Letter from Bergen, by Philip Neilsen

In 2008 I published a self-satirising poem about how I had visited the countries of three of my grandparents – England, Scotland and Germany – but had never ventured to the fourth, Norway. The poem ends with my firm conviction that if I ever go to Norway I will not feel the ancestral connection that I should.

Great grandfather Nilsson left Bergen

in 1874 for the windjammers and northern

Australia. I am delaying this fourth

and final trip, the one to Norway.

I can see the photo already: there I am,

standing by multi-coloured boats

in the rain, or on the edge of a fiord

with a beanie pulled down over my ears,

looking genetically uncomfortable,

trying to smile my way into the frame.

It was true that I had kept putting off going to Norway. This was because I hate cold, wet weather (Bergen is famous for having more rain than any other place in Europe, pretty much – they have an October Rain Festival with an Umbrella and Raincoat Parade). I find even sub-tropical Brisbane winters a trial. If that weren’t enough, I dislike seafood (Bergen is famous for its fish market), and perhaps as a consequence, I don’t much like the ocean or boats. Even our warm Australian beaches hold little attraction for me. They are sterile and monotonous. Seen one beach and you’ve seen them all. I much prefer to spread my beach towel next to a creek in a clump of Casuarinas, with Eucalypt and Angophora mountains defining the distance. Here I can listen to the subtle energy of the water and admire the infinite variety of green.

But this year, after considerable persuasion from my wife (unlike me, a scarily intrepid traveller – she thrives on cold and wet, snow and sleet, and is never sea sick), I booked our KLM flight from Heathrow to Bergen. The stay would be for three nights and I figured I could just possibly survive for that long. The average temperature in Bergen in mid-summer is 11 degrees minimum and 18 degrees maximum – roughly the same as a Brisbane July day. Bergen is the seventh most northerly town in the world. I bought multiple packets of black thermal underwear designed to help lost skiers survive overnight in rough snow caves, a thick snow beanie and several woolly jumpers to pile up under my wind-resistant mountain jacket. On the recommendation of Kári Gíslason, chronicler of the notable rocks of Iceland, I bought Danish rain-resistant hiking boots. I confirmed with the Bergen hotel that they had double glazing and central heating.

We landed on the afternoon of July 1. I piled most of my special clothing on and bravely lumbered out of the airport doors. I couldn’t believe it. It was 25 degrees centigrade – the perfect temperature for human happiness. The sky was a vivid and unblemished blue. As the air-conditioned taxi took us into Bergen through scene after scene of natural and architectural sublimeness, it became obvious to me that our KLM plane had in fact plummeted into the sea, I was in fact now dead, and had in fact now reached heaven. The brightly coloured wooden houses with their high-pitched tiled rooves were enchanting, the seven mountains that surrounded Bergen were exactly right (like three bear porridge – not too large and not too small), the harbour was precisely correct (not large and roiling, but both impressive in reach and still small enough to relate to), the clean cobbled streets led to one charmed corner and curiosity after another. And I couldn’t detect any seafood or representation of sea creatures at all.

Since the sun doesn’t set in Norwegian July, we spent long days of magic walking the streets (hardly any of them polluted by tourists – most of them we had to ourselves) and racked up a record number of photographs. We could point our cameras anywhere at random and come up with a memorable rectangle – vista upon vista, or small exquisite detail - carved wooden doors on people’s houses, flowers shimmering from earthen pots, happy people everywhere. Friendliness paired with Lutheran modesty. Even the town’s token six bikies were polite. A gang of crew-cut youths practising karate moves outside Johanneskirken smiled at us and began dancing instead. We went on an invigorating fjord cruise and I got sunburned - on a fjord. But it was a friendly kind of sunburn. We spent blissful hours wandering around the two main mountains that overlook the town: Ulriken (rocky and majestic like a milder version of Scottish mountains); and Floyen (green-wooded and filled with bird song and wild flowers). I think the morning spent on Floyen was the peak travel experience of my life – trumping Mt Engelberg in Switzerland, Freiburg in the Schwarzwald, Inverness in northern Scotland. Paris gets demoted to the third rank. And that’s saying something.

The helpful students at the university explained that they had demanded recently that creative writing classes be offered – a truly enlightened youth cohort. The museums were a manageable size, with informative but not too wordy exhibits of Nordic culture and art – and completely free of the rampaging school groups that blight every other museum in the UK and Europe. I suspected that the Vikings were just social networking when they travelled to Ireland and the Hebrides. And on the last afternoon we wandered out of the 13th century Haakon’s Hall and heard a familiar Grieg melody coming from the nearby park. An orchestra and young solo violinist (she in bare feet) were rehearsing on the soundstage, while a handful of local people sat on velvet grass in the sunshine and listened. Those are the serendipitous moments that make travel worthwhile.

