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"And someone must have brought me false testimony, because one morning he was called by the police without doing anything wrong." To begin a passage in the latest novel by Tomas Espedal, "Love". It's about a man named I, who walks around town and is eager to die from his own hand. In the meantime, he imitates travels, women, long idiots – and thus this unexpected accusation for him. According to the police, I raped a woman seven years ago. Now she has reported the case and I have to go to the police house for questioning. I rebel strongly. "I was not and could never be an abuser." A rapist [ …] I was a lover. He had no dirty inclinations and had not committed any abuse, "Espedal said. In this situation, I was a victim. "
In an article published this week in Aftenposten, Espedal said that the passage of the book is based on several real events and that it is a comment on the # metoo campaign. "I wrote to defend myself against the rumors that were circulating," he says, that is to say that the author should be part of men of culture who have pigs in the forest. In the same article, a woman who denounced Espedal for a rape interviewed anonymously. She responds that Espedal wrote about the review in a novel and about how she, aka woman, is portrayed. His examination against the author was closed because of the evidence. Not because she had to give a false explanation.
Thus, the author Tomas Espedal would be a real rape and would feel like "a huge burden". He then writes a novel in which the protagonist is charged with rape, but "without doing anything wrong", since he is not an assassin but "a lover". The author writes to defend himself, to show that he is the victim and not the one in which he is supposed to be engaged. She must be psychic, he writes.
This is how it hurts. Powerful and multilevel. Throughout the autobiography, Tomas Espedal wrote autobiographically and is himself used to establishing the boundaries between fiction and reality. Here he rightly declares that "love" is considered a defense of him, the author Tomas Espedal. It opens that the book should be read as a party message in a court case.
So let's do it. Espedal lends Franz Kafka's famous opening statement from the "Process", according to which "Someone had to give false testimony against Joseph K". This is a serious accusation. In Norway, it is illegal to make false statements. It's something completely different from the fact that a case, such as this one, is brought forward because of what is called "the position of the evidence" in legal language. And, as one woman also points out: Reporting a man who happens to be an author does not mean to bring him into the public. The fact that the author writes a novel in which he does not anonymize what he writes about much better than many readers immediately see what he is talking about is definitely dragging him into the audience.
In Kafka's "process", Joseph K. is arrested without knowing what he is accused of. In "LOVE" the accusation is ready: rape. The Roman figure "I" is not a helpless victim. He will explain. And what he says is that he, like the rest of the novel, appears as an unstable drukkenbolt, it is impossible to prevent some. As if we could not be an adversary without counting for one without understanding that what was done was not acceptable for the other.
Espedal poses in a long line of people who warn against some very common accusations of rape committed by women against innocent men. But surveys show that this happens very rarely. On the contrary, it is very heavy to report – by questioning and explaining intimate details, only to find that it does not lead to a judgment – very high. The problem is usually the opposite: that women get tired. For example, a survey shows that nine out of ten people never report. In "Love", "I" also indicates that a woman who has denounced her for rape must have done it because she is mentally unstable, "in imbalance". But that does not strengthen his defense. Because there is a group that is overrepresented in statistics on rape victims, it is only mentally ill.
The art should be a large and open space, with space to tackle difficult topics. Literature can give victims of aggression a place to be heard. Vigdis Hjorth takes full advantage of this space in "Heritage and the Environment" as it is a novel that, although it presents possible abuses, discusses primarily who is the owner of the truth and the possibility of a reconciliation when it examines the same situation in a totally different way. Hjorth maintained that the story is a novel and did not comment on the links between art and life.
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Espedal however concludes that there is no distinction between fiction and reality, and that "I", aka the author, is a foolproof hero that could have caused other disadvantages. He relies on a complex problem "Love" could be good without, but is not honest in his treatment. Whether he likes it or not – and you'd better feel that he wants it – Espedal is a powerful man. A man of culture. Nevertheless, he grasps the role of victim. "I have never seen anything so devastating in my life," he said in an interview with the newspaper. He does not seem to believe that the woman is concerned, a person who does not have the famous post of Espedal in public, has suffered his trauma, rape or not, reinforced several times. The case was filed while she had unwittingly become a novel and that she is now exposed to media that speak of the novel.
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It is also striking that the publisher has published "Love" as it appears now. In Aftenposten, Espedal claims that Gyldendal knew nothing of the reality that he had written since he had anonymized the accused who accused him. When so many critics are willingly linking literature to reality, it seems very strange that the warning lights did not start flashing with the editors. Tomas Espedal rarely occupies an important place in Norwegian literature. He is honored for his honesty towards love and alcoholism. This should not make it unassailable for its own publishers. He comes here with legally dubious attacks against a person who has not sought the public. Whether the attack occurred or not, there is no doubt that it is he who is in power here, not her. It's a power editor that should help pull it. Also on the faucet.
nyemeninger
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