0:00:13 > 0:00:16Your father was a very dominating element in your life.
0:00:18 > 0:00:21Do you think that troubled relationship with him has been
0:00:21 > 0:00:24a driving force behind what you wrote?
0:00:25 > 0:00:27Yeah.
0:00:30 > 0:00:32Have you exorcised his ghost?
0:00:34 > 0:00:37Yeah, but I have these nightmares that he's still alive
0:00:37 > 0:00:40and he's aware of the books.
0:00:45 > 0:00:48I have never given an interview while brushing my teeth.
0:00:51 > 0:00:54This is an exclusive, I think.
0:00:55 > 0:00:59The problem with publishing or writing six books in a series
0:00:59 > 0:01:02is that it's published, you know,
0:01:02 > 0:01:04different titles in different countries,
0:01:04 > 0:01:06so in France book three's out.
0:01:06 > 0:01:08In Holland, book six, book five.
0:01:08 > 0:01:11Other countries, book one, book two.
0:01:11 > 0:01:13It's going all over the place
0:01:13 > 0:01:17and I have to go to a country talking about this book
0:01:17 > 0:01:21and then move to another country talking about that.
0:01:21 > 0:01:25I'm a writer basically because I'm a bit shy,
0:01:25 > 0:01:28I'm not good at communicating, I'm not good at talking,
0:01:28 > 0:01:32and then I'm thrown into this world where you're supposed to talk
0:01:32 > 0:01:35and supposed to be at events and talk about yourself.
0:01:35 > 0:01:38I have learned to do that.
0:01:38 > 0:01:42If I was on the streets in Norway, Oslo, for instance,
0:01:42 > 0:01:45I would be recognised, I guess.
0:01:46 > 0:01:52People, you know, people just shout from the other side of the street,
0:01:52 > 0:01:55"Great books," or "Keep going," or something.
0:01:58 > 0:01:59Knausgaard, of course,
0:01:59 > 0:02:03is as close as anybody can come to being a literary superstar.
0:02:03 > 0:02:06APPLAUSE
0:02:08 > 0:02:13He's written an extraordinary six-volume...sort of semi-fictional
0:02:13 > 0:02:16but not fictional autobiography
0:02:16 > 0:02:21and it was a huge success, to some extent a huge scandal,
0:02:21 > 0:02:24in Norway when it first came out.
0:02:24 > 0:02:27Looking for something, looking for something, looking for something,
0:02:27 > 0:02:30and I don't know what it is, but then...this came up.
0:02:30 > 0:02:34This very confessional thing came up when I wanted to write about
0:02:34 > 0:02:38my father's death, which was the thing I wanted to tell,
0:02:38 > 0:02:40that story I wanted to tell,
0:02:40 > 0:02:43and I was suddenly aware of what I was doing.
0:02:43 > 0:02:46He was so extraordinarily honest about himself
0:02:46 > 0:02:51and all the traumas and stresses of his youth mainly.
0:02:51 > 0:02:56Honesty is a very important surgical quality.
0:02:56 > 0:02:59I wrote a book about this.
0:02:59 > 0:03:02This kind of honesty is very important in surgery.
0:03:02 > 0:03:04Honesty with oneself.
0:03:04 > 0:03:09If you're not honest with yourself about mistakes, about problems,
0:03:09 > 0:03:12you're not going to make the right decisions.
0:03:12 > 0:03:15That's what my book has in common with Karl Ove's work.
0:03:15 > 0:03:19They're both books about struggling to be honest with oneself.
0:03:20 > 0:03:25The most striking thing about Henry's book was the honesty in it,
0:03:25 > 0:03:28how it is to be a surgeon and a surgeon's dilemmas,
0:03:28 > 0:03:31and it's also human, you know.
0:03:31 > 0:03:35It's taking it down to the real world, so to speak.
0:03:35 > 0:03:39Because he liked my book, he wrote to me saying he was interested
0:03:39 > 0:03:42in brain surgery and could he come and talk to me about it
0:03:42 > 0:03:43and possibly see me operate?
0:03:45 > 0:03:47"The silence was total.