On the harbour I discovered that there was a rare species of boat I actually liked; here they sailed in a pertly white and spotless way, sporting Norwegian flags, and the person at the tiller always waved to us. All along the harbour shore, and in those spots on the Fjord where there were tiny clumps of paintbox houses (also flying Norwegian flags), people came out onto their verandas and waved. Normally I distrust flags – flags mean nationalism and parochialism and division and war. Here they just signified ‘I’m living in Bergen and I can’t believe my luck. I’m sorry you can only visit’.

It is true that I was lucky to arrive in what the locals considered almost a heatwave. And it wasn’t entirely perfect. Edvard Grieg’s statue near the town centre’s lake revealed he was a diminutive genius, and the small fish market did smell mildly of seafood – but only if you got up close. You could easily avoid the fish stalls and there, right beside them, buy enormous ice cream cones or fruit from beaming Norwegians with blue eyes like lasers.

All those four days the air was sweet. The light was bright and kind. The mountains followed me around benignly. The hill-tumbling wooden houses and green-spired churches threw their colours across the shining ripples of Vågen Bay.

My poem had been misguided. I was in the frame. I was almost home.

Letter from the Coleridge Way, by Lesley Hawkes

On August 2, 2008 Sue Carson and I were mid-way on our walking expedition of the new Coleridge-Way walk across the Quantock Hills situated in the beautiful Somerset region of Britain. The walk follows in the footsteps of Romantic poet and devoted walker Samuel Taylor Coleridge. It begins in Nether Stowey and ends at Porlock. We had just walked up and up the Quantock Hills. In fact we appeared to spend most of the time going up and very little going down or across the landscape. We had no guide and no specific map. We did have a compass that we learnt to use while on our travels and two printed sheets of instructions. If one sheet didn’t make sense we turned to the other sheet in the hope that it made sense and usually it did.

While we were following detailed directions telling us to zigzag north while keeping the far fence in sight we both heard strange music. It was blowing a gale and our vision was greatly diminishing (the fence was becoming further and further away) because of fog or mist or some English climate oddity but the music was becoming clearer. I, at first, thought it was the wires on the fence ringing because of the wind. Sue believed this for a second or two but questioned as to how they could have such a melody. The music enclosed us and as we zigzagged across the hills it kept encircling and rising above us. We were very perplexed because we were miles from any farmhouses or buildings. Finally, we made it across the hills and the music stopped as suddenly as it started. We decided to do what Australians do best and just pretend it didn’t happen.

A couple of days later we had travelled to the Lakes District and were visiting the Wordsworth Dove Cottage Museum at Grasmere. The Museum has headphones that allow you to listen to some of the influences on the Romantic Poets and to some of their poetry. We each put on headphones and were dumbfounded because playing through them was the exact music we had heard on our walk. “The Aeolian Harp” is a poem by Coleridge in which he explores the mystery of this instrument and writes of the unfathomable space that spreads with the music. The harp produces music when the winds blows on its musical chords and the poet is driven to respond to this natural relationship through poetic verse.. We didn’t see the harp but we certainly heard the music while walking the hills.

The author: Lesley Hawkes teaches in Literary Studies at QUT

Letter from the Eiffel Tower, by Jen Anderson

I am afraid of heights.

So when my family and I decided to visit Paris recently, and we wanted to go to the Eiffel Tower, I was happy to view the structure from the ground. Look up at it. I said I would wait at the bottom or maybe even go up to Floor 1, a mere 57 metres off the ground, if they really insisted. They had different ideas, and a ticket to the top was bought for all.

Because of the shape of the legs of the tower, the carriage we’re in is level but the lift rides on tracks which start off at, not a 90 degree angle like a normal lift, but at about 45 degrees. With a satisfying clunking of hydraulics and gears, we ascend, and the lift stops at Floor 1. Sensible people get off.

I console myself with the fact that, even at the second stage which this lift services, it’s still not too high: only 115 metres. This level sits on a slightly smaller, sturdy, and square base, but it is still quite safe.

At Floor 2, we alight. You need to catch a different lift to the top, one which goes straight up at 90 degrees, but this is my stop. To spoil my calm, my family insists on photos. “You’ve come so high! You need proof.” They then drag me closer to the edge to get the view in the shot.

