FRIDAY NIGHT FEVER had arrived on Værøy. Dance night at the pub with a local band playing. When you’ve been living on a tiny Arctic island for some time little things like that get your pulse racing. I felt like a seventeen-year-old all over again. Oh, how the memories come flooding back. At seventeen I was a […]
Category Archives: Literature
EVEN THE sunniest of mornings on the island of Værøy can see endless low clouds appearing as a magic waterfall tipping over the mountains in slow motion. Driven upwards by the prevailing northern air currents, as the wind drops they dissolve into thin air. From time to time, the cloud mist descends below the church tower […]
FOLLOWING MY RUN IN with the gorilla at the Aker brygge shopping mall, Kari called a taxi and told the driver to take us to Majorstua. If only my arm hadn’t been in a sling I would’ve knocked the gorilla’s block off. Nobody messes with Knut Pedersen and walks away with his body intact, I […]
THERE IS A SECRET island far beyond the Arctic Circle where people don’t lock their doors at night for there is no fear and there are no thieves. An island where small children play on homemade rafts in sparkling waters on summer days that last forever… AND SO BEGINS chapter eight of Pedersen’s Last Dream. Oddly enough, though […]
THOUGH ADOLF HITLER’S Armed Forces High Command couldn’t possibly have planned to spoil Bjørg’s birthday party on purpose, they might just as well have. The German invasion of Norway on April 9th 1940 certainly put a damper on any thoughts of birthday celebrations, and would serve as a reminder of that fateful day for the rest […]
GOOD NEWS for all my readers! Scientists have now confirmed that reading novels like Pedersen’s Last Dream can cause biological changes in the brain that act as a booster, which can linger for up to five days or more. Admittedly, the researchers at Emory University in the US did qualify their findings by specifically using the words […]
I’M ON A TRAIN. It’s late at night. Or perhaps it’s midday and the train is an underground train. Sometimes, in dreams, you can never tell. “Look at our friend over there,” I say to someone, who suddenly appears at my side, while pointing to a drunk talking to himself further up the train, “I […]
THERE IS A SECRET island far beyond the Arctic Circle where people don’t lock their doors at night for there is no fear and there are no thieves. An island where small children play on homemade rafts in sparkling waters on summer days that last forever. A secret island where sea-mist clouds roll lazily over mountain tops […]
A ROUNDED MAN in a lived-in sweater, and permanently in need of a shave, Roar has lived on the Lofotens all his life. Like most islanders, he is a man of the sea. Though you wouldn’t think it to look at him, he runs, what was once described as ‘the best hostel in the world’ […]
BEFORE WE START, the one hostel, B&B, pension, whatever you want to call it, in the world, definitely worth avoiding at all costs, is at windswept Ezurum in the far northeast corner of Anatolia. Or used to be. Once you were there, it wasn’t hard to locate. You just asked your helpful bus driver where […]
Pedersen's Last Dream 