>> From the Library of Congress in Washington D.C. ^E00:00:04 ^B00:00:20 >> Good afternoon, and welcome to the Library of Congress. I am Grant Harris. I am not Georgette Dorn. Georgette Dorn is announced in the program as being the person who would give the opening remarks, but she could not be here. So it's me. I am head of the European Reading Room. Together with the Library's poetry and literature center, we are delighted to welcome friends from the Embassy of Denmark. We're very pleased to have here Ms. Yeta Renburg Elkaire [phonetic]. She is a cultural attache. She's brought some of her colleagues with her from the Royal Embassy of Denmark. And we are especially pleased to have our special guest, the award winning author Christian Jungersen who will discuss his latest novel "You Disappear" translated by Misha Hoekstra and published in the U.S. last year. Mr. Jungersen has written three critically acclaimed, prize-winning best sellers in Denmark. The last two of which have been translated into English at this state, and he has been published in more than 20 countries. I'll mention his latest three works, the oldest of these three in English would be entitled "Undergrowth" from 1999. It won the best first novel aware and a three-year writing fellowship from the Danish Arts Foundation. Then in 2004 the Danish version, the original of what we would call "The Exception" in English came out. It won two Danish major literary prizes and was shortlisted for major prizes in the United Kingdom, France, and Sweden. This book, "The Exception" was later voted by readers of Denmark's largest newspaper "Jyllands-Posten" as the second best Danish novel of the previous 25 years. The book that we will be talking about today "You Disappear" came out in 2012 in Danish. It won the 2012 Literary Prize decided by thousands of Danish library users. That prize, I hesitate to pronounce it, Laesernes Bogpris. Okay, good, thank you. Born and raised in the northern suburbs of Copenhagen, the author has lived in a number of different countries including the Island of Malta. His master's degree is in communication and sociology, and he has worked as a copywriter for an ad agency as an information officer, a TV script consultant, and film teacher at Copenhagen Community College. Very briefly, let me just mention that the Library of Congress is proud of its approximately 80,000 titles from or about Denmark. We have an extensive college of monographs on the subjects of Danes in the United States and Danish Americans. We currently receive each year approximately 600 volumes from or about Denmark. We are proud to have Mr. Jungersen's works among these works. The Library is open to readers six days a week, so please come and visit us. The Poetry and Literature center is a co-sponsor of this event. It fosters and enhances the public's appreciation of literature. The center administers the endowed poetry chair for the U.S. Poet Laureate and coordinates an annual literary season of poetry, fiction, and drama readings, performances, lectures, and symposia. The European division from where we come, the other co-sponsor, is responsible for providing reference and for developing the Library's collections relating to continental Europe. We are going to have a reading by the author and time for questions and answers before the book signing. And we do have copies of the books right outside if you'd like to purchase a copy and have the author sign. We hope you have a pleasant time here today at the Library. Thank -- we thank all of you who have made this event possible from the Embassy, Danish Embassy and the Library and elsewhere. Please turn off your cell phones and recording devices for the duration of the program. And please be aware that we are recording this audio/visually from the back of the room, so this event will be later made available as a Library of Congress webcast. So I ask you to help me welcome Mr. Jungersen. ^M00:05:31 [ Applause ] ^M00:05:38 >> Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here. Thank you for the warm welcome. I'm here to talk about primarily about my latest book "You Disappear". It is a novel about a married couple. Everything seems to be going well. She's a teacher. He's a headmaster at a private school. And then he starts to change his personality. And in the beginning of the novel it's found out that he has a brain tumor, gradually growing brain tumor. And this tumor is situated right here. A tumor can affect you in many different ways depending on where it's situated. Some people lose ability to speak. Some people lose ability to learn new stuff. Other people lose ability to remember stuff they haven't learned years ago. If a tumor is situated here and nowhere else, it will not all of these things. We can still run and walk, and you can still pass an IQ test as well as before but typically, you will change your personality very much so. You'll lose your inhibitions. You will lose your ability to empathize with others, and you will not have any awareness that you're ill yourself. No matter how many doctors you go to, you'll think you're the same person and everybody else is acting really strange. ^E00:07:02 ^B00:07:06 This is a tragedy for any family, not just for him, but for his wife, his parents, their son, teenage son. And that could have been a full bucket itself, but "You Disappear" is a novel where things move at a brisk pace, and already around page 70 it's