I don’t know what happened. One minute I was settling myself to see them off into the next lift, and the next, there I was lining up with them.

The railings on this level appear flimsy and weak. The sheer numbers of people waiting makes me wonder whether the structure can take the weight. I keep a sharp eye on the weather. Are there storm clouds in the distance? The flooring looks a bit worn in places. I am blanching and dry retching just standing still.

Two elevators sitting side by side service the top floor. They appear safe and enclosed but this is a myth. About 30 seconds after you have commenced your ascent and left the second level, ‘walls’ made of iron lace or latticework vanish. Yes, you are within the confines of a metal cage in the tower section, but a metre or so outside of that is air. My nerves take over.

The lift will stop and we’ll all get stuck.

I’ll fall through a small hole which will open up right at my feet.

The top of the tower will break off and fall to the ground with us in it.

All around me I hear oohs and aahs as we move higher and the lift opens into the air. The space around me darkens. Had we, in fact, left the atmosphere?

With my family ushering, I make my way, step by step – clinging to the wall, railing, other people – up to the breezy doorway of the open air level. Its floor is a metal grating, and the railing a series of metal poles covered in chicken wire. I hold more tightly to the doorway and don’t move. “You need a photo to prove you’ve been here!” say my well-meaning family. I move slowly, hand over hand, into position and turn to face the camera.

The author: Jennifer Anderson is a student in Creative Writing at QUT.

An evening with Bob Ellis

1.

The writers’ green room is empty but for three Festival workers and Bob, who sits at the side of a long table of water glasses and pamphlets and reads his new book, his diary of 2007-2008, called And So It Goes. I introduce myself, and he wants to get straight to it. How are we going to organize the session?

‘But your trip up?’ I ask.

‘Terrible. My emphasis is this. You’re a French tourist, and at Casino they make you get on a coach. You spend five hours on a bus between Casino and Brisbane. You are not allowed to eat or drink.’

‘Do you want to talk about this is in the session?’

‘No. It’s irrelevant.’ He waves his hand dismissively. ‘C’mon, what’s the plan for this afternoon?'

‘I thought we could start with something about the diary form,’ I reply.

‘Mmm?’

‘You know, its “modally mixed nature,” as the literary scholars might say.’

‘Well, it’s about 20% shorter than it ought to be,’ explains Bob.

‘Its immediacy. And that you can include TV transcripts, excerpts from essays, family stories, and so on. Almost like travel writing - think of The Road to Oxiana.’

He smiles. ‘Oh, yes. I know. This is a better way of thinking about it, a travel journal rather than a diary.’

‘Anyway, after that I thought you could read from the book.’

‘Funny or serious?’

‘Funny, I think. The audience will get serious, don’t you think, during questions and answers.’

‘Yes. I’ve marked some pages.’

Bob alters posture, raises his book a little, and reads to me. He’s chosen well, the best of the diary, full of his anger, his provocative voice, his despondency, his bitter wit.

2.

An hour later, we have a plan for the session: 1) the diary form, 2) readings, topics: 3) Rudd and Gillard, 4) Turnbull, 5) Obama and Pearson, 6) travel and globalization, 7) cricket, 8) death. The ushers take us down to SLQ Auditorium 2, where there is a long line waiting. I hear one or two couples tell each other, ‘Here he is.’ The auditorium is more precisely a small lecture theatre, and Bob is irritated by the size. Probably, some will have to be turned away. But it’s an intimate theatre, and suits the session. Bob settles heavily into his seat, and moves the microphone close to his face.

Bob turns to me. ‘Can you see anyone under 40?’ he asks.

‘I’m under 40.’

‘Yes, but you have to be here.’

‘What about her?’ I point to the back of the auditorium, where a young, blond woman enters.

‘That’s my publicist.’

There is a cue to begin from the theatre manager.

‘Welcome everyone to this session with Bob,’ I say. ‘The title given is “Bob Ellis Goes On.” There is warm laughter. This will be Bob’s crowd. ‘Not,’ I add, ‘Bob Ellis Goes On and On and On.’ I throw a little glance Bob’s way, but he’s smiling, too.

‘Just watch me,’ he replies, or words to that effect.

It is very smooth, perhaps a little too smooth. We run to time, and I worry that we may seem a little too rehearsed. But Bob has added comments about Islam, Israel, and female politicians, perhaps to guard against boredom, perhaps just because he likes to comfort and offend at the same time. Icelanders get a mention, too, or more specifically this Icelander-something about fishermen. And for the rest of the evening, he calls me ‘the fisherman over there.’

