Denmark for Dummies: A Superficial Introduction to the Happiest Country in the World

This is the original version that won Denmark.net's blog prize, but you may want to go to the updated versions. The latest is from 2024.


All Danes are blond and gorgeous. And all of us have a cabin with a view of a lake. No wonder the whole world wants to be Danish, but don't get your hopes up. We're very protective of our gene pool.


You're smart.

You're planning to go to Denmark.

You've always wanted to visit our country because you know that it's the most exciting nation in the world. You tell yourself, "Why would I want to go to Paris, Rome or Barcelona when I can go hiking in Djursland?"

"Yes," you continue, "I'm trendy. I want to go to Denmark because the Danes are green, they ride their bikes like there's no tomorrow, they're innovative with windmills and herring, and most important, they're the happiest people in the world."

Yes, that's right.

What we Danes have known for ages is now official: Denmark has been named the happiest nation on the planet. And I'm living proof of that. Right now this Danish novelist is sitting in the middle of happy Copenhagen staring at the happy rain, enjoying the 53 degrees of happy summer.

Come and visit us, will you?

And please bring all your money because you're going to need it!


YOUR GUIDE TO DENMARK

Here's a superficial introduction to my Southern Scandinavian Paradise. Everything you read here is the gospel truth and is not open for discussion:

Name: Denmark (Danmark)

Inhabitants: 5,5 million.

Capital: Copenhagen (1.5 million)

Ranking: Most livable city in the world (Monocle, British Magazine, 2008)

Other Top Rankings in the World That We Take Pride in Because We Should:
a) Commitment to foreign aid.
b) Pork consumption per capita.

Language: Danish.

Government: Constitutional monarchy.

Currency: Kroner. (5.5 DKK to a US dollar)

Religion: No, thank you.

Name of King: We don't have any.

Name of Queen: Margrethe II.

Name of Prime Minister: Always a Rasmussen.

Size: The 8th biggest country in the world if you count Greenland. (Always count Greenland).

Unemployment Rate: Always rising

Crime per Capita: Fourth lowest in the world.

Corruption: Second lowest in the world.

Average Consumption of Beer per Capita: Fourth highest in the world.

Great Danes Who Throw Up When They See George Bush on TV: 94, 3%

Great Danes Who Get an Erection When They See Obama: 53%

Big Boys Club: The European Union, NATO.

Famous Dead Danes: Hans Christian Andersen (fairy tale writer), Søren Kierkegaard (philosopher), King Canute (conquered England), Tycho Brahe (astronomer), Isak Dinesen/Karen Blixen (writer), Vitus Bering (explorer), Niels Bohr (physicist, Nobel prize winner), Jørn Utzon (architect), Carl Nielsen (composer), Hamlet (Shakespeare's boy toy).

Famous Living Danes: Lars Ulrich (founder of Metallica), Michael Laudrup (soccer), Helena Christensen (model), Peter Schmeichel (soccer), Lars von Trier (film director), Connie Nielsen (actress).

Danes Who Ought to Be Dead: Jante.

Famous Half Danes: Viggo Mortensen, Scarlett Johansson.

Danish Oscar Winners for Best Foreign Film: Gabriel Axel (Babette's Feast, 1987), Bille August (Pelle the Conqueror, 1988).
Biggest Danish Film Star of All Time: Asta Nielsen (from the Silent Age. Known as Die Asta by Germans, and other riff-raff)


Most Famous Danish Building: The Opera House in Sydney.

Famous Danish Companies You Probably Would Want to Boycot If You Were a Muslim: Arla, Lego, Maersk, Ecco, Bang and Olufsen, Danfoss, Carlsberg, Tuborg.

Daily Smokers: 10% of population. (All of them will be sitting in your outdoor café of choice)

Obesity Rate: 22% of population.

McDonalds Restaurants in Denmark: 25

Best Danish Food: Herring, herring (and hey, the herring is pretty good, too)




Denmark's Claim to Fame in Great Britain: Bacon.

Denmark's Claim to Fame in Spain, Greece, and Cyprus: Blond girls with herpes.

Denmark's Claim to Fame in the Far East: Badminton.

Most Important Danish Invention of All Time: The atomic bomb (Niels Bohr).