discovered that before he had this diagnosis, he started to commit fraud against his own school. He had a gambling addiction on the stock exchange, and he committed fraud. This honorable man, this wonderful man who'd been up at six o'clock in the morning for many many years to help his school, to help the children, help the teachers, he has now brought it on the verge of bankruptcy. So big question is, it's obvious in the beginning of the book, this is a completely different person. It's also obvious that some years ago, he was his real self. The fraud started a year before his diagnosis, a year before anybody think about him being ill, so at what point in this gradual slide, imperceptible slide can you say he's no longer himself. It was his brain that did it, not him. He should not go to prison because it was his illness, not his own free will. This is a huge issue. And also because on all our brains, what if he had been healthy? Wouldn't it have been just his brain that led him to it? These are big issues, and he, himself, at this point at the start of the book doesn't really care. But Mia, his wife, of course she wants to save her husband, and she wants to save her son from growing up with a convicted criminal, and she really has to engage with the court case. And in order to do that, she needs to apply herself 100 percent to figure out what neurology is, what brain science is, and also a lot about the history of free will, the history of philosophy. Do we have a free will or not? I'm not going to tell you much more about the story. Maybe I should just say one thing, though, if she really wants to fight for her marriage, she needs to be in a very very close collaboration with the lawyer taking on the case and that is a very handsome and healthy lawyer. That's all. I will read from the very beginning of the book and nobody knows anything about Frederik being ill or anything here. ^E00:09:44 ^B00:09:52 We whoosh down between dark rock faces, through hairpin turns, down and around past dry scrub, silver-pale trees and back up, then over a ridge where the car nearly leaves ground and Niklas and I whoop as our entrails become weightless. The hot Mediterranean air buffets our faces, for all four windows are open. Frederik takes a curve so fast that I grab my headrest. The sea beneath us keeps switching left and right. Normally, Frederik's never brave behind the wheel, so I try not to be afraid. And the heat makes the rocks steeper, darker, the lemon groves prickling even more tartly in my nose, the sea shining blue like I've never seen it before. Around yet another rock outcrop and suddenly we're engulfed by cyclists. I scream. A swamp of neon-pink cycling jerseys. I look out the back window. No one's fallen, but they've dismounted from their bikes, clenched fists, open mouths. We round the next curve. Frederik, it's not funny anymore. He doesn't answer. Frederik. He lets out a small sigh and maintains his speed. I observe his long slender fingers wrapped around the wheel. They don't belong to this way of driving. Once I found them erotic, like miniature versions of his body, tall and thin, a swaying, relaxed body, not a speed demon's. And is it the speed that makes his eyes look deeper? Black-violet massifs. He seems strange, though I can't say where the difference lies. Another hard bump and again all three of us rise into the air. Stop, Frederik, stop, I yell. Niklas has had his head out the window. Now he pulls it back in. Mom, just leave off. I'm supposed to leave off? I'm supposed to leave off? Your father's driving like a complete madman. He'll kill us. Is that what you want? It's the speed, the colors, the heat, and all the outrageous Majorcan beauty. Niklas sighs with precisely the same sibilance as his father and again leans his head out the window. Niklas, keep your head inside. It's dangerous. He acts as if he doesn't hear me. Keep your head in I say. It's dangerous. Still he doesn't. I don't care if he's sixteen now. I turn around and pull him in myself. I use some force, and he stays in his seat. The Mediterranean shines so brightly it's impossible to look at it straight on. It floats up through the terrain and calls us like the tunnel of light the dying see. Come, become one with my beauty and eternity. A nudge to Frederik's hand and we'd swerve over the berm and all become weightless again, and then we'd be lifted out of the landscape too. I want to say, stop, stop again. Instead I look at our son. He's having fun. Am I just a killjoy? An oncoming driver lays on his horn. Frederik keeps his eyes fixed on the road before us. They drive like total madmen down here, he says. Will you please drive more slowly, I asked again. Niklas and Frederik laugh. The road twists, and then we're back in shadow and close to the rock wall. An oncoming truck suddenly fills the space in front of us. Frederik swings our car up against the rock face. Granite grates against the panels with a sound like we've been tossed in a metal grinder. And then we are past. Frederik says, we took out full coverage. The rental agency will cover it all. He doesn't slow down. Now Niklas pulls on the back of Frederik's seat. Dad, stop, stop. And I join in, stop the car now, but he doesn't lift his gaze from the road. He sighs like before. I pull back on the hand brake as we drive. He laughs and releases it again. Frederik, look at me. Won't you at least do that? He keeps looking straight ahead as he