At the end, I add my own last question: ‘We know that you go on. But what keeps you going?’

‘Debt,’ he says. ‘I owe $460,000. Why else would I be writing two books a year?’

‘I see.’

‘No. I’m joking. Or half-joking. I write for new ideas. That’s why I come to festivals. The rush of new ideas.’

3.

The publicist comes down. Bob is to sign books now. ‘C’mon, digger,’ he says. ‘Walk with me a bit.’

There is no-one at the desk, no other authors, that is. But half a dozen of the audience linger around the book stalls, choosing between his diary and the book that will be released in October, The Capitalism Delusion. I stand by the table.

‘Sit down. Sit down,’ insists Bob. ‘Come and talk to me.’

The publicist is sent away to find wine, while for fifteen minutes Bob signs. The publicist comes back with fizzy lime juice. I see my friend Sarah. She is meeting an editor, Whitney, whom she knew from school in the States and bumped into at the Festival. Sam, another colleague, has also arrived. He has to be at the Sly Fox for the start of the Fringe Festival at eight o’clock.

‘Would you like to join us for a drink?’ I ask Bob.

‘Yes. Yes. But where?’

‘There should be somewhere nearby.’

‘Don’t say “nearby.” Just tell me where it is.’

I turn to the others for support. ‘Whereabouts is the Sly Fox again?’

‘Just down here,’ says Sam, pointing along Melbourne Street.

‘Don’t say “just down here”,’ replies Bob angrily. ‘I don’t know what “just down here” means.’

I don’t know what sort of directions he wants. I say that in about a hundred metres along this street we will get to a corner, about thirty metres to the right of which is the Sly Fox.

‘Don’t draw me a fucking map,’ says Bob. ‘Just tell me where it is!’

‘Do you mean point to it?’

‘Yes. Point at it.’

4.

‘What will you have?’ I ask. We are, thankfully, arrived at the Sly Fox. It is about 6:30pm.

‘A large Heineken,’ replies Bob.

Sam buys drinks for Sarah and Whitney, and shortly after excuses himself. He wants to get ready for the Fringe upstairs.

‘How was your session?’ asks Whitney, the American editor.

‘Very good,’ replies Bob. ‘I was very, very good.’

‘Bob,’ I say, ‘this would be a great time to say what you thought of my performance.’

‘Oh, yes, brilliant. Especially for a fisherman from the North Atlantic.’

‘Thank you, Bob.’

‘This is my new book.’ He hands Whitney a copy of The Capitalism Delusion. ‘Can you get it reviewed for me in America?’

‘Oh.’ She takes the book. ‘Let me see.’

‘Show her the chapter on Iceland,’ I say.

‘I can’t believe you’re from Iceland,’ replies Bob, looking at Whitney. He folds open the book at the chapter called ‘A Faraway Country’, which I had noticed earlier began with a reference to David Oddsson, the head of the Icelandic Reserve Bank. ‘Take it with you,’ he tells Whitney.

Somehow, we get onto Evelyn Waugh. I mention the famous snobbery scene where Ryder makes fun of Rex and his American taste in food.

‘I always carry Waugh with me,’ he says, and out of the depths of his black overnight bag comes Brideshead Revisited. ‘Let me find it.’ He is looking, I think, for the restaurant scene, but when he starts reading it is from Ryder’s first description of Rex.

5.

None of us has experienced this before, this mix: alcohol, bawdy opinions, and reading out loud from Waugh. But it’s good. So far. Bob is a time capsule, perhaps a glimpse of a very talented generation and how they might have been in the late 1950s and early 1960s. I ask him why, after university, he didn’t leave Australia. ‘I was booked to go on the same boat as Clive James. I ran out of money.’

He goes on, listing the others who were at Sydney University at the time, most of whom have succeeded abroad: Germaine Greer, Robert Hughes, and so on. He speaks with a light acknowledgment of a criticism that I hadn’t really intended, that making it in Australia in the 1960s and 1970s wasn't quite the same as getting ahead in London and New York.

Then, Brooklyn, Robert Hughes, leaving Australia, art criticism, Heath Ledger and jet lag, Robert Hughes and jet lag, and back to New York.

‘Sex in the City,’ he tells Whitney and Sarah, ‘is one of the best shows ever made. And the movie is quite brilliant. Perfectly made romantic comedy.’

Then, Roman Polansky, Michael Jackson, and O J Simpson, all innocent it seems. 'C'mon,' he says, 'would any father leave his children sleeping upstairs?'

