The writer and translator Dorthe Nors (May 20, 1970) wrote an article for the Guardian talking about the artist's life in her homeland, Denmark. Nors, is the first Danish writer to have a story published in The New Yorker ("The Heron" in 2013). Naturally the artist's life theme draws upon her own, and so we extract:
'A couple of years ago,[2015] I moved away from Copenhagen. I say that because I want to tell you something about what it’s like to be a writer in Denmark. Most Danish authors live in Copenhagen. It is there that you find the literary scene – called simply “the scene” if you actually manage to become part of it. I lived in Copenhagen for seven years. On the one hand, I wanted to become part of the scene but couldn’t. On the other, I didn’t want to. ...
'Just about the time that I seriously began to consider moving from Copenhagen, the first wolf was sighted in Jutland. Big commotion! Wolves had been wiped out a couple of centuries previous, and suddenly: “a wolf in Jutland!” Interest groups sprouted up that felt the wolf should be shot.....“But Jutland is a big place,” said others, who knew that the most dangerous wolf is the one that lurks in our minds. “Let’s welcome the wolf back.” The debate was heated.
'In a small population where just about everyone is related, artistic milieus are decidedly claustrophobic
...
'There are about 5.6 million Danes in the country, and Copenhagen is our capital. Some 1.2 million people live there. We are a minuscule people with a peripheral language, and in Copenhagen, our nation’s writers gather in coteries. If you’re in one of these coteries, you’re a writer among others who write and think somewhat the way you do. My experience abroad tells me that intellectual movements and artistic milieus are tricky beasts, regardless of where you stumble upon them. But in a small population where just about everyone is related, artistic milieus are decidedly claustrophobic.
'I wanted to be part of the scene, and yet I didn’t, after all. I couldn’t anyway, and for seven years I sat in Copenhagen, stuck fast like a burr on the back of a cat. And then came the news of a wolf in Jutland.
....
'I was born in Jutland, ..... I chose to settle so far west that it’s hardly Denmark anymore. On the central western coast, by the North Sea. Every day I walk down to the sea and position myself with my back to the land. If I could swim that far–though no one could–I’d be able to go ashore on a beach in Aberdeen. I feel closer to the great world here than I did in Copenhagen. There are no other writers here. There are ceramists, photographers, painters, and musicians–but no writers. Sometimes I drive sixty miles north and drink coffee with an old poet who lives up there. I invite authors from Copenhagen to spend the weekend. Then they stand with the wind in their hair and draw the sea into their lungs, before making the long journey east again. There will be more and more time between their visits, I know.
....
'..The local women meet once a month to read books together. It’s a recent development in Danish reading culture and one that I put great stock in, aside from the fact that it lacks men... I hadn’t lived in the village very long before I was asked if I wouldn’t come and talk about my work. It was an obvious thing for me to do, they thought.
'I said yes but it made my stomach hurt. I feared what they would think of me.
'It was the Danes’ farming blood..... a farmer is rooted. He doesn’t care for changes and surprises. He doesn’t like anything that comes from outside and makes a disturbance; disturbances can mean disaster. Whatever can’t be controlled, whatever has a wild or ambiguous nature is considered dangerous. The farmer fears any creature that has an inscrutable essence..... what does a poet actually live off of? Can it pay the bills?
'But I’m not rich. As in other countries, it’s nearly impossible to get rich from writing fiction and poetry in Denmark. There’s bread in crime fiction, but we can’t all write crime fiction,...
'“Can you pay your bills?” That was the question I was waiting for, and I dreaded it in advance. It means, of course, in all its presumption, “Are you a burden on society? A parasite? A threat to us?”
'Denmark is usually good about supporting its artists. In the Ministry of Culture, funds are earmarked for author work grants and translations. When a Danish author gets something published abroad, the government provides travel money so that we can go off and be ambassadors for our country. Our culture policy is social democratic. It strives for fairness, it promotes equality. It also recognizes that our language is small and threatened, and knows that writers help to preserve our curious tongue. The Danish state wants to provide writers with tolerable conditions. The Danish state wants culture and art. So Denmark provides support from the top down.
'But by the coffee table in the reading group, I found myself in a place where art would be supported from the bottom up. And in Denmark, that’s another matter entirely. Unlike Icelanders or the French, for instance, the average Dane does not have a tradition of examining literature, much less discussing it at all hours of the day. It’s considered a tad affected to be an artist...[T]hen came the question that I hadn’t expected. And which I still have a hard time shaking off. A woman down on the far end of the long table gave me a worried look. She wondered: did I have a restless nature?
'Just about the time that I seriously began to consider moving from Copenhagen, the first wolf was sighted in Jutland. Big commotion! Wolves had been wiped out a couple of centuries previous, and suddenly: “a wolf in Jutland!” Interest groups sprouted up that felt the wolf should be shot.....“But Jutland is a big place,” said others, who knew that the most dangerous wolf is the one that lurks in our minds. “Let’s welcome the wolf back.” The debate was heated.
