How We Cheat Each Other

"How We Cheat Each Other" is a textbook on human deceit, as narrated by Odd Nerdrum. It consists of six short stories in dialogue form, drawing on Nerdrum's experiences in Iceland, Sweden, Norway, Russia and Germany, and spanning "The Last Days of Immanuel Kant" in the eighteenth century through to our time, and into the future. The theme of cheating takes various forms: Kant cheats the Dutch painter Haan Van Meegeren