what rhymes with chaos?

Interview with Jo Nesbo

original Rave article here. 

JOSH DONELLAN speaks with JO NESBØ about the film adaptation of his book HEADHUNTERS and what it’s like to be labeled ‘The next Stieg Larsson.’ You probably haven’t heard of the pop group Di Derre, but in the band’s native Norway they’re kind of a big deal. However, their lead singer Jo Nesbø, better known for his career as an internationally best selling crime novelist, didn’t always plan on becoming a famous practitioner of the musical and literary arts. Or taking calls from Martin Scorsese for that matter. Nesbø started out his professional career as a successful stockbroker. It wasn’t until two years after the death of his father, who held lifelong literary aspirations that were never acted upon, that Nesbø decided to become an author. “I realized I had to write and in order to do that I had to quit my job. I summed up the money I had, I mean, you’re overpaid as a stockbroker so I knew I had enough to be a writer without income for quite some years and I didn’t really want a yacht or a big summer house. It didn’t feel like taking a risk it just felt like something I had to do. There was no way around it.” Nesbø’s books have been a runaway success both in Norway and all over the world. So much so that when his books were first translated into English, some bright spark at his publisher’s marketing department decided it’d be a smart move to bill him as ‘the next Stieg Larsson.’ Nesbø, in a sardonic Scandinavian accent, comments “Well you know, it was the stickers on my books in the UK. I just saw the sticker, and I thought, ‘well, okay, they say I’m the new Stieg Larsson and … it could have been worse. I could have been the new Dan Brown.’”  The film adaptation of his 2008 novel Headhunters is on screens now. Like most well executed film adaptations, it’s an almost page for page translation of the novel (although it does tragically omit references to the brilliant Norwegian rock group Turbonegro). The story follows a successful corporate headhunter, Roger Brown, who also dabbles in the hazardous extracurricular activity of high stakes art theft. When Brown meets the former CEO of a high profile GPS company, Clas Greve, he thinks he’s not only found the perfect client, but also a chance to nab his treasured Rubens masterpiece. However, it soon becomes clear that Greve has sinister intentions and that the hunter is about to become the hunted. With Headhunters recently released and Martin Scorsese having just announced that he will film Snowman, the seventh book in Nesbø’s hugely popular Harry Hole series, I ask Nesbø how he feels about the translation of his stories from page to screen. “I think the thing I’m worried about is more to do with how I feel about the story as a writer,” he replies. “If I’m finished with the story, I’m finished with the story. If I see a talented director wanting to tell a story, I’m happy to provide them with material. But I didn’t want to sell the rights to the Harry Hole series because I was worried it would impact on the series that I was still writing. So I said for many years, ‘I don’t want anyone to make a film of it, but if Martin Scorsese calls I might reconsider.’ “So that was a sort of joke,” he laughs, “but as it turned he called and he wanted to make a movie, so I sort of caved in and sold out.” HEADHUNTERS is in cinemas now, rated [MA15+]. The HEADHUNTERS novel as well as the HARRY HOLE series are available now through Random House. www.jonesbo.com

 

My write up of the inaugural West End Film Festival:

http://4zzzfm.wordpress.com/2010/04/04/west-end-film-festival-2010/

How to Turn Your Child Into a ninja-scientist-guitar-soloing-human rights champion in one easy step.

Last week I finished my first ever children’s novel, Zeb and the Great Ruckus. I don't want to give too much of the story away, but I can tell you it will feature the following:

 

This is a story for parents who aren’t white picket fence upper middle class starbucks and sunday paper trim the roses keeping up with the Joneses types to buy for their kids who will grow up and grab the future by the throat, look it in the eye and say  “Oi! You. Belong. To. ME.” I feel like 95% of children's media is aimed at the same demographic that watches bad Hollywood movies, listens to commercial radio and believes everything they read in Murdoch papers. This book is for everyone else. And there are rather a lot of you aren’t there?

        

if you read your kids this                   then they will turn out like this

You won’t find any of that saccharine cookie cutter cliche children’s crap in this book. Walt Disney wouldn’t touch this with a ten foot pole. Unless it was to beat it with said ten foot pole whilst screaming: 

“Dear God! It’s horrible! By

the ghost of Bambi’s mother

get it away from me!”

If your children read my book then it will dramatically increase their chances of never becoming a lifeless homogenised tv-shopping drone. Although if they start a psychedelic folk band and work in a tattoo parlour I claim no responsibility (but I will probably buy their album). Ideally, immediately after reading Zeb and the Great Ruckus they will dedicate their lives to becoming some sort of ninja-scientist-guitar-soloing-human rights champion.

                                                                                                                                                                                              

BEFORE

"I'm going to organise a protest against sweatshop labour in the morning, then work on my quantum physics paper before recording the soundtrack for the new Gus Van Sant film before bedtime. Hi-yah!"   