0:03:47 > 0:03:49"The single focus of attention was a head
0:03:49 > 0:03:53"clamped in a vice in the middle of the room."
0:03:53 > 0:03:57Karl Ove and I spent a few days together in Albania and he then
0:03:57 > 0:04:00wrote a piece about this and his first sight of brain surgery
0:04:00 > 0:04:05for the New York Times, accompanied by some extraordinary photographs.
0:04:06 > 0:04:08"One doctor looked up from a microscope.
0:04:08 > 0:04:11"'Do you want to have a look?' he asked.
0:04:14 > 0:04:16"Oh, God.
0:04:16 > 0:04:20"I felt as if I were standing on the top of a mountain gazing out
0:04:20 > 0:04:25"over a plain covered by long, meandering rivers.
0:04:25 > 0:04:28"On the horizon, more mountains rose up.
0:04:28 > 0:04:31"Between them there were valleys
0:04:31 > 0:04:34"and one of the valleys was covered by an enormous white glacier.
0:04:36 > 0:04:39"It was as if I had been transported to another world,
0:04:39 > 0:04:42"another part of the universe."
0:04:42 > 0:04:44This was the drill in the past
0:04:44 > 0:04:46we always used for opening people's skulls.
0:04:46 > 0:04:49You make a small cut or a big cut in the scalp
0:04:49 > 0:04:52and then you just press and go like that.
0:04:52 > 0:04:54It looks...terrible!
0:04:56 > 0:05:00Your masterwork, if I can call it that, is called My Struggle.
0:05:00 > 0:05:03A struggle is to struggle against something,
0:05:03 > 0:05:05to struggle for something.
0:05:05 > 0:05:07What were you struggling for?
0:05:09 > 0:05:12The thing with the title is it's...
0:05:13 > 0:05:17It works on so many levels, you know.
0:05:17 > 0:05:22The major struggle in the book is the struggle between my own
0:05:22 > 0:05:26self and my surroundings, the social scene.
0:05:26 > 0:05:31In all the books, it's about relations with other people,
0:05:31 > 0:05:34relations with my father, my brother, my mother.
0:05:34 > 0:05:37Problems having no friends, being lonely.
0:05:37 > 0:05:39Those kind of things.
0:05:39 > 0:05:44So, in a way, the book is a reaction to all the restraints I felt
0:05:44 > 0:05:46and all the restrictions I felt,
0:05:46 > 0:05:50and, you know, it's to just let all inside of me, which I never
0:05:50 > 0:05:55told anyone, never communicated to anyone, just throw it on the page.
0:05:55 > 0:05:57It's a way of...this is me.
0:05:57 > 0:06:02A lot of your autobiographical book
0:06:02 > 0:06:05is about the enormous drives
0:06:05 > 0:06:08we have when we're young, particularly sex.
0:06:08 > 0:06:12I suspect that's one of the reasons why the book has struck a chord...
0:06:12 > 0:06:14Because of the sex?
0:06:14 > 0:06:19What I am describing, the sexual drive,
0:06:19 > 0:06:21all those kinds of things,
0:06:21 > 0:06:23there's no place you can talk about it.
0:06:23 > 0:06:26There's no-one you can talk to if you are a young man, 16 years old.
0:06:26 > 0:06:30You can't talk to your friends about it, not your parents.
0:06:30 > 0:06:34It's like you have it on your own, so the book is about that,
0:06:34 > 0:06:39being enclosed in yourself with all these enormously strong feelings,
0:06:39 > 0:06:40lusts for other people.
0:06:40 > 0:06:43Do you think it's more of a problem for Norwegians
0:06:43 > 0:06:44than other people perhaps?
0:06:44 > 0:06:48I thought so, yeah, but now the book is translating
0:06:48 > 0:06:52and it seems like this is very universal, yeah.
0:07:12 > 0:07:14I couldn't reveal this.
0:07:16 > 0:07:18Not to anyone.
0:07:18 > 0:07:21Not ever, not under any circumstances.
