Carl Barks & the Norwegian Princess

[Nils Lid Hjort]

Yesterday I posted a message about the influence of 
Carl Barks on the novels of Jan Kjærstad, this year's
winner of the Nordic Council's Literature Award.
His major hero Jonas Wergeland, in his grand trilogy, 
has a "nomadic" life taking him to various corners
of the earth, and Kjærstad acknowledges the influence
of Barks' adventure tales with Scrooge and Donald
and the kids. 

Today I saw an interview with another contemporary
Norwegian author, Ari Behn. This young writer's reputation
and fame is suddenly quadrupling and quintupling, as
we speak, due to his association with the Norwegian
princess Martha Louise. In a long interview, aimed from
the journalist's side at getting him to tell about the 
princess, Behn with admirable persistence talks about 
everything else -- including Jesus (whom Mr Behn recently 
met in person, in Arabia), Tibuktu ("quite like Geilo" 
in the Norwegian mountains), the desert, Africa, literature, 
duels (he just challenged a person to fight for life and 
death, because this person had offended not him, but a friend 
of his, presumably the princess), the need to be open 
about praise, etc etc. 

And he mentions the Barks stories he read during
childhood and youth as having been inluential for his
development. Some people know when young that will end
up as archeologists, after reading the Seven Cities of 
Cibola. Behn knew he was going to be a writer -- and that 
he would go to Timbuktu. 

It is appropriate on this 100th birthday of Carl Barks
to ponder his enormous and unparallelled influence in 
so many directions and on so many layers of society. 
We should not be surprised, therefore, that he also
touches royalty, albeit indirectly. 

Nils Lid Hjort