                                      

                AFTER

And now for the ardouous process of submitting to agents and publishers, which I feel can be best summed up as:

A BEGINNER'S GUIDE TO DYING IN INDIA BY JM DONELLAN, REVIEWED BY JM DONELLAN

It's been a busy week. I've been flat out organising the interstate tour and doing radio interviews (you know it's going to be quality airtime when the guy out of the front of the station greets you with a joint in his hand). My novel was finally released in Australia this week, and man, Oprah will just NOT GET OFF MY CASE. Seriously. Yesterday she rang me up and she was all like:

“Oh my god I loved your boooook!"

You know, with that rising voice thing she does. Let me tell you, it might be endearing to watch on your telebox but it is PAINFUL to listen to in your ear. So I was like,

"Listen Oprah, I'm actually on the last level of

Street fighter IV. Can you txt me later?"

“When can I get you on my show? I was going to have the Olsen twins on in January but their agent just called and said they'll be in rehab or prison or terrorist training camp or some crap. You free then?”

  "Yeah Listen O-town I'm actually going to be in  Cambodia writing the next book in January."

“Well can I at least get a review to tweet to my peeps?"

"Seriously, O-face, have you ever tried to beat Zangief on level 7? It's f**king hard. And trying to do so with an overexcited billionaire yammering on is making it a lot harder. Look, I'll write you a goddam review myself. Here tis:"

A BEGINNER’S GUIDE TO DYING IN INDIA

BY JM DONELLAN

(REVIEWED BY JM DONELLAN)

Look, I don’t know what the hell I was thinking when I wrote this. Didn’t I realise that no one reads books unless they are about vampires or wizards? Perhaps I should have written a book about a young vampire wizard on a quest to unlock an ancient mystery hidden within a famous painting whilst pursuing romance with a sexy rockstar who leads a double life as a crime scene investigator. That’d really get the money men drooling.

   +      +  

= best selling piece o' crap ever.

Everyone from the tweenies to gay twenty-somethings to soccer mums would be trampling over each other to get to their nearest Borders to pick that shit up. It’d probably even be adapted into a movie directed by an ex-porn star struggling to gain some credibility.

I mean, look at the vocabulary in this book. Kaleidoscopic? Prometheal? It’s like I expect people to use a dictionary, or their BRAINS or something? This book doesn’t mention twitter even once! Was it written in the middle ages? A Beginner’s Guide to Dying in India has been called ‘witty and poignant.’ Poignant? When was the last time you saw an ultra-hip Gen Y scenester type the word poignant into their iphone? Never. That’s when.

 

"Does 'poignant' have two umlauts or three?"

My main regret is that this book took me three years to put together from having the first spark on the rooftop on a hotel in the Himalayas to telling my publishers to ‘shove it’ when they wanted me to tweak the final chapter so that it featured a sex scene occurring in a helicopter as the heroes escaped the exploding casino. It makes me cry to think of all the things I could have done in that time. I could have learned jujitsu, how to juggle flaming chainsaws, or how to make a clarinet out of a carrot.

You know, stuff that would impress girls, instead of sitting in front of a laptop for weeks on end bathing in my own sweat and trying to think a better metaphor than ‘more out of place than the pope at a sex convention.’ (Suggestions?) I give this book sixteen thumbs down. Which is slightly better than the rating I gave the Twilight series, and slightly worse than the rating I gave for this guy’s moustache:

"It's Movember all year round in my world bitches! PS: you can get the book here if you to write your own scathing review, or if you need something to hide your face from that creepy guy that always sits opposite from you on the bus. Yeah, you know the one I'm talking about."

INTELLECTUAL CELEBRITY GOSSIP FILE: RICHARD DAWKINS + JESSICA SIMPSON

Well now, Richard Dawkins has become a real A-list of late, ever since his massive success with the god delusion he’s been seen partying at the Viper Room with Lindsay Lohan, Yasmine Bleeth and Robert Downey Jr. Friends say he’s been hitting the ‘party powder’ a little too hard, but the real news is the recent announcement that he’s dating Jessica Simpson.

 

The doe eyed couple have been spotted at several A-list venues,holding hands, discussing the political and sociological benefits of a secularised society, and giggling. While they haven’t been shy in front of the cameras, they also haven’t been too public about their relationship. A close friend had this to say:

 

comment taken from a friend during her recent publicity shoot.

“Well, you know, those two kids are just taking it easy. They really get along, but obviously the issue of religion is a big one, I mean, like, just the other day Richard was saying: ‘Sugarcheeks, do you not think it imbecilic to invest faith in an invisible, intangible deity whose supposed existence has negatively influenced the various strata of society for millennia?’ and then she was all like: ‘Baby, the expression of a belief in an intangible deity is not the cause of the behaviour of isolated extremists okay? It’s just, like, how those particular individuals manifest their own violent insecurities behind a flagship. Now what movie should we see Hannah Montana or Transformers 2?”

 

Rumour has it that Dawkins and Simpson eventually agreed on Transformers 2, but only on the proviso that they got popcorn AND choc tops.

Some celebrity experts have even suggested that wedding bells may not be too far off, but the pair are coy about this, Simpson has commented:

“Well, if we were talking about it, and I’m not saying that we are, but if we were, then obviously Richie wouldn’t want to have it in a church, so we might compromise and go somewhere with the illusion of spirituality that is actually completely soulless, like a scientology chapel.”