speaks, and as always, his voice projects reason and calm. I need to keep my eyes on the road. Frederik turns off sharply onto one of the small gravel roads. Low drystone walls on either side, and we skid in the gravel and scream, strike a stone wall, are flung to the other side of the road, hit that wall too, skid, stop. I turn toward Niklas. I want to be beside him in the backseat, clutch his head to my breast to protect him. But the car's already come to rest. It's too late. Are you okay, I ask. But I know he hasn't been hurt. It was only a couple of minor collisions. We're extremely lucky. I close my eyes for a moment and exhale. My pulse is throbbing in my temples. Are you okay, I repeat. Yeah, how about you? I think so. I look through the windshield. Frederik is already out front. He kicks the car with a resentful expression, squats to examine something by one of the fenders. I yell, aren't you even going to see if we're all right? He doesn't answer. Don't you even care? Well, I can see you're doing fine, he answers. I jump out of the car. And for the first time in our 20 years together, I hit him so hard that it's not just a game. He falls to the gravel and I shout, what the hell? What the fucking hell? Have you gone stark-raving mad? Sweat drips off of me and my fists are clenched. My pulse still pounding in my temples. He gets up staggering but unconcerned, as if he hasn't noticed my blow and takes a few steps. I don't think I can get it to run, he says. That's a stroke of luck, you big idiot. Maybe we won't die today after all. Mom, Niklas' voice calls from inside the car. I breathe deeply several times. For my son's sake, I need to be the reasonable one here, and so I manage to pull myself together. What should we do, I ask in a somewhat calm voice. Frederik doesn't answer. He climbs up on the stone wall and stands there surveying the landscape. That's the beginning. ^M00:16:01 [ Applause ] ^M00:16:09 >> That's just such a gripping beginning, isn't it? Can everybody hear me? As I said earlier, it has everything in it. It has drama. It has humor, even. It's a horrible situation, but I heard a lot of other people laughing so I wasn't the only one that thought there was some humor there. And also, it's set in a very exotic locale for Scandinavians. >> Everything sunny is exotic for us, I'd say. >> So when I told people I was going to be reading your books, they warned me. I was warned about your books. They said set aside a good amount of time because you will not be able to move until you've finished them. And I think you had a good quote earlier about how you write. I mean, you're a very deliberate author. >> Well, we did an audio recording earlier in the day, and I talked about I had heard some French guys say in order to be a French intellectual say to be a good writer, you need to half a madman, half a brilliant editor, and you need to swap between these two. And it is difficult, and I don't know, you -- we could debate which I'm the best at. >> I think you're good at everything. His books kind of grip you on a philosophical level and on an emotional level, and they're just page turners. So -- >> Thank you. >> -- what kind of a genre would you say -- >> Well, this is a family drama. This is, I mean, very down to earth. This is something that could happen to all of us. And to me, honestly, it's the most horrible thing I can imagine, having my loved one, my spouse changing personalities completely. As Mia says at some point it feels like there's a burglar in her house who has not just entered the house but actually entered her husband's body. And still everybody expect from her that she should sort of support him for decades to come, and she should share a double bed with him. But it's this different person. How can anything be worse than that? That's a tragedy. Then, let's enter the grotesque elements. There'll be scenes here and there that are just outrageous and I hope funny, but you laughed. And then of course, there are the huge philosophical elements like what is a person? And these are elements, actually, that are changing so much in this day and age. We're getting to know more and more about the brain and that will obviously affect what we think of a different person and what we think of ourselves. What -- who are we? And this is, I suppose, one of the things I wanted to write here. Like, in this building and many other buildings, there are so many books. And all writers will have to ask themselves, why would I want to write a book? Doesn't the world really have enough? So we all want to write something that is, you might say, experimental. And this genre is not labeled experimental, but it is. All writers feel our own books are experiments. Can this work? And for me, what I wanted was to explore this new world that we're about to enter. A world where we will know more, all of us, about the brain. And it will change us. There is no doubt it will change us. I don't know, I seem -- I feel like I've entered a very very long answer. Would you like me to? Because I could go on for this for hours. >> I'm sure most people -- >> Can I just -- okay, I'll say a few more things. In the renaissance, 600 years ago before that, the brightest people on earth would say that the world is created out of four elements, the -- I don't know how to pronounce, translate Earth -- earth -- >> Earth, fire. >> Earth, fire, air, and water. So yeah, I didn't know if earth was soil. But