'In a small population where just about everyone is related, artistic milieus are decidedly claustrophobic
...
'There are about 5.6 million Danes in the country, and Copenhagen is our capital. Some 1.2 million people live there. We are a minuscule people with a peripheral language, and in Copenhagen, our nation’s writers gather in coteries. If you’re in one of these coteries, you’re a writer among others who write and think somewhat the way you do. My experience abroad tells me that intellectual movements and artistic milieus are tricky beasts, regardless of where you stumble upon them. But in a small population where just about everyone is related, artistic milieus are decidedly claustrophobic.
'I wanted to be part of the scene, and yet I didn’t, after all. I couldn’t anyway, and for seven years I sat in Copenhagen, stuck fast like a burr on the back of a cat. And then came the news of a wolf in Jutland.
....
'I was born in Jutland, ..... I chose to settle so far west that it’s hardly Denmark anymore. On the central western coast, by the North Sea. Every day I walk down to the sea and position myself with my back to the land. If I could swim that far–though no one could–I’d be able to go ashore on a beach in Aberdeen. I feel closer to the great world here than I did in Copenhagen. There are no other writers here. There are ceramists, photographers, painters, and musicians–but no writers. Sometimes I drive sixty miles north and drink coffee with an old poet who lives up there. I invite authors from Copenhagen to spend the weekend. Then they stand with the wind in their hair and draw the sea into their lungs, before making the long journey east again. There will be more and more time between their visits, I know.
....
'..The local women meet once a month to read books together. It’s a recent development in Danish reading culture and one that I put great stock in, aside from the fact that it lacks men... I hadn’t lived in the village very long before I was asked if I wouldn’t come and talk about my work. It was an obvious thing for me to do, they thought.
'I said yes but it made my stomach hurt. I feared what they would think of me.
'It was the Danes’ farming blood..... a farmer is rooted. He doesn’t care for changes and surprises. He doesn’t like anything that comes from outside and makes a disturbance; disturbances can mean disaster. Whatever can’t be controlled, whatever has a wild or ambiguous nature is considered dangerous. The farmer fears any creature that has an inscrutable essence..... what does a poet actually live off of? Can it pay the bills?
'But I’m not rich. As in other countries, it’s nearly impossible to get rich from writing fiction and poetry in Denmark. There’s bread in crime fiction, but we can’t all write crime fiction,...
'“Can you pay your bills?” That was the question I was waiting for, and I dreaded it in advance. It means, of course, in all its presumption, “Are you a burden on society? A parasite? A threat to us?”
'Denmark is usually good about supporting its artists. In the Ministry of Culture, funds are earmarked for author work grants and translations. When a Danish author gets something published abroad, the government provides travel money so that we can go off and be ambassadors for our country. Our culture policy is social democratic. It strives for fairness, it promotes equality. It also recognizes that our language is small and threatened, and knows that writers help to preserve our curious tongue. The Danish state wants to provide writers with tolerable conditions. The Danish state wants culture and art. So Denmark provides support from the top down.
'But by the coffee table in the reading group, I found myself in a place where art would be supported from the bottom up. And in Denmark, that’s another matter entirely. Unlike Icelanders or the French, for instance, the average Dane does not have a tradition of examining literature, much less discussing it at all hours of the day. It’s considered a tad affected to be an artist...[T]hen came the question that I hadn’t expected. And which I still have a hard time shaking off. A woman down on the far end of the long table gave me a worried look. She wondered: did I have a restless nature?
'A restless nature?...Just like the wolf. A wanderer.
'I’m not the first author to discover that anyone with a free and different nature is considered a threat to the existing culture. The Dano-Norwegian author Aksel Sandemose wrote about it more than 80 years ago, setting down the regulating mechanisms that operate on Scandinavians from below, in what he called the Law of Jante. According to Sandemose, the 10 commandments that regulate our social behavior are:
'You mustn’t think you’re special.
'You mustn’t think you’re as good as we are.
'You mustn’t think you’re smarter than us.
'You mustn’t imagine you’re any better than us.
'You mustn’t think you know more than we do.
'You mustn’t think you’re more important than us.
'You mustn’t think you’re good at anything.
'You mustn’t laugh at us.
'You mustn’t think anyone cares about you.
'You mustn’t think you can teach us anything.
'In Scandinavia, anyone with a free and different nature is considered a threat to the existing culture.
'I have settled by the water. I need the great sky, the horizon. I love my little country; my language is my roothold. Danish is a linguistic playground for me, and I am grateful for the support the Danish state has given me and my fellow writers. But I am grateful too that I know English. It enables me to work outside Denmark–in the US, England, Sweden, Germany. I have found a greater world to write in,...'
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