Stop the love hype
One summer afternoon at St Hanshaugen in Oslo, I was sitting on a bench contemplating the sunset and life, when suddenly Erling, the furniture builder, jumped out from behind some bushes and sat down next to me. He was in an exceptionally good mood. This summer he had been out of town in his studio in Hønefoss working consistently on a log of oak, making tables and chairs for his affluent clients:
“Just work. That’s all I’ve been doing. There’s been no problems, no intrigues. All summer I have just worked, day after day on the oak. And the thing that’s given me peace of mind, more than anything else, is that I’ve just kept away from girls all together. I ought to have figured this out a long time ago. It began when I was a teen. Every time I started to go out with a girl, I was ecstatic. I met up with my friends and told them about this new girl, and how wonderful this particular chick was. I used to tell my mother that I was finally in love. Every time I used to say: ‘This girl is fantastic, she is extraordinary, I can’t imagine my life without her.’ You know, whenever I uttered those words I should have realised that something was fishy. It should have made me suspicious. Every time I start to talk that way about anything, it is always slightly hysterical. Because if this girl was actually that extraordinary and fantastic, I wouldn’t have to insist that she was all that - right? Whenever I insist that hard on something, it can’t be right. Why would I need to hype a relationship with someone that I love?”
The first verse of the Norwegian national anthem, “Ja, vi elsker”, goes:
“Yes, we love with fond devotion
This our land that looms
Rugged, storm-scarred o'er the ocean
With her thousand homes.
Love her, in our love recalling
Those who gave us birth.
And old tales which night, in falling,
Brings as dreams to earth.”
On every occasion when someone has concluded that the singing of the national anthem is appropriate, one has to mumble these foolish words. In addition, “Ja, vi elsker” is set to an intense melody, like a march. The commonsense way to sing it is either utterly ironic or embarrassingly nationalistic, either way it is sung in an insisting tone of voice. Only the Den Norske Studentsangforening on Universitetsplassen on Karl Johan on May 17th - wearing their traditional eighteenth century student attire - which I’m certain no student in the eighteenth century actually wore - are able to sing these words with the level of simple-mindedness that they require. The way the song starts off, with the bombastic proclamation that: YES, WE LOVE WITH FOND EMOTION THIS OUR LAND is completely counterproductive. No sane person who ever loved anything would every opt to burst out such an artificial pledge.