anyway, so that was not some drunken bar talk. That was the most brilliant minds of the day. Then they start to not invent, but develop the technique of telescopes and microscopes, and they start to figure out this is not the way it is at all. They're not -- this is not going to make a sort of small modification. They're not going to figure out, oh, it's clay and oil and water and, ha ha ha, no. This is a huge change, a huge huge change. So right now, as we speak, we have something similar going on to back then in the renaissance, where we're starting to figure out to see what it looks like when people make a choice, see what it looks like when they're in love, when they're angry, when they can empathize with someone else, when they can't. Is this going to change our world completely? Absolutely. So I've thought if I want to write a book that is new that is fresh that is different that is a literary experiment in my own way of doing in, this would be a good thing to explore because it hasn't really been described much before because it's so new. >> Well, so do you have a position on free will at this point? >> Well, this is something that the most -- I mean, the brilliant, most brilliant philosophers of the world has been debated for more than 2,000 years, so I'm very happy today in watching Washington to be able to now say that I've reached a conclusion. ^M00:21:46 [ Laughter ] ^M00:21:48 >> Careful. >> This is going to be a memorable day. I actually do have a -- I actually do have my own position on it. I think I'm going to take -- I mean, I'm sorry about these very long answers, but I think I'm going to take this answer in a bit of a different way. So when people ask me -- when you read this book, it will present different positions. It will present different ways. It's a novel. Different people have all different attitudes to what free will, all different attitudes of what neurology in their own lives and other people's lives. So you'll go away with it with a universe of positions, and they all are interacting. And they all -- they all communicate with each other. If I as the author come say, this is my own -- this is my own position, to many people, I think, actually the book will be more boring afterwards. And this interesting. This is not just a way of avoiding your question. It's a way of taking a question in a different direction because it says something about what a novel is It says something about that why on earth will I spend years -- I spent almost five years writing this book -- why would I do it? Well, I would do it because in writing a novel, I can create an approach to this subject that is basically more intriguing, more -- more rich than any conversation between the two of us. This is nothing to do with you, nothing to do with me. It's simply that if that was not the case, this would have been a bad book. So that's why you -- that's what could be your impulse to writing, to have this richness to what you express. That just has to be better than any conversation. >> Right. So that was the philosophical part of the book that's so engaging. Then it's the characters. >> Um-hm. >> How do you really imagine yourself into these lives? I mean, if I hadn't known I might have thought the author was a woman because it's from a woman's point of view. >> Thank you. ^M00:23:58 [ Laughter ] ^M00:24:03 That's a compliment. >> Thank you. Thank you. ^E00:24:08 ^B00:24:11 Well, I mentioned that I spent almost five years writing this book. And a lot of that is research. To me, research is not just getting the facts right. It's more like, I don't know, you have this acting called the method, method acting where you sort of emerge yourself in a universe and make it yours. And that's what I'm doing here. I've been so much in hospital wards meeting people who are brain damaged, people who are married to people with brain damage, neurologists, and surgeons and also school teachers and headmasters. I've been hanging out with them and going to dinners and just made it my world. So in order to -- this book should not just be a thriller or a comedy where you apply some facts, but that they really -- the book come out of the facts. That it becomes my universe. And this is one reason why it takes me so long to write any book. I've spent more than three years on each of my books. It is that the first two years, even though I'm writing hundreds of pages, I can just see the characters are not right. The characters that you talked about. And it takes time to get into them, get into that universe, and you need to really absolve their world in a way that's not just intellectual but is emotional, to be inside of them. My ideal would be that if I woke up from a dream at night, my dream could be, perhaps applied to my protagonist, my lead character. So it takes time to get that close to another person, and that is -- it's very important to me. >> You've done a great job. >> And that's also something I mentioned about the research. All these things I've done with the research, like, there's no end to that. I was actually thrown out of a supermarket in Denmark because they thought I was an industrial spy. I walk around with a camera because I have some scenes where I have Mia is having eye contact with a neighbor and he's standing by the olives and she's standing by the milk. And is that possible? And take -- I film the whole supermarket in order to be at my desk and see what can I do with the