Denmark's Biggest Contribution to American Sports: Morten Andersen, the all-time leading scorer in the NFL.

Best Tourist Attraction If You're Into Knights in Shining Armour: 1. Frederiksborg castle, Hillerød. 2. Kronborg (Hamlet's castle), Elsinore. 3. Egeskov, Funen.


Best Tourist Attraction If You're Eight Years Old or Behaving Like It: Legoland.

Best Tourist Attraction If You're Eighty Years Old or Behaving Like It: Tivoli.

Most Overrated Tourist Attraction That You Shouldn't Waste Your Time With But God Knows You Will: The Little Mermaid.

Time of Glory I: When the Danish vikings conquered England in the 11th century.

Time Of Glory II: When Denmark won the European Championship in soccer in 1992 and the whole country behaved like we'd won the Third World War.

Biggest International Danish Hit of All Time But Please Don't Listen to It: Barbie Girl by Aqua.

Most Sold Novel Since the Days of Hans Christian Andersen: Smilla's Sense of Snow by Peter Høeg.

Worst Danish Accent by Great Actress: Meryl Streep as Karen Blixen in Out of Africa.



Most Beautiful Cities in Denmark: Copenhagen, Helsingør (Elsinore), Ærøskøbing, Faaborg, Ribe, Skagen, Svaneke, Århus.

Places to Avoid at All Costs:Strøget after midnight.

Best Months to Visit: June, August.

Best Month to Commit Suicide Because It's Dark, Dreary, and Everybody Wish They Were in Thailand: January.

Best Danish Traits: Tolerance, sense of humor, informality.

Worst Danish Traits: Intolerance, rudeness, pettiness, self-satisfied melancholy.

What You'll Miss the Most If You're an American Visiting Denmark: TV anchors with perfect teeth.

What You'll Miss the Most If You're Italian: Bread and Berlusconi.

What You'll Miss the Most If You're Norwegian: Norway

Most Beautiful Area of Denmark: The Silkeborg lake district in Jutland.



Celebrities Who Adore Copenhagen Because We Force Them to: Danny Kaye, Woody Allen, Bryan Adams, Per-Olov Enquist, Gwyneth Paltrow, John Cleese.

Most Stupid Thing to Say to a Dane: Now, which part of Germany are you from again ...?

Second Most Stupid Thing to Say to a Dane: I've just been to Sweden. It's my favorite Scandinavian country.

Enjoy your stay, but do bring all your credit cards.
Copenhagen is the third most expensive capital in the world, but hey, we mean well.



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PEN World Voices in New York (Now With Condoms?)

Nuruddin Farah and your bloghead outside Brooklyn library after a PEN World Voices event in New York, May 2008.


1.
They hand out free condoms in Housing Works Used Book Café in Soho, New York. Maybe it's because they expect the audience to have sex with the writers. What do I know? I'm just a novelist from Denmark and we're much more naive than you think.

I've taken the trip from Oregon to New York to write an article about PEN World Voices for Danish PEN. PEN is an international organization of writers who fight for imprisoned wordsmiths around the globe - for freedom of speech and the right to write.

Here in New York there are more than 75 events with authors from the whole world, among others Salman Rushdie, Umberto Eco, Annie Proulx, and Michael Ondatje. In the book café, we're about fifty people listening to three authors discussing the theme of the festival, Public Lives/Private Lives - and the world as one large family. As Rick Moody from American PEN puts it: "I'm from the Nation of Fiction, not from America. I often feel I have much more in common with writers than I do with my own countrymen."

I talk to Rick Moody after one of the events because I want to tell him how much we enjoyed his visit in Copenhagen last winter. Moody was one of four American writers who visited Danish PEN. He even brought his wife and an old guitar. "God, I loved it over there," he tells me. Rick Moody better say that - Danes demand compliments from our visitors or we'll hold them in contempt forever.

I talk with the author of The Ice Storm for another 22 seconds, then he's off to one of the other events that includes 160 writers with 160 different accents ...


2.
I move through New York like Hamlet's ghost, down narrow streets in funky West Village, to 59th Street where stressed out business men hunt down taxis like they were lions in the jungle. New York is a wonderful melting pot of nerds and neurotics; it's full of surprises ... a Sikh here, a closet Republican there ... a city so divinely diverse that you just have to love it. Walking around Manhattan is like being slapped in the face with a baseball bat, but it's the kind of pain you can't get enough of.