Then, to me: ‘Tell me, fisherman. How old are you? And are you married?’

‘I’m 36 and, yes, I am married.’

‘A thousand curses on you.’

‘I shouldn’t be married?’

‘I’m looking for someone for my daughter. She’s lovely, but she has lousy taste in men.’
We have finished our third beers, and everyone’s getting hungry. Sam, who’s popped down from the Fringe, suggests the Indian restaurant a little way along Melbourne Street.

‘Where is it?’ asks Bob.

My heart sinks. I’m not sure I can do another one of the ‘just tell me where it is’ walks.

‘Not far,’ I reply. ‘You don’t mind walking?’

‘Of course I don’t mind walking.’

6.

It’s probably fair to say that Bob, these days, is covered in dust. But much of it is gold dust, some of it just the detritus of many hard years in public life. And then there is fair bit of naan bread and poppadom, and it rests on his belly at the corner window table of the Indian restaurant on Melbourne Street. Bob has ordered all but one of the seven accompaniments, and we each have ordered a curry. A concerned waiter comes over to ask whether we’d like a bigger table.

Whitney has chaired a session with Bettina Arndt, a prominent Australian sex therapist. The conversation turns to the topic of the panel. Apparently, Arndt argues that even when you (and she is addressing women, I believe) aren’t in the mood, you should still ‘put the canoe in and start paddling,’ go with it for a bit, and see what happens.

Bob says, ‘Let me tell you, when you are 67 you are never in the mood, but you are always grateful.’

Sarah throws me a look. Not quite distressed. Something like horrified amusement.

‘I’ll tell you a mistake people make,’ Bob goes on. ‘Looking at each other. Imagine this: you’re at a campfire, both looking at the fire. Suddenly you can say things to each other that you couldn’t say if you were looking at each others’ faces. It’s the same with fucking. You look into each others’ eyes and you start lying, start pretending. Acting. Demonstrating your passion. Always go rear-entry. It’s much more honest.’

7.

We leave via the front-entry, back down along Melbourne Street.

‘Where’s my hotel?’ asks Bob.

‘Just up here.’

‘Don’t say “just up here”.’

‘At these lights.’

‘Alright.’

‘Bob, can I get a picture of us?’

‘Yes, go on.’

I hand my camera to Stuart, who’d joined us at Indian during the final moments of the canoeing conversation. Stuart skips ahead and catches us walking past the bus stop a little up from the Sly Fox.

And then Bob crosses the road. In his black jacket, his black jeans, and with his black overnight bag, he soon blends into the shadowy distance of West End.

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Lately I've been thinking about Bob Ellis

I hope you will forgive the digression. Bob, as far as I know, is not a travel writer. But I am 'in conversation' with him on Thursday, as part of the Brisbane Writers Festival, and so he has begun to occupy my thoughts rather more than I think he should. I am some way through his And So It Went, a diary account of 2008.

I have a lot of questions I want to ask Bob about the diary as a literary form: its modally mixed nature; the blending of personal and public, domestic and national concerns; its immediacy, the closeness to the events it describes; its capacity to evaluate and critique a year through close observation; its irreverence and hostility; the melancholy evoked by the passing of time.

All literary questions, really: questions about the diary and its devices. And justifiably, what, 5 minutes of an hour-long conversation? Especially given an audience that will surely have come to hear him talk life & death, love & politics.

I must give way before more urgent matters, and here are some of them:

• "Al Gore never bowled googlies for Tenessee." (p. 46)
• "No wonder I snarl at waiters. I see each day on the street hundreds, thousands of dumb-bums who will outlive me." (p. 92)
• "Three kids with microphones then sang 'Advance Australia Fair' and I truly wondered if any nation with such an anthem could long endure." (p. 170)
• "Oh shut up, Ellis." (p. 184)
• "We are all immigrants now; discuss." (p. 267) And, "Global capitalism depends on immigration; discuss. And happiness depends on staying home." (p. 269)
• On the Olympic Opening Ceremony in Beijing: "Many, many young fools who have wasted their youth outswimming or outrunning a clock to show they are in some way better beings, better samples of evolution, than their equally drugged and masochistic rivals march under flags around the ring asserting all this has meaning. (p. 332)

And have a look at pp. 169-172 for what is surely the only synopsis of Hamlet ever given on a walking machine.

"All happiness depends on staying home." I wonder.

The book: Ellis, Bob. And So It Went: Night Thoughts in a Year of Change. Viking, 2009.