angles here to get it right. And they think, of course, I'm a spy for a competing chain or something. So this is very typical of my approach. And also, well, for instance, Frederik is -- commits fraud, so of course I talked to lawyers. I talked to police people. I talked to -- to accountants. I need to talk to major, big-time fraud people also. People convicted of fraud. So I thought, what can I do here? And I called the Danish Association of People with Ludomania Gambling Addiction, and I said, do you have anybody who I could talk to? And yeah, yeah, yeah, no problem. And then I said, well, can you get him my number, and he'll call me. Well, the problem is he's in jail, of course. Oh yeah. So there was then sort of in the hallway in the jail. He had a half an hour of lunchtime where I could call him every day at twelve. I did that three days. Of course, his feeling of -- I got a little music. We got a little accompaniment. Of course his explanation of what happened is completely different from what the police says. Of course, yeah. What does it feel like to be arrested? What does it feel like to be arrested for big-time fraud? It's like if you ask what does it feel like to have something done to your teeth, if you as the dentist or the patient. It's very different explanation. And I as the writer needs to know both. So, yeah, I do that with all these characters, and I really make an effort with that. >> Well, it shows. >> Thank you. >> Okay. So before we turn this over to the audience, I have one more question. When I was reading your books, I got the sense of a very peaceful organized, orderly society, a Danish society. And the subtext is very different, I think, what you might find in American novelists. So do you see yourself as a particularly Danish author? >> I think I do, actually. I suppose when you -- I love being in America, but you do feel an anger when you walk down the street. When you're a foreigner come from Northern Europe, when you walk down the street, a lot of people seem to be very angry. A lot of people are shouting. A lot of people seem to be mad, and that's different. It doesn't have to be that -- it's not like that in every society in the world. I mean, this is a very very fertile, wonderful place, so many wonderful things have come out of it, but it does change literature, I think, if you are in a society where things are a bit more peaceful, where people don't have to fight so much for survival. Just even if you fail at everything, you will still be kind of supported for life. That makes a change. And if you make a ton of money, you could -- you could buy a bigger yacht, or you could buy a bigger house, but it's not like everybody will suck up to you because they don't have anything. So changes the whole vibe. Still we're people. Still there's misery. Still there's fighting. Still having a spouse turning ill is absolutely horrible, but it just, I think, book out of Denmark, at least my books, were all to be a portrayal of a slightly different way of making things work in a society. >> Wonderful. Thank you. ^M00:29:58 [ Applause ] ^M00:30:05 All right, so now I'll open the floor up for questions. Here. ^E00:30:09 ^B00:30:12 >> First of all, I want to congratulate you on your fluency and your competency with English, and I hope that your next book will perhaps be first written in English and then translated into Danish. Then I wanted to know if you could share the precipitation that entered your mind for the content of the book with the brain and the scientific element. And then, it's obvious that you have visited schools and society in a great detailed way because your understanding and insight with relationships is so strong. So that goes without saying. >> Thank you. >> Then I would also like to know what your impression is of the translation of "You Disappear". >> Thank you. Well, thank you for your comments on my English language. I do have -- I enjoy trying to become better, learning all the time. It's a fun process. I've been working very close with the translator Misha Hoekstra who I find brilliant. And even though he is brilliant, there'll still be a thing he doesn't know because he is not Danish. So we have to sit both -- well, he writes it, and I scope through every single sentence and compare. And then we go back and forth and discuss what will be the best solution. And so I'm very happy with his translation. And it is difficult. It is a -- it's very very difficult to make a good translation, but I'm very happy with it. And I would never attempt to write a book in English as my first language. I -- I mean I do have a lot of fun trying to learn it, but no. How can I say, the tricky -- I'm often asked what's the tricky part for a foreigner when you're trying to learn English. Well, the tricky part is when you talk about something, you're not just talking about the subject. You're also kind of presenting yourself as a character. So if I say, this has been an amazing event. If I say, this event has been the bomb. If I say, this event has been awesome. If I say, this has been fabulous. All these words in the dictionary will read as exactly the same. For a foreigner, that's the same word. You can use one or another. But each of them, oh, it's marvelous. Each of them will create kind of a character talking as someone different. While you're talking, you're talking about the subject, you're also modeling yourself, creating yourself more or less