The many World Voice arrangements are scattered all over town - everywhere from the Irish Institute to Jewish museums, to Joe's Pub and Scandinavia House on Park Avenue. This year I'm just a spectator, but in 2009 I hope I'll be invited to participate, since my novel The Tsar's Dwarf is coming out in English and French in a few months.

In 2008 Denmark is represented by Christian Jungersen, the author of the thriller The Exception. Christian Jungersen got a rave review in New York Times for the book. He is on panel with the Dutch writer Lieve Joris to discuss evil - not in himself, but in the world. That becomes clear when a member of the audience asks why the two writers have chosen to write about the subject - if they worked through their own dark sides when they wrote the books. Interestingly enough, none of the two seem to understand the question but are more comfortable discussing genocide in Congo and mobbing in Danish work places ...

One of many great events at PEN World Voices in New York. This one is moderated by Rick Moody in the middle.


3.
The next day I meet up with Nuruddin Farah, the Somali author who everybody thinks will win the Nobel Prize one day - everybody but himself, that is. Nuruddin is a humble man, so when people tell him he's Africa's greatest writer, he usually looks away or up some one's nostrils. I'm happy to see him again. We know each other from Ledig House, an international writers' colony in Omi in upstate New York. We were both residents there in the spring of 2002 where we spent time walking through the forest and playing croquet on the lawn. Back then we laughed a lot when we were together. At one point, Nuruddin named me Pierre The Dane - a name that turned out to be prophetic, since I now have three novels out in France and won a French literary award in 2005.

Nuruddin Farah is part of an event called Writing Place, Finding Refuge with Fatou Diome from Senegal, Etgar Keret from Israel, and Xiaolu Guo from China. They turn out to be a wonderful panel - wise, charming, and witty, and all four of them have interesting things to say about living and writing.

"I'm dead tired of being called a Chinese writer," Xiaolu Guo says. "I refuse to represent any country. In China I have to consider who is chairman before I can write. That's why I'm here to do my books and make my films the way I want."

Nuruddin Farah adds: "I know w hat you mean. To me you can't say about a writer that he or she is from Africa or Europe. Those concepts are too vague. A writer doesn't need a continent. He just needs a quiet room and a computer."

Fatou Diome laughs out loud: "A quiet room? There are no quiet rooms in Senegal. That's why I had to move to Paris or else I would never have written a word. France is a ladder from where the African writer sees her continent. Furthermore, in Dakar no one leaves me alone. In our culture people come to your house and talk, talk, talk, so I would have to kill a lot of people before I could write a word ..."

Fatou Diome laughs heartily. She doesn't look like some one who'd be able to wipe out an entire population. But then again, who knows? Writers are made of powerful stuff ...


Nuruddin Farah from Somalia, Fatou Diome from Senegal, and Peter H. Fogtdal from Denmark. The honor is totally mine ...


4.
The theme of killing is also evident at another discussion two days later. African Wars is the name of the event. It takes place in the French institute and ironically, it turns out to be the most dysfunctional panel of all. Three writers are on, and the talk is dominated by Chenjerai Hove from Zimbabwe. He keeps on interrupting his colleagues, much to the annoyance of the moderator and most of the audience. However, Hove has interesting things to say:

"You know, I'm so tired of Westerners who go to Kenya for three months and come back calling themselves experts on Africa. How can you be an expert on Africa when you've only lived in one country? It's totally absurd."

The big man from Zimbabwe continues: "Right now I live in Norway. A few months back a Norwegian kid came up to me and asked, "Mr. Hove, is Africa as large as Norway?" That is a typical question from a Westerner. Most people only know Africa for three things: starvation, wild animals, and tribal wars. Why doesn't any one write about how beautiful our continent is?"

I love listening to Chenjerai Hove, but a few minutes later he starts to fight with Nuruddin Farah. "I never agree with him on anything," he says with pride. We sure believe him!


5.
On my way back from one of the events, Nuruddin Farah gives me a ride. We're driving to his hotel on Lexington Avenue. Nuruddin is tired because everybody wants something from him. After the latest event, two students came up to him. They were writing a PhD about his writings. One of them asked him a question that was so academic and so overly intellectual that he looked tired at her and said, "was that in English?"