0:07:24 > 0:07:27And whenever I thought about it,
0:07:27 > 0:07:30which was not seldom, it must have been several times an hour,
0:07:30 > 0:07:34I was overcome by a kind of black gloom.
0:07:34 > 0:07:37A gloom of hopelessness, sometimes only fleetingly,
0:07:37 > 0:07:40like a cloud drifting past the sun.
0:07:40 > 0:07:42Sometimes for longer periods,
0:07:42 > 0:07:47and whatever form the hopelessness took, I could not surmount it.
0:07:47 > 0:07:51There was so much doubt and torment associated with it.
0:07:51 > 0:07:56This refers to being a virgin at the age of 18.
0:08:01 > 0:08:03When you were writing it,
0:08:03 > 0:08:08my impression was almost an act of suicidal catharsis, so to speak.
0:08:08 > 0:08:10Were you aware of the fact
0:08:10 > 0:08:14it might actually strike a chord with so many people?
0:08:14 > 0:08:16No, I had no idea.
0:08:16 > 0:08:21It was the exact opposite experience I had, that this is only about me,
0:08:21 > 0:08:26very private and without any interest for other people.
0:08:26 > 0:08:28That was what I wrote.
0:08:28 > 0:08:30And yet you still wrote it, though,
0:08:30 > 0:08:32and you presumably wanted an audience for it?
0:08:32 > 0:08:35Yeah, yeah, I'm a novelist and I publish novels
0:08:35 > 0:08:37and I would publish it, you know.
0:08:37 > 0:08:39I would be happy.
0:08:43 > 0:08:46In surgery we have what are called morbidity and mortality meetings
0:08:46 > 0:08:50where we're supposed to sit down together in the surgical department
0:08:50 > 0:08:53and discuss our mistakes and what went wrong
0:08:53 > 0:08:56and how we can do better next time.
0:08:56 > 0:09:00As a writer, is there any equivalent? Do you read the reviews?
0:09:00 > 0:09:05No, it's like I have to...all the mistakes I have to bury behind me.
0:09:05 > 0:09:09I never reread what I've been writing. I never read reviews.
0:09:09 > 0:09:11I can't stand it.
0:09:11 > 0:09:16The only way of critical...like this is with my editor, you know.
0:09:16 > 0:09:20You said that you'd seen it as a slightly Faustian bargain.
0:09:20 > 0:09:21You lost your soul.
0:09:21 > 0:09:26- You alienated and pissed off quite a few members of your family.- Yeah.
0:09:26 > 0:09:31Maybe the pain you caused some people, it's not life or death.
0:09:31 > 0:09:32It's not that critical.
0:09:32 > 0:09:36But do you think in retrospect you could have been a bit more tactful?
0:09:36 > 0:09:40Do you have any regrets about some of the things you said?
0:09:40 > 0:09:45Could you have still carried out this act of suicidal catharsis
0:09:45 > 0:09:48without hurting some people in the process?
0:09:48 > 0:09:51- No, you can't.- Or is the pain an inevitable necessary part?
0:09:51 > 0:09:55You can't tell a story about your life without involving other people
0:09:55 > 0:09:59and the whole idea was I should tell the way it was for me
0:09:59 > 0:10:03and be as honest as I could.
0:10:03 > 0:10:06So that was impossible to avoid.
0:10:12 > 0:10:14Why do you write?
0:10:14 > 0:10:16Have you got any answer to that?
0:10:16 > 0:10:18- It is very personal.- Yeah, yeah.
0:10:18 > 0:10:20It is good.
0:10:20 > 0:10:25It feels almost like a repair shop or something for my mental health.
0:10:25 > 0:10:29That suggests you've got to have a wound to heal in the first place.
0:10:29 > 0:10:31Yeah, I think so,
0:10:31 > 0:10:35but I guess the same thing would apply to you, wouldn't it?
0:10:35 > 0:10:36Oh, very much so in my case.
0:10:36 > 0:10:39There are very many different reasons why different people
0:10:39 > 0:10:42become doctors, but, in my case,
0:10:42 > 0:10:45I was trying to heal myself by healing others.
0:10:47 > 0:10:51"Did I really look straight into it?