consciously. And that is absolutely essential for writing a good book, and I -- it's difficult for a foreigner to do, and I would not attempt. I know that would be a limitation. Then you asked, also, more than the language about -- what was it? Oh, yeah, how I got to start the book. I have an old schoolmate who is a psychiatrist. And so for the last 20 years I've heard stories from what she does at work with the mentally ill people. And it's just been -- it's just puzzled me how very very different her call approach to what a person is is from what I read in novels. And I thought, that's a problem here. There's a problem in that I, myself, have learned about Freud and psychoanalysis. And everybody else in the humanities in Denmark have done the same. We have this classical psychological approach to what a person is that will somehow, more or less, affect every writer has a college degree and some psychology training, education. But -- but the whole professional world handling people with different disorders or problems has gone a different place. So I want to explore. Again, the experimental aspect. I want to write a page turner, but I also want to write a novel that explores this whole new approach to what it is to be a person. That was what started me off. That is probably as most writers and writing teachers especially will tell you the worst possible way to start off a book. You need to start off with a great character. You need to start off with a story. You need to start off with something that you're personally, emotionally involved with. Starting off with something, an idea, something abstract, something you want to explore most often leads to a real poor book, a really poor book. So what you have to do, then, of course as I mentioned before with you, is to have this idea and then start over meeting people, learning people, getting this world to be my own within the next few years, and then sort of going back. So it's a huge process. >> There was another question there. >> I have a question. I have been looking [inaudible] television with Charlie Rose and Eric [inaudible] Candle? He is a [inaudible] specialist with a Nobel Prize. >> Um-hm. >> And I would think your novel would be an absolute gem for Charlie Rose. Have you heard of him because -- >> I have heard of Charlie Rose, and I mean most -- I think most writers think their own book would be a gem for Charlie Rose. So that's my impression. >> But I'm saying that, not you. And I think because they have this [inaudible] in the brain. >> I would love to -- of course, I would love to be there. >> -- something [inaudible] being filmed maybe [inaudible] Library of Congress [inaudible]. ^M00:36:19 >> I would love it, of course. >> Anyway, the second comment [inaudible] I loved your dialogue. I think for translation to be able to have -- to kind of translate that dialogue I think is totally exciting. So thank you very much. >> Misha, my translator, has actually written all kinds of stuff himself. Of course, it is in native American, but he's also been a creative writing teacher for years. He is actually a professional writer. So he sort of reinvented in English, and we'd go back and forth again and make sure everything's right. So yeah, I'm very thankful to have such a translator. >> It's very good, thank you. >> Over here. A question at the front. >> I'm just wondering how you found him. >> Through a shared friend many years ago. ^E00:37:14 ^B00:37:19 Back then -- I'm not saying I discovered him, back then he had not translated any novels. So I sort of by coincidence met him, and he did some back then emails and things for me that I needed to be in perfect English and just thought he was amazing, and I think this is the guy I want to translate my novel. And I made the decision. >> So I have a question about sort of a deeper level of the novel. Of course, the issue with the brain and who you are is the prime theme, but I found that reading it I was thinking so much about the relationships between men and women, the differences. >> Yeah. >> And that's something we can all relate to. Incidentally, I actually gave the book to a friend of mine, and she couldn't read it because her husband apparently had had exactly the same -- she had to stop in the middle of the book because it was just too personal. But for me, I was really spending a lot of time thinking about, you know, what happened to Mia in the book because she changes. >> Yeah. >> And she comes to a point where she falls in love with the lawyer. ^M00:38:34 [ Audience Outcry ] ^M00:38:44 >> No, no, no, that's true. >> And I thought that was amazingly interesting, you know, because we all experienced being in love and being a different person. >> So well the whole issue of writing with a female perspective is interesting. I don't really know where to start and begin there. And also the issue of how it portrayed men and women, the book before this one is called "The Exception". That's a book about four women walking in a small office together making life utter hell for each other. When I had the idea to write this novel, I told a good friend of mine who is a Danish female author about it. And I just started out. And she said to me, Christian, I'm really really sorry to say this to you, but I feel it's my obligation as your friend. This book, you cannot write. And the reason is that we women, we can feel so many things at the same time. We can think so many things at the