But now we're sitting in the taxi. The lights of New York are glowing, the whole city is so hyper active that you can't sit still. Manhattan is electric, I'm happy to be here, but after a few moments I discover I've lost my cell phone. I look everywhere, in every pocket known to mankind, but it's gone.

"Well, you may have lost your phone but you found an old friend," Nuruddin tells me.

"That's a high prize to pay," I sigh and continue to go through my pockets. Nuruddin smiles, but when we let him off at his hotel, I've recovered from my loss and feel great to be a part of Rick Moody's Nation of Fiction.


6.
A few days later, the literature festival is over. I return to Oregon and when I'm sitting on the plane I contemplate what has made the biggest impression on me. Apart from meeting my Somali friend, I think it was a comment from the Israeli writer Etgar Keret. At an event, he told the audience that a few years ago he'd been at a conference with Palestinian writers. Things hadn't gone too well, but suddenly a Palestinian had turned to him and said:

"Do you know what? We Palestinians and you Israeli might not like each other very much, but if the characters in our books met, I think they would have a great time. Actually, I'm totally convinced that they would ..."


Every writer on earth should support International PEN in its fight for imprisoned writers around the globe. Go to American PEN on www.pen.org or find your local chapter online. PEN has hard working chapters in most countries, including Denmark, Bulgaria, Switzerland, and Slovakia.

I'm Deeply Honored, Your Majesty, But Please Forgive Me for Wearing an Orange Shirt at your Fabulous Reception.

1.
I'm sweating like a short order cook. So would you, if you were at the Royal Castle of Copenhagen waiting to shake hands with the Queen, the Prince Consort, the Crown Prince, and the Crown Princess. Yes, you would sweat as well. Even if you're not a snob, your arm pits would itch, your deodorant would fail, you might even giggle like a retard.

"Monsieur Peter H. Fogtdal, Ecrivain e Madame Fogtdal," shouts a man who probably has a fancy title I can't pronounce.

"Oh my God," sighs My Pale Girlfriend who's even paler than usual. As a true American, she has never met anything as exotic as a queen or a prince. She has only run into Laura Bush at Safeway, so right now she's out of her league. But she does look great in her black dress and the Syrian scarf I've given her. However, Madame Fogtdal she ain't. There is no one with that dubious title. She is, however, my gorgeous girlfriend, so she definitely belongs at my side at this defining moment in space and time.

I walk up to the Queen. She is dressed in a beautiful gown in the same color as a forest fire. She smiles and for a second we shake hands. Then on to the Prince Consort followed by Crown Prince Frederik and Princess Mary who looks even better than in the tabloids. Oh yes, my heart is beating fast, my nose is running. Does this make me a snob, or is it all right to be in awe of this Scandinavian Versailles with paintings of perfumed kings and effeminate barons?

2.
Why do I deserve the honor of being invited to Amalienborg, you rudely ask? Well, the reason is simple. This is a reception for the French speaking countries and everything French - and I won the Francophone literature prize in 2005 (or Le Prix Litteraire de la Francophonie, if you will) - a prize given to the best Danish book to come out in the nineteen Francophone countries. (Yes, technically my prize winner Le Front Chantilly (Flødeskumsfronten) is out in nineteen countries, even though I doubt you can get a copy of it in the book stores in Tunisia).

Some of the other prize winners are here as well. Michael Larsen who won in 2007, Leif Davidsen who took the honors in 2004, and Jens Christian Grøndahl who triumphed back in 2003. We form a writers' circle before we enter the palace to mingle with ambassadors, Oscar winning directors, and socialites from the suburbs.

Before entering the palace: Three proud writers and a pale girlfriend getting ready for royal handshakes, some great Flora Danica, Mozart, and a huge Gin and Tonic on the house.


3.
I don't know what's wrong with me but I have this thing for castles and royal intrigue.

In school I loved to study our kings. I knew everything about them - I knew when they ruled, what they wore, and how they were murdered. I even had a few kings on my wall where they watched me fall asleep with royal indifference.