0:10:51 > 0:10:53"I felt a sudden sharp pang of guilt."
0:10:55 > 0:10:58I watched you operate and it looked like it was a completely
0:10:58 > 0:11:01different state of mind that you almost entered and got into.
0:11:01 > 0:11:05Completely. It is a complete addiction.
0:11:05 > 0:11:08You're living entirely in the present.
0:11:08 > 0:11:12I was once in a casino watching people betting on a roulette wheel,
0:11:12 > 0:11:16watching the ball bouncing round the wheel.
0:11:16 > 0:11:20It was the same complete intense concentration.
0:11:20 > 0:11:23The future and the past kind of disappeared.
0:11:23 > 0:11:24Although you're anxious,
0:11:24 > 0:11:28you've very keen to win something or not to lose in the future.
0:11:28 > 0:11:32It's similar to that, and I think most surgeons would say the same.
0:11:32 > 0:11:35Of course, lots of doctors don't want to do surgery
0:11:35 > 0:11:38because they're not risk-seekers.
0:11:46 > 0:11:50I saw no brain surgery as a medical student and then, by chance,
0:11:50 > 0:11:51I saw an aneurysm operation
0:11:51 > 0:11:54and I knew immediately this is what I wanted to do.
0:11:54 > 0:11:56It was love at first sight.
0:11:59 > 0:12:03There was a series on American TV in the 1960s called Ben Casey.
0:12:03 > 0:12:07Although the doctors and nurses were all incredibly good-looking,
0:12:07 > 0:12:12they gave not a bad idea of what neurosurgery was really like.
0:12:14 > 0:12:15How do you like that?
0:12:15 > 0:12:17Aneurysm.
0:12:17 > 0:12:19Cerebral aneurysms are very small,
0:12:19 > 0:12:22usually less than a centimetre in size,
0:12:22 > 0:12:25blowouts on the blood vessels at the base of the brain.
0:12:28 > 0:12:31Door is open. We're going in now.
0:12:31 > 0:12:35You have to stalk this aneurysm.
0:12:35 > 0:12:38At any moment it might blow up, and if the aneurysm bursts
0:12:38 > 0:12:40usually the patient dies.
0:12:40 > 0:12:43That's it.
0:12:43 > 0:12:44We found it.
0:12:44 > 0:12:47It's like bomb-disposal work for cowards
0:12:47 > 0:12:49cos all surgeons are cowards to the extent
0:12:49 > 0:12:52they take risks on behalf of their patients.
0:12:52 > 0:12:54I see surgery as a blood sport.
0:12:54 > 0:12:57So, although one becomes a surgeon to stimulate yourself
0:12:57 > 0:13:01and excite yourself, it is all premised for most of us
0:13:01 > 0:13:03on some degree of care for patients.
0:13:03 > 0:13:07With your experiences, is it possible to be, you know,
0:13:07 > 0:13:10a neurosurgeon without being on the A-list,
0:13:10 > 0:13:15or without everything ending in materialism, ending in...
0:13:15 > 0:13:18Well, I think my answer to that is very simple.
0:13:18 > 0:13:22Saying that everything we think and feel is a physical phenomenon,
0:13:22 > 0:13:25- it upgrades matter into something we don't understand.- Yeah.
0:13:25 > 0:13:28- It doesn't downgrade thought or feeling.- Yeah.
0:13:28 > 0:13:33There's a common misconception that neuroscientists - and brain surgery
0:13:33 > 0:13:37is a very crude, lowest form of neuroscience -
0:13:37 > 0:13:40that we understand great truths about human nature.
0:13:40 > 0:13:41We don't, at all.
0:13:41 > 0:13:43Looking at the brain,
0:13:43 > 0:13:47as you know, looking at the brain as a physical entity,
0:13:47 > 0:13:51it just fills you with an enormous sense of wonder and awe,
0:13:51 > 0:13:54I think, but it doesn't actually answer any questions
0:13:54 > 0:13:58about what is meaningful in human life whatsoever.
