On paper, and never better said, Jo Nesbø has come to talk about his book, the 13th adventure in the Harry Hole series entitled Eclipse (Reservoir Books and Proa in Catalan), but the conversation immediately turns to the Cerros de Úbeda because the Norwegian author, who has sold 55 million books to date, is passionate about climbing and has managed to pass an 8a test (which translated would mean outrageous). “It took me three years to get it and more than 100 attempts,” he confesses to Magazine. There is always the doubt of being before a double of Nesbø from so many activities that he displays.
The best-selling author was a professional soccer player, an economist by training and profession until he left it, he continues to lead a rock group, writes his novels where blood splatters, but also children’s books, and is also in love with cinema. The encounter with Magazine is one of bread and dip. The writer displays all his wisdom in a conversation that leaves a mark and in which he reveals his fears. Curiously, the fear of height is one of them. Yes, apart from writing them, Nesbø is, in itself, a book. Here, a few pages of his life at the fly.
How can you do so many things at once?
I do not know, that’s the truth. Most honest people have a profession, a trade, they have bosses. I left that life behind many years ago, when I was 30 years old. So I try to do what I like, simple as that. Maybe you think I’m someone full of energy and the truth is that no, I’m a bit lazy. What happens is that I do many different things and that attracts attention, I practice climbing with my friends, I play in a rock band and I write books… The truth is that I sleep for many hours and many of the hours that I don’t sleep I dedicate myself to not Do nothing.
What does it feel like when you are up there, climbing?
The truth is that it scares me a lot because I am a little afraid of heights. In part I started just because of that, it was a challenge. As a child, I remember that my brother and I were good at soccer. The kids who weren’t dared us to climb the trees and I was very scared. It was their revenge because we beat them at soccer. That’s where it all comes from. When I started climbing, the fear was there and it hasn’t gone away.
How do you concentrate?
You know the context, you have the rope, but if something changes, be careful. It’s interesting. The other day I was with eight people and I felt that he was nervous and I have played and spoken in front of thousands of people.
On the sash of his new book it reads: “55 million books sold in 50 languages”. What pressure do you have when you see those figures when you start a new novel?
When you know you have readers waiting for a new book is one thing. But life doesn’t change you until you become a professional. And then if you have a little, a lot or a scandalous success it is almost the least of it. In the latter extreme, yes, you make a lot of money, but I’ve never been interested in being rich.
But you are Nordic. In your country, even if you have money, pretending is tacky.
That is partly true, it is tradition, because until the eighties there were not so many rich people. But things have changed. Until then the difference between poor and rich was narrowing, then it became bigger. The mentality has changed.
Another Nordic dream gone to waste…
I’m sorry… (laughs)
Millions of people read you… Who do you read?
When I was little I read a lot of Mark Twain and when you reread it when you are older you realize that, as a child, you were not on the wrong track. He is a great. My father was American so I liked Charles Bukowski, Jack Kerouac, Jim Thompson. And the Norwegian classics Knut Hansum, Henrik Ibsen, Shakespeare, Dickens, Brest Easton Ellis…
Let’s talk about kings. Critics have said and said that you are the King of Thriller. Reyes: the one of pop, Michael Jackson. The one of rock, Elvis. For a time, the king of the thriller in the cinema was Henri-Georges Clouzot with Las Diabolicas. He knocked out Hitchcock and Hitchcock filmed Psycho to get the championship belt back. How do you feel when they call you “the king”?
No, no, I do not enter these labels. I don’t feel like the king of thrillers, not at all. I don’t feel like a king of anything. Look, when you start a new story you’re naked, you feel vulnerable and you know that if you don’t try you can write rubbish novels. Once I finished an entire novel and hit the “delete all” button. It was bad. I knew it. It’s always a fight. Being a king is a title that you have for life, being a good writer does not give you the right to that title because there will always be a next job that will leave you without that label.
When you write the children’s stories of Doktor Proctor is it to compensate for the blood of the Harry Hole series?
No, not really. I am a crime novel writer, but sometimes I deviate, not because I want to escape the blood, but because I want to write other things to which I give the same importance.
You need a special atmosphere to start writing…
I go back to my childhood and recreate my nightmares, the fear I had of dogs and that is in some scenes. Then there is my cabinet of curiosities… how a beheading touches my emotions or how you explain that someone is vomiting, how the vomit bounces off the floor. You almost become a film director, what do you want to see and what not, what angle. Describing is like editing. The writing, the idea, is more emotional, but the manner, in this case, is more technical.
Like in the movies…
He mentioned Hitchcock, which was very technical, but also emotional. In Psycho there is an incredible scene: when the murderer pushes the car into the lagoon. And the viewer says: I just hope they catch him and at the same time he wants the car to disappear to complicate the plot. But it is a scene that is difficult to do. I once spoke to Christopher Nolan, the film director, about that. What makes the audience stand in favor of the good guys or the bad guys?
Sometimes the ones you like are the bad ones,,,
Sure, it happens in The Godfather, with Michael Corleone, even when he becomes the worst of assassins.
He kills his brother, Fredo…
And in the first part he kills his brother-in-law
In the end you end up hating him, but admiring his roots, the fact that his father, as a young man, killed the gangster Don Fanucci.
I really like movies, it’s true. There was a time when movies were heavily influenced by novels and I think now it’s the other way around, novels thought of as blockbuster movies. In No Country for Old Men, for example, the film is the novel as it is. There are very few changes. That already happens in my writing, that a night scene indoors is followed by a daytime scene outdoors. That idea of ​​the storyboard, that you work visually. The scariest thing about that movie was Javier Bardem’s haircut. And I think that was his idea…
What movies have marked you?
The Godfather for sure. Francis Ford Coppola. At the beginning, there are 20 minutes that go very slowly in which it seems that nothing happens and it is the opposite. And Martin Scorsese. It’s funny what happens to me with Taxi Driver, I loved it and I still like it, but it didn’t surprise me that much anymore, I was disappointed. It seemed that time had not been as kind as with The Godfather.
The sash of his new book, Eclipse, reads: “After four years of abstinence, Jo Nesbo returns to the series that has crowned him.” Who needed abstinence from whom? You from Harry, Harry from you?
The abstinence is more related to the readers. Since the last Harry story I’ve been writing other things. In a sense, because it’s a series, and I like that concept, I have to go back to Harry at some point. I have a clear idea of ​​how his life goes on, also in the future, but without going into specific details. When an idea comes to me I have to decide if it has to do with him, with my music group or for a children’s book.
By the way, happy 63rd birthday. What are your first memories as a child?
We were in the street and it had rained, we were little. We challenge ourselves to drink from a puddle on the asphalt. I remember the taste of the water, which was gritty, metallic. The curiosity we had. That is the first memory. Testing things.
What gift would you like?
I don’t want material things. I once had a little house, but I gave it to the mother of my daughter. I have no car. I have an apartment in Oslo. I don’t even have clothes, because my suitcase was lost on the trip to Barcelona. (laughs) I had an apartment in Malaga, because I could climb there too, in El Chorro. And now I have it in Kalimnos because I spent a lot of time there. Thailand is a good place to climb, on that peninsula called Tonsai.
How many times do I try to achieve level 8a?
Between 100 and 200, it took me three years. If one day I find myself in a place where there are no mountains around, I look for a gym. I started climbing very late. My diet is not very rigid, yesterday I ate cake, for example. I have relaxed for a few days (Laughter).