Actually, I've always been a Frederik IV fan. Frederik IV of Denmark-Norway, Slesvig-Holsten, Dittmarsken, Iceland, Greenland, and Lolland-Falster (I don't think I got that title right) ruled from 1699 to 1728 and wore powdered wings. He loved everything Italian, including a nun or two. In 2002 I wrote a novel about him called Lystrejsen. I've brought it along for the Queen. I'm sure Her Majesty is dying for a signed copy. But how do you give her the book? I know you can't walk up and hand it to her. You just can't shove a book into her royal hands and start babbling about it, so I ask a waiter if I can talk to Her Majesty's lady-in-waiting.

"It's so kind of you to bring a gift for the Queen," the lady-in-waiting tells me. "What is it, may I ask?"

I tell her about Lystrejsen. She interrupts me: "Oh, I read that. It's wonderful."




I beam like a toddler and start telling her about the research I did for the book - how I traveled to Italy and saw the places where Frederik IV stayed on his Italian tours - how his palace in Rome has become a bank where good folk exchange their Euros. After a while I'm boring the poor lady to tears, but she listens graciously and promises me that the Queen will be pleased.

But how pleased, I think? Will she actually read it? Or perhaps she did when Lystrejsen came out? Maybe Margrethe hates it with a vengeance. And maybe I'll never be invited again, since I'm using a four letter word on page 71.

No, it's not easy being a guest at the Royal Castle. But I must admit, I could get used to it. I could definitely get used to the lazy champagne and the gilded frames! Just give me a few incarnations and my upper lip will be as stiff as Prince Philip's.



4.
We continue our walk through the castle. In the background some musicians plays Mozart - I guess he's been invited as well. Guests mingle, a few counts raid the bar in search of cognac.

At the end of a long hall there's a wonderful exhibition of Flora Danica, 18th century china that covers every inch of the walls. We admire the plates - the engravings of rare flowers and common seaweed. In the same instant we're approached by Leif Davidsen, thriller writer per excellence. He says to Choul:

"These rooms aren't open to the public. You're probably the third American to see this exhibition after George Bush and Bill Clinton."

Choul looks pleased and we continue talking to interesting people while drinking ourselves silly in spring water. From the room there's a great view of the Amalienborg square. A few tourists are taking snap shots of the Royal guard. I wave at them hoping they think I'm a disturbed duke.

"I don't know why they serve cauliflower at a reception like this," a South European ambassador complains. He also tells us that his wife hates Denmark. "The weather is s o gloomy here."

The Mexican ambassador is more fun. She is introduced to me and tells me she enjoyed Le Front Chantilly. "That was the first Danish novel I ever read." For the next few minutes she talks about it like a true connoisseur.

"Take that, Peter Høeg," I smirk and feel like kissing the Mexican, but I'm not sure you're allowed to kiss an ambassador - it could be against the Geneva convention.

My Pale Girlfriend, Leif Davidsen, Jens Christian Grøndahl and wife.

5.
Two and a half hours later the reception is over. The Queen and the Prince Consort leave the ballroom. This is an indicator that we should get the hell out as well, but my beauty and I want to stay. For a second, I try to chain myself to a French butler but decide against it. I want this day to be without scandals. After all, I'm a Royalist at heart, I admit it.

And next time I'll wear a white shirt and a tie, I promise.

The Secret Confessions of a Moose Lover (Happily Lost in Fairbanks, Alaska)

1.

Let's face it. I'm a moose lover.

But the moose don't want my love. This is the second time I'm in Alaska and the moose never show themselves. I only see them on tacky t-shirts and street signs. After a few days I'm so desperate I buy a pair of moose socks at Fred Meyer, so I don't walk around feeling so cheated.

"Actually, you're as likely to see a moose in the parking lot as you are in the wilderness," a local tells me. "The moose are so huge that they don't give a damn about humans," she continues.

So every morning I get up and look out of my hotel window hoping to see a moose licking a Volvo.

2.

Talking about Volvos, I'm in Fairbanks to attend the annual SASS conference. SASS stands for the Society for the Advancement of Scandinavian Study. It's always a great bunch of people who show up, most of them are scholars worn out by their PhDs, but there are also a few weirdos like me. There's even a Bulgarian grad student who studies Per Olov Enquist and a Romanian from Transylvania who has psychoanalyzed Elling - the famous Norwegian film.