0:14:09 > 0:14:12I started this book when I was 40
0:14:12 > 0:14:14and, at that time, my father had left the family,
0:14:14 > 0:14:17started to drink, remarried,
0:14:17 > 0:14:20and in the end became an alcoholic and died.
0:14:21 > 0:14:26I was 40 then and I realised maybe it was the same feeling I had
0:14:26 > 0:14:30because I wanted to leave the family and I wanted to...
0:14:30 > 0:14:34not to start to drink, but I have this self-destructive thing.
0:14:36 > 0:14:40When I could identify that in him, I started to, you know...
0:14:43 > 0:14:46..understand him, and understanding is somehow forgiving, I think.
0:14:46 > 0:14:51Your father was obviously a very dominating element in your life...
0:14:51 > 0:14:54- Yeah. - ..in a very disturbing sort of way.
0:14:54 > 0:14:58Do you think that troubled relationship with him
0:14:58 > 0:15:02was very much a driving force behind what you wrote?
0:15:02 > 0:15:03Yeah, I think so.
0:15:03 > 0:15:06- Have you exorcised his ghost... - Yeah, I have.- ..completely?
0:15:06 > 0:15:08I have completely, yeah.
0:15:08 > 0:15:11But it's a strange thing with parents or with fathers
0:15:11 > 0:15:13that they are almost like inhuman.
0:15:13 > 0:15:18When you grow up they are...like a god or something.
0:15:18 > 0:15:20Did you ever worry you might become an alcoholic yourself?
0:15:20 > 0:15:24You said you had a rather awkward relationship with booze
0:15:24 > 0:15:25when you were younger.
0:15:25 > 0:15:28It clearly was a major escape.
0:15:28 > 0:15:30I'm a very addictive person.
0:15:30 > 0:15:31I can get addicted to anything,
0:15:31 > 0:15:34but I know of it, so I try to avoid it.
0:15:40 > 0:15:43"I had experienced black-outs like this,
0:15:43 > 0:15:47"after which I had remembered only fragments of what I have done.
0:15:48 > 0:15:51"Ever since I first started drinking.
0:15:51 > 0:15:55"That was the summer I finished the ninth class at the Norway Cup,
0:15:55 > 0:15:58"when I just laughed and laughed.
0:15:58 > 0:16:00"A momentous experience.
0:16:00 > 0:16:04"Being drunk took me to places where I was free
0:16:04 > 0:16:07"and did what I wanted while it raised me aloft
0:16:07 > 0:16:10"and rendered everything around me wonderful.
0:16:10 > 0:16:13"Only recalling bits and pieces afterwards,
0:16:13 > 0:16:17"isolated scenes brightly illuminated against a wall
0:16:17 > 0:16:21"of darkness from which I emerged and disappeared back into,
0:16:21 > 0:16:22"was the norm."
0:16:24 > 0:16:29I work so much and it's the same mechanism.
0:16:29 > 0:16:31It's an addiction.
0:16:31 > 0:16:33It's a way of escaping, you know.
0:16:33 > 0:16:36I guess you know what it is to work a lot.
0:16:36 > 0:16:38It's like a gyroscope.
0:16:38 > 0:16:42- If I stop spinning very fast, I'm worried I will fall over.- Yeah.
0:17:05 > 0:17:09- My book is based completely upon memory...- Yes.
0:17:09 > 0:17:10..which feels like it's visual.
0:17:10 > 0:17:12It feels like it's stored somewhere.
0:17:12 > 0:17:14When I'm writing about childhood,
0:17:14 > 0:17:19it's like an inner world is opening up and it's huge.
0:17:19 > 0:17:23Image after image, feeling after feeling, emotion after emotion.
0:17:23 > 0:17:28Round about here on the inside are two small areas the size of almonds
0:17:28 > 0:17:32called the amygdala, which are very, very tied up with emotion and fear.
0:17:34 > 0:17:38This area here, the hippocampal gyrus, is involved in memory.
0:17:38 > 0:17:41A bit like the recording heads on a tape recorder.
0:17:41 > 0:17:44So the magnetic tape is still there
0:17:44 > 0:17:46and maybe you can play it back.