same time. Whereas, to be honest, everybody knows men can only feel one thing at a time. ^M00:40:00 [ Laughter ] ^M00:40:04 And I thought, of course, okay, I'm going to do this. I'm going to write this book. Impossible challenges have always sort of been, ah, I cannot resist. But also I thought, I'm going to utilize this. I'm going to -- I'm not going to sort of defeat it with force. I'm going to make a J-hook throw with it. I'm going to use it to my advantage. So I tried to create a novel that not just were about these four women, also sort of had a women's perspective on the universe. Full purpose, I create the world where the four females in this office, they are so complicated, like it's sort of -- they're sort of bordering on falling apart as persons. Whereas all the men are absolutely one-dimensional. And nobody really commented on it or noticed. So it worked very well for me. I did also, of course, a number of other thoughts about what is relation between men and women with that book. I could bring that into this one also. Where I also have a lot of -- a lot of things to say about the whole issue there. So for instance, Frederik through the book gradually improved his health, improves, and improves. Gradually, more and more. Nobody will know how healthy he'll actually be in the end, but he starts out with the operation, and he's a completely different person. Chapter by chapter his personality changes, which of course, is a wonderful challenge for me as a writer to have this gradual, gradual change of personality all the way through a book. But at some point, Mia is inviting her best friend for dinner, and the best friend's husband. So Frederik at this point is a bit more simple than he used to be. So Mia's best friend, Helen, comes to dinner with her husband. And her husband is a builder, sort of a contractor. He's doing projects. Whenever he is around, he comes with some filthy jokes. He drinks a bit too much. He talks. He interrupts everybody. He talks too much. And normally when this couple has left, it's always been like that, Mia and Frederik would go, oh my God, how can she handle him. He's so primitive. Now this time, they come for dinner and Frederik and this guy, they just bond immediately. They're having a brilliant brilliant time, and Henning [phonetic], the man, the husband there, he's never felt this good in his life. This is how he always felt he was looked down upon with his brand of humor and his ways and his way of sort of everybody shout and talk. So he feels, I'm having a great time here. And Frederik is having a brilliant time, and Mia's just sitting there and looking at her husband who's just been so reduced from what this refined being that he used to be, and then her best friend says to her, how wonderful to see Frederik is healthy again. And what can you really say in that situation. It is also, I mean, we talked about the tragedy and comedy being intertwined before, but also that I have sort of I'm not quite sure with this book, am I ridiculing women looking down upon men as a bit more simple than women in general, or am I actually portraying men as being more simple? I don't know exactly what's happening there, but there's definitely some thoughts about the whole complicated issues of how, what are we alike. Of course I know we're all different. Every women are different. All men are different. But still, the sort of the overall picture. Was that an answer? >> Yes. I also wondered how much was that a consideration when you were writing the book to include those aspects? >> Yeah. How much is it a consideration when I was writing the book? It was a huge consideration when I wrote "The Exception". When I wanted to write a book about office intrigues and office policy, politics. I could have chosen to have a gender-mixed office, and then interestingly enough, if I had exactly the same story, people would sort of think there were love interests and sexual desires and stuff, so I just chose it should be a one-gender office. I could have chosen it to be man or women's office, and I chose it to be women. And then, of course, I had to do all these portrayals of not just -- not just women are like that, but four different women, four different ways of being a woman. And also, again, they need to change all throughout the book. Not just four women, they're like that. But for every chapter they need to change in a way so that the reader doesn't think, oh, Epen [phonetic] would never do that. But on the other hand, also, they don't think that they're the same when the book has ended. So I have four different ways of living the life as a woman intertwining. That was a huge challenge, and something I really had to think about. But now, with this one, it's just -- it's not so much a consideration as with the previous book. I think. I have many stories about my research, about my thoughts. I could go on, but we have other -- yeah. >> Yeah, I think maybe time for one more question. >> I wanted to know if you were working on something else that we can look forward to. >> I am. I don't know if you could look forward to it, though. I am working on something else. And we'll have to see. I'm not -- I don't really talk about what I'm working on, but I am immersed in something else, and I've intrigued myself. >> Good. Thank you. >> All right. Thank you. ^M00:45:50 [ Applause ] ^M00:45:56 >> This has been a presentation of the Library of Congress. Visit us at loc.gov