"Norwegian films are preoccupied with the mentally ill," she tells us. All Danes, Swedes, and Finns in the audience nod happily. We're from the sane part of Scandinavia after all - at least that's what we think, which just goes to show how delusional we are.

No don't get me wrong. The SASS conference is pure bliss. We all get along. There's no nasty teasing, just laughter and heavy drinking as you would expect. After all, Scandinavians have a reputation to live up to, especially if you're Finnish or Danish. We eat muffins, too, and have a craving for Northern lights. Actually, the receptionist offers to wake us up if the sky becomes clear.

"Could you also wake me up if you see a moose?" I beg.

The receptionist nods. Moose alerts are included in the price at Princess hotel. So are the fancy ice sculptures in the parking lot that melt when you look at them.

From my room I see a beaver. Or maybe I just want it to be a beaver. It's probably a rat.

3.
On the second day of the conference, we go on an excursion. Two yellow school buses pick us up and we head for the Ice Sculpture Exhibition. It's Fairbank's version of Knots Berry Farm with joy rides made from ice blocks. There's even a phone booth made of the cold stuff - I'm sure the Sami of the group feel right at home. The exhibition also has icy advertisements for ATM and other ridiculous companies.

Then again you shouldn't be surprised. Alaskans are Americans after all, and if Heaven were run by Yankees, there would be advertisement boards there as well: Welcome to Paradise -brought to you by Praise The Lord Sneakers. Now You Too Can Walk on Water.

4.

For Alaskans it's a warm evening, 3 degrees Fahrenheit or about minus 17 Celsius. It's a tricky cold. It creeps up on you like a bag lady. Fist, you actually feel great. "Minus 17 degrees is a piece of cake," you brag. "I'm a fucking Eskimo."

But after fifteen minutes the cold cuts into you like a knife. You start to feel like a walking ice cube. Your face goes numb, your legs start to hurt, your face goes blue quicker than your balls.

I run back to the warm school bus in the parking lot, but it's gone. Thirty ice cold Scandinavians are waiting like impatient toddlers. It isn't a pretty sight, but what a relief when we find ourselves back inside the bus. The fact that there's no leg room doesn't mean a thing. Most of us don't feel our legs, anyway.

5.

Papers, papers, papers. Academics adore papers. That's all they live for. Everybody at SASS is an expert on something useless - that's why it's so much fun being here. In another universe, people would be committed for obsessing about Karen Blixen's syphilis or the gorgeous adverbs in the Icelandic sagas. But at SASS everybody pretends they're normal. We run around with name tags, we flash cards with pretentious titles, we spill coffee on each other. It's all theatre, but you don't have to be Shakespeare to feel that the world is a stage. Just visit SASS and listen to papers like The Boredom Paradox and the Aesthetic Responses to Freudian Slips in the Late 17th Century Scanian Poets of Southern Landskrona. Then you know why we're driven to drink. Fast.

I've been at SASS conferences several times without much of a purpose, but this time I actually have an agenda. I want the Scandinavian-American community to know that a novel of mine is coming out in English. It's my eleventh Danish work The Tsar's Dwarf (Hawthorne Books), beautifully translated by Tiina Nunnally. It's out in the fall and I'm going on a book tour of Seattle, Tacoma, Portland, San Francisco, L.A., Fullerton, Chicago, Madison, Des Moines, New York, West Chester, and a lot of places I don't know yet. The book has blurbs by Sebastian Berry, Irish Man Booker finalist and Joanna Scott, American Pulitzer finalist. Yes, I'm nauseatingly proud of this and will write more about it later.

So I'm here at SASS hoping that the Scandinavian professors will use the book in their classes. As everybody knows, it's a teacher's finest obligation to make their students suffer. Well, come October I'll make that easier for every one.

At SASS I give a paper called The Novelist and His Translations: The Art of Finding the Writer's Voice. It's actually not a paper. It's just me babbling away as usual. Before I came I had grand visions of a full lecture hall - of avid readers hanging on to every word; of beautiful women adoring my insights, but only six people show up. Well, size doesn't count. Isn't that what Linda Lovelace used to say?

6.