0:17:46 > 0:17:49Where memories are stored,
0:17:49 > 0:17:52if you put somebody in a functional brain scanner, bits of the
0:17:52 > 0:17:56brain light up which show crudely which bits of the brain are working.
0:17:56 > 0:17:59Do you think the brain is developing still?
0:17:59 > 0:18:04I mean, like it's changing in an evolutionary way?
0:18:04 > 0:18:07It must be, but we don't know the timescale.
0:18:07 > 0:18:11Each of us in our head, our own being, our own consciousness,
0:18:11 > 0:18:15is actually a greater mystery than the Big Bang and the cosmos
0:18:15 > 0:18:18and the universe, cos we understand more
0:18:18 > 0:18:21actually about the universe than we do about our very own consciousness.
0:18:25 > 0:18:30When I started off writing I had a certain sense of meaninglessness,
0:18:30 > 0:18:34which I shouldn't have, because then I had three children
0:18:34 > 0:18:37and I did what I wanted to do and I was in a good place in life,
0:18:37 > 0:18:40but I still felt meaningless and grey.
0:18:40 > 0:18:44That's one of the major death sentences,
0:18:44 > 0:18:47not to appreciate life.
0:18:47 > 0:18:52So writing is a way of trying to kind of re-establish meaning,
0:18:52 > 0:18:56and in that area, it's death,
0:18:56 > 0:19:01because when you are around death everything is loaded with meaning,
0:19:01 > 0:19:07and then it's falling in love, where everything is meaningful.
0:19:07 > 0:19:09It's strange, isn't it,
0:19:09 > 0:19:11when one's in love everything seems to fit together
0:19:11 > 0:19:14into one unitary whole.
0:19:14 > 0:19:16It's a sort of madness in a way, isn't it?
0:19:16 > 0:19:19Yeah, and I noticed you writing about love in your book.
0:19:19 > 0:19:23You said normally love is full of vanity and narcissism
0:19:23 > 0:19:27but then there was love for your mother when she died, which wasn't.
0:19:27 > 0:19:28And it's true, it is.
0:19:28 > 0:19:34The intensity of life is much stronger
0:19:34 > 0:19:36and it's the same in art.
0:19:36 > 0:19:38That's the strangest thing.
0:19:38 > 0:19:42If you see a Dutch painting from the 17th century,
0:19:42 > 0:19:46a glass of water and an apple, really it's nothing, because a glass
0:19:46 > 0:19:50of water and an apple is nothing, but then it's like it's almost...
0:19:50 > 0:19:53It's this inner light, sort of thing.
0:19:53 > 0:19:56Yeah, and it lifts you up and it feels very, very meaningful.
0:20:02 > 0:20:05I think at one point in your book you refer to...
0:20:05 > 0:20:09- I think it's probably Rembrandt's last self-portrait.- Yeah.
0:20:09 > 0:20:14How do you see your writing and relationship to that painting?
0:20:14 > 0:20:18The strange thing is that, you know, my book is a huge self-portrait
0:20:18 > 0:20:21but it never occurred to me that there was any reason
0:20:21 > 0:20:23that I wrote about Rembrandt.
0:20:23 > 0:20:25I didn't think about self-portraits at all.
0:20:25 > 0:20:28The thing was, I've seen that picture in London.
0:20:28 > 0:20:30Every time I'm in London I go and see it
0:20:30 > 0:20:33because it's such an amazing picture of...
0:20:35 > 0:20:37It's like you can see his soul.
0:20:38 > 0:20:42I'm so...in presence of someone...
0:20:42 > 0:20:46It's dead, it's canvas, there's nothing there,
0:20:46 > 0:20:47but that was just a mystery to me
0:20:47 > 0:20:50and that was why I was writing about it.
0:20:50 > 0:20:53Where is the meaning? Where does it come from?
0:20:53 > 0:20:58That's, you know, continuously questioned in the books,
0:20:58 > 0:21:01that rhythm, looking for meaning, you know.
0:21:26 > 0:21:28That's completely freaking me out.
