The New York Times this morning has a long article on the stolen paintings of Edvard Munch, most notably the iconic painting “The Scream.” Copies of “The Scream” (there are apparently four versions, which I didn’t know) have been stolen on two different occasions: in 1994, two thieves propped a ladder up against the wall of the Norwegian National Museum, broke a window, and snatched the painting, and in 2004, two men in ski masks burst into the Munch Museum with guns, grabbed two paintings off the walls, and ran to a waiting car.
Reading about the thefts, it occurs to me that if this is what art theft is like in Oslo, Norwegian caper novels must be just about the dullest books ever written. I mean, one of the world’s most famous painting has been stolen twice, and both thefts had all the subtlety and sophistication of fraternity pranks.
Where are the helicopters, the laser alarm systems, the complicated double-blind diversions, the “Afghanistan banana stand?” What kind of country allows smash-and-grab art thefts?
A country where the overwhelming number of people are law-abiding, non-violent, reasonable individuals. There are many places in Europe where people still don’t have to lock their doors (and yes, they keep valuables in the house). People still have respect for others and for society there. Your post makes it seem like, oh, those stupid Norwegians. They just haven’t learned to develop devious minds by necessity like most Americans, who spend more time trying to scam the system than trying to improve it or abide by it.
What works for a house may not necessary be enough for a multimillion dollar painting. It seems the Norwegians failed to grasp that.
Wow. Hie thee to a bookstore or library immediately and get _The Hot Rock_, or _What’s the Worst that Could Happen?_, or any of the rest of Donald Westlake’s Dortmunder comic caper novels. (Emphasis on *comic*.)
What kind of country allows smash-and-grab art thefts?
Um, what anon said, pretty much. Honestly, there was something of the undertone that anon objects to in your phrasing, and my first reaction was also along the lines of “a decent, reasonably law-abiding one?”.
Yeah. Right now I’m reading Jack McDevitt’s Polaris, in which a building is blown up in an attempt to kill a despotic theocrat on a state visit. The survivors are stunned that anyone would do such a thing: attack a target in such a way as to put dozens of bystanders at risk! The assassins got past security by simply trucking the bomb into a lower level of the building, where security was considered unnecessary. “When’s the last time you heard of anybody bombing a building? With people in it?” one person asks.
McDevitt’s novel is science fiction set in the far future. When I read that paragraph, I thought: far, far future!
Your post makes it seem like, oh, those stupid Norwegians.
Actually, it’s intended more as “How disappointing that reality fails to live up to the standards of crime fiction.”
Though, honestly, given the amount of “Oh, those poor unenlightened Americans” guff I’ve heard from Scandanavians over the years, I’m not that upset at inadvertently insulting Norway…
if you want to read about a recent, nicely-executed bank heist in Rio, check out the Idle Words: http://www.idlewords.com/
Well, one might say that any “guff” about “poor unenlightened Americans” from Scandinavians is well-deserved… At least, it *seems* fitting, for someone who complains about “guff” from “Scandanavians”.
Maybe you’ll get less “guff” from them when you can *spell* them.
HTH!