At the farewell party I shake my booty with a few scholars. But come 11 I sneak back to bed. I have to get up at 4.30 and catch my plane. Outside it's pitch dark and beavers are looking for food. But there's no doubt: The SASS conference has been a huge success. Everybody has enjoyed themselves immensely, and people are still dancing as if there's no tomorrow. The organizers have done an excellent job and deserve a vacation somewhere warm. Even the weather has behaved and the salmon wasn't as overcooked as in Oregon.

When I take the plane back to civilization (Denmark? Starbuck's?), I only have one complaint: The good people in Fairbanks should have hired some moose to stare into our windows. And produced a few Northern lights. I know they're just gasses, but they're so damn pretty, anyway.

A Portuguese Book Launch And A Reindeer Melting In The Sun

November, 2006

1.
Santa Claus looks out of place.

After all, he's strolling down a walking street in Lisbon in 75 degrees desperately looking for kids to fondle. But who needs Santa and Portuguese reindeers when the sun is shining and it's unseasonably warm?

I love Lisbon. I just walked into one of the biggest bookstores in the city. The first thing I saw was my novel A Anã do Czar (The Tsar's Dwarf) lying next to José Saramoga, the Nobel prize winner, and a new biography on Marie Antoinette. Now that's the kind of company I like to keep!

Like a total idiot I said to a lady browsing through my book: "I wrote that," pointing at my picture like a self absorbed madman. She looked at me with the kind of look you reserve for Danish novelists: "Did you really?"

I walked away feeling like a total moron, but one minute later she came back with three other people who worked in the store. At first I thought they were going to kick me out, but they asked me to sign four more books and as the gentleman I am, I gave in to their unreasonable demand.

When I left the bookstore, I thought: Maybe these book people haven't met an author before?




2.
Saturday night was the official book launch at FNAC in Colombo, the biggest mall in Portugal. It's lying next to Benfica soccer stadium. I must admit I'd hoped that Rui Costa would drop by, or a few TV-stations, but we had to live with about fifty people which definitely was fine.

My publisher Cláudia Peixoto (a woman with exquisite taste in literature) welcomed everybody. Then one of Portugal's best writers Sérgio Luis de Carvalho compared my novel to David Lynch's Elephant Man (my book has the same theme, something I've never thought of).

Sérgio gave a glowing review of my novel; he's a wonderful man. I should know because I stayed with his family for two days overlooking the hills of Sintra and the neighbor's laundry: T-shirts, underwear, over sized bras that unfurled like flags. I took over his son's room, I stole his strawberry yogurt and made bad jokes about Benfica, but his dog Boris was crazy about me.

After Sergio's talk, it was my turn. Since my Portuguese is kind of appalling (I know three words), I spoke in English (which, come to think of it, is quite appalling as well). Afterwards, a well known poet and radio host, José Fanha, read aloud from my book. Even though I didn't understand much, I was very impressed with the reading.

Later I signed about 18 books and talked to a few people who had liked my first novel O Paraiso de Hitler (The Whipped Cream War) that came out in Portuguese last year. Just the thought that I actually have fans in Portugal fills me with a great sense of joy.

3.
Lisbon is a wet dream for anyone who enjoys a city full of hills, history, and hallucinations. There's something wonderfully old fashioned about this capital. People are courteous, the women are pretty, the port wine is cheap. And the city is full of street cars with huge Coca Cola ads. 

I spend a lot of time in Alfama, a gorgeous part of the city. All houses are white as bedsheets. It has a feel of an Arab city. People greet you; you even run into the odd goat. The locals don't seem as melancholic here as they do in the rest of Lisbon. The Portuguese are not your stereotypical Latins. They're not drama queens like the Italians or loud like the Spaniards - they suffer. Oh God, they suffer. Just listen to the music that comes out of them. Fado is like a love poem to a corpse. So if you're into blues, feel free to visit one of the fado restaurants in Barrio Alto. They're a total rip off. When I went, we ended up dancing on the tables as if we were in a bierstube in Gelsenkirchen.

4.
On my last day in dreamy Lisbon, I run into Santa Claus again. This time he has brought a snowman. The moment I pass him, fake snow falls from a balcony. For a short second it looks as if Santa is drowning in dandruff. Then he sees a cute kid and starts to chase him down the street ...