A Miniature «Stunt»

By Frank Benjamin Horn Hartvedt

If I were to tell a story about my years in high school (upper secondary school), it wouldn’t be a Dead Poets Society story containing burning zeal and enormous inspiration. Almost the opposite. But the composed Gunnar Klepsland, my Norwegian teacher, inspired me when he gave me the highest grade in Norwegian upon graduation. I loved to write, to communicate. I laid the foundation back then.

On a Norwegian exam (tentamen) back then, the assignment was that we first had to describe the content of a novel that had made an impression on us, and then perform some kind of analysis of the book (I don’t remember the exact assignment text). I believe that exam was held before I had read arguably the best crime novel in history, And then there were none, and I remembered little of the content in the between 60 and 80 Hardy Boys books I had read some years earlier. Thus, I saw no other solution than to use the first hour of the exam to invent a novel title, the novel’s plot, and the names of the main characters. Then I analyzed the freshly invented novel.

Grade: Top grade.

It was a «stunt» in miniature. About 15 years later, a Turkish newspaper would write this: «They are preparing to carry out one of history’s most interesting protest methods. … ‘It is our message of happiness to the world.’» It was the «free brothels stunt» that made people talk across Europe.

(This article was published on frankbenjaminhartvedt.no in 2024)