0:21:28 > 0:21:30LAUGHTER
0:21:30 > 0:21:36I have been very interested in identity and personality
0:21:36 > 0:21:39and the feeling of being one,
0:21:39 > 0:21:41which you almost always have.
0:21:41 > 0:21:45Even if you're very drunk or whatever, it's still you.
0:21:45 > 0:21:47But then I have experienced, like...
0:21:47 > 0:21:51I've had one or two hangovers where I felt I was split in half actually.
0:21:51 > 0:21:54- Yeah.- You probably know the feeling better than I do.
0:21:54 > 0:21:58Yeah, but then I see people with psychosis, bipolar.
0:21:58 > 0:22:03My wife is bipolar and she can change personality, like completely.
0:22:03 > 0:22:07Then, if there's a psychosis, it's like there is no self any more.
0:22:07 > 0:22:12It's all in bits and pieces, so what do you think, what is the self?
0:22:15 > 0:22:18- Well, many... - Is it a way of organising?
0:22:18 > 0:22:20..many cognitive scientists,
0:22:20 > 0:22:24as psychologists call themselves nowadays, say self is an illusion.
0:22:24 > 0:22:28Not a delusion, but it's not what we think it is.
0:22:28 > 0:22:30Somehow everything is interconnected to produce
0:22:30 > 0:22:33an illusion of our being an organised self.
0:22:33 > 0:22:37The best analogy I think for psychosis is it's like dreaming.
0:22:37 > 0:22:39Yeah.
0:22:39 > 0:22:41When we dream, we move around
0:22:41 > 0:22:44and it's in a completely irrational, unpredictable way.
0:22:46 > 0:22:49There's some evidence people, when they're in a psychotic state,
0:22:49 > 0:22:52are thinking in that sort of way.
0:22:52 > 0:22:53Yeah.
0:22:53 > 0:22:58Coming back to your life, if I may, the old business about, you know,
0:22:58 > 0:23:01mental health is linked to art and creativity
0:23:01 > 0:23:04and things like that, do you see that with her?
0:23:04 > 0:23:10- Her disorder is tied up with her creativity as a writer?- Yeah, it is.
0:23:10 > 0:23:13It's much more, you know...
0:23:15 > 0:23:17It's not like...
0:23:17 > 0:23:20It is very problematic for her to have that condition.
0:23:20 > 0:23:22It's very, very hard and very difficult
0:23:22 > 0:23:26and it's not comforting to be able to write brilliantly,
0:23:26 > 0:23:29but it is connected to it somehow, I'm sure.
0:23:29 > 0:23:34And presumably it just speeds up out of control and the mania is fun
0:23:34 > 0:23:39- to begin with, but then it becomes very frightening and chaotic?- Yeah.
0:23:39 > 0:23:43When I watched you operate and you have people dying on you
0:23:43 > 0:23:49on the table, if you think there is anything after life...
0:23:49 > 0:23:51No, there's nothing. It seems...
0:23:51 > 0:23:53You can't prove it either way,
0:23:53 > 0:23:55but it seems deeply improbable to me,
0:23:55 > 0:23:58and the reason for that is not so much the fact of death,
0:23:58 > 0:24:00but the fact of brain damage,
0:24:00 > 0:24:03in particular damage to the front part of the brain,
0:24:03 > 0:24:07which is where all our social behaviour and our sensitivity
0:24:07 > 0:24:10to others is to be found,
0:24:10 > 0:24:13and if you see people, particularly talk to the family,
0:24:13 > 0:24:14if people have had a head injury
0:24:14 > 0:24:18and suffered damage to the frontal lobe, they're not the people
0:24:18 > 0:24:22they were and they're almost always changed for the worse.
0:24:22 > 0:24:26So if what we think of the true self, the moral being,
0:24:26 > 0:24:31the social being is so damaged by physical damage to the brain,
0:24:31 > 0:24:34it seems everything else follows on from that,
0:24:34 > 0:24:36that, you know, we are our brains.
0:24:36 > 0:24:39But if something happens with the brain
0:24:39 > 0:24:41and the person changed personality,
0:24:41 > 0:24:43will that person be aware?
