks, "is worse: when life stands still, or when it's pulled out from under you like a rug?" - Michael Upchurch.

Book of the Week review from Elliott Bay Book Co.: "Fogtdal's story is grotesque and sometimes brutal, but so richly imagined that it is captivating from the start. It is the story of Sorine, a Danish dwarf and self-described "curiosity cabinet" who is taken from the disease-ridden basement in which she lives to Tsar Peter the Great's court in Russia.

Here the lines are blurred between Sorine's world of filth and the comparative lavishness of the nobles, who treat dwarves both as "poppets," to be coddled and dressed up, and as brutish animals. Part historical fiction, part nightmare, The Tsar's Dwarf is a heart-wrenching tale of humanity." -M. Woolbright

Thank you, Seattle! I like you, too.




4.
Last night I also did a reading at the Nordic Museum. It's an interesting place with a souvenir shop where you can get a year´s supply of Norwegian flags, Swedish napkins, and Danish toilet paper. The Nordic Museum also offer courses in Scandinavian weaving and how to throw herring after people you despise. (Well, almost)

"Why didn't the Scandinavian countries ever unite?" a gentleman asked me after my reading. "Your countries are totally the same."

People looked angrily at the man who needed police protection to get out of the museum afterwards.

"We actually were united in the 15th century," I offered. "It was under Danish rule. But Norway and Sweden didn't like it much."

Luckily, I also got to sign a few books, and it was a great audience, spirited and tolerant of my rantings.

Wednesday I'll be at Garfield Book Store, Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma before I continue to Minneapolis, St. Paul, Madison, Milwaukie, Chicago, and Scandinavia House on Park Avenue in New York.

Life is good and I'm enjoying myself immensely.


Ah, the life of a writer, going from one airport to the other. Please notice how my sweater doesn't match my suitcase. If only I could afford a publicist who would follow me around like a lap dog telling me where to go, what to say, how to dress.

Was Peter The Great a Psychopath?

1.
Peter the Great is one of the most fascinating rulers of all time.

The Russian Tsar was a visionary genius, a man who changed Russia from a backward country into a European powerhouse. He was also a master sailor, a shrewd politician, a delightful dentist, a stern educator, a monstruos manipulator, an ingenious inventor, and an avid amateur surgeon who practiced his art on his soldiers who routinely would bleed to death after being operated by His Highborn Sovereign.

But most important (for my novel, anyway), Peter Alexeyevich was a leading dwarf connoisseur. He collected dwarfs like others collect stamps. No wonder that this charismatic, enigmatic and brutal giant has fascinated historians for centuries.

But even though Peter the Great was one of the most ruthless rulers in world history, is it fair to call him a psychopath?

Probably yes, but actually we'll never know for sure. We can't go back and analyze him; we can't question him and observe him under a blue lamp. No matter what, Peter the Great was definitely a man who had "issues". He was unbelievably blood thirsty, he had his own son, Alexei killed because he didn't follow his orders. Only on rare occasions did Peter show compassion for others, and he suffered from seizures and convulsions that turned him into a raging monster - we know that from several sources written by the English and Danish ambassadors to St. Petersburg.

We also know that Peter Alexeyevich wasn't typical for his time - that's exactly why he is so fascinating. He was feared and respected in Russia, but he was also deeply hated because of his ruthlessness and his paranoia.

But Peter was a complex man. Every time you try to label him, he slips through your fingers. He defies description; he was everything rolled into one. That's what I experienced when I wrote about him in The Tsar's Dwarf.

But hey, in my own twisted way, I'm quite fond of the man. He is as fascinating as Russia - a country I've visited twice and hope to visit again.

2.
When I did my research for The Tsar's Dwarf, I read three huge biographies about Peter Alexeyevich plus a few books and sources about life in Russia in the early 18th century.

All of these sources had a different take on Peter. The three biographies were well written and well researched, but that doesn't mean the writers "got" the man. I don't know if I do, either, but I think it's often through art, not science that you get closer to the truth of a human being.

However, as a novelist you have an obligation to be "loyal" to the historical persons you write about. You shouldn't make them do things they wouldn't have done in real life. You shouldn't have Ronald Reagan recite Soviet poetry or let Adolf Hitler cuddle a Jew; it just wouldn't be right.

There's another important historical figure in The Tsar's Dwarf, the Danish-Norwegian king Frederik IV (1671-1730). He's another monarch I love and respect, even though he didn't have a hint of psychopath in him. Frederik IV had less charisma than our Tsar. He was a romantic bureaucrat who was an ally of Peter's in The Great Nordic War against Sweden - a very complex man who fell in love with an Italian nun, but that's another story we won't get into here ...



The French version of my novel, La Naine du Tsar (Gaia Editions). It's out in four languages now and will be out in Ukrainian in the fall of 2017.

3.
At the center of The Tsar's Dwarf is a character who is a total fabrication of mine, the Danish dwarf Sørine Bentsdatter who is given as a gift to Peter the Great during the Tsar's stay in Copenhagen in 1716. She has been hired to jump out of a cake by the Danish court - and she sure as hell doesn't want to. I invented Sørine because I wanted to write a novel about human dignity.

Actually, that's not true at all. I invented her because she wanted to be in my novel. You see, I used to carry this angry dwarf with me where ever I went. She was mad, raunchy, vulgar, and pretty sarcastic as well.

I still love this inner dwarf dearly. Sometimes she does show her face for a few minutes when some one insults me. She grows out of me at the speed of sound, but I prefer that my dwarf stays in my book and doesn't interfere with my personal life. Why? Because I'm a happy man today. I don't need to hate any one the way Sørine does - at least not for more than a few hours.

In The Tsar's Dwarf, I want to show that no matter how much you've been beaten up in life, no matter how many you've killed, no matter how horny and blaspemous you've been, no matter what minority you belong to, there's still an amazing amount of hope for you.

If that wasn't the case, God and religion wouldn't make sense at all.  And it's Sørine's spirituality and Peter the Great's affection that keeps her alive.


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PS.
If you read the Scandinavian languages, you should get hold of my novel Lystrejsen about Frederik IVs trip to Italy where he commits the gravest of sins - he falls in love with a Catholic!

PS 2.
The Tsar's Dwarf is coming out in Ukraine in the fall of 2017. More about that later.

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