0:24:43 > 0:24:47- No, they're often not, and that's what's so disturbing about it.- Yes.
0:24:47 > 0:24:49- You have to talk to the family... - Yeah.
0:24:49 > 0:24:53..and often the family is reluctant to talk to you about it cos
0:24:53 > 0:24:55it's often deeply embarrassing.
0:24:55 > 0:24:57People often become disinhibited.
0:24:57 > 0:25:00They lose normal social restraint
0:25:00 > 0:25:07and therefore doctors are often blind to all these terrible effects.
0:25:14 > 0:25:19My favourite surgical quotation is by the French surgeon Rene Leriche,
0:25:19 > 0:25:24who said all surgeons carry within themselves an inner cemetery.
0:25:24 > 0:25:27It's a place we all have to go to full of bitterness
0:25:27 > 0:25:31and regret, where we have to think about our mistakes.
0:25:31 > 0:25:34In reality, of course, I've helped and saved thousands of people,
0:25:34 > 0:25:39but I find I tend to remember more the mistakes and the disasters.
0:25:39 > 0:25:42It is, in fact, very important, cos in many ways the most
0:25:42 > 0:25:47important surgical quality is an honesty with oneself,
0:25:47 > 0:25:51that one recognises the difference between bad luck
0:25:51 > 0:25:54and something one could and should have done differently.
0:25:54 > 0:25:58I suppose that's what my book has in common with Karl Ove's work.
0:25:58 > 0:26:02They're both books about struggling to be honest with oneself,
0:26:02 > 0:26:05although in very different areas of life.
0:26:07 > 0:26:12If I go out at night in a pub or something,
0:26:12 > 0:26:14then all kinds of stuff can happen, so I don't do that.
0:26:14 > 0:26:17People can be very angry, for instance.
0:26:19 > 0:26:23Someone was taking a picture of his kids and,
0:26:23 > 0:26:26"How could you do that to your own kids? How could you do that?
0:26:26 > 0:26:30"This is my kids. I would never have done that. How could you do that?"
0:26:30 > 0:26:33He was, of course, drunk, but still, where does the aggression come from?
0:26:33 > 0:26:35I don't know.
0:26:35 > 0:26:37HE CHUCKLES
0:26:37 > 0:26:39This is...
0:26:40 > 0:26:44I have the same drum kit at home.
0:26:44 > 0:26:48When you grow up in a small part of Norway, music is the sound of
0:26:48 > 0:26:52the world, and you know there is a world outside that's bigger.
0:26:52 > 0:26:54The only way I had to get into a band
0:26:54 > 0:26:56was to try to learn to play the drums.
0:26:56 > 0:27:00I'm not a natural drummer so it's hours of practising
0:27:00 > 0:27:02and basically no results.
0:27:03 > 0:27:06I can do that.
0:27:14 > 0:27:18But I can't really play the guitar either, you know.
0:27:18 > 0:27:21Do you want me to sing too?
0:27:32 > 0:27:34Haven't seen one of those things for years.
0:27:34 > 0:27:38- Would you listen to music when writing?- Yeah, I do all the time.
0:27:38 > 0:27:41I remember when this one came out, Motorhead's Ace Of Spades.
0:27:43 > 0:27:47MOTORHEAD PLAYS
0:27:47 > 0:27:52I was 11 when it came out and I played it nonstop. I love it.
0:27:54 > 0:27:58I'm trying to find some music I might have operated to,
0:27:58 > 0:28:00but, at the moment, I can't find any.
0:28:04 > 0:28:05Mmm, no.
0:28:05 > 0:28:09Kate Bush. I play Kate Bush occasionally in operations.
0:28:09 > 0:28:11MUSIC: Babooshka by Kate Bush
0:28:20 > 0:28:22# Babooshka
0:28:25 > 0:28:27# Babooshka
0:28:27 > 0:28:30# All yours, Babooshka, Babooshka
0:28:30 > 0:28:33# Babooshka-ya-ya
0:28:33 > 0:28:37# All yours, Babooshka, Babooshka
0:28:37 > 0:28:40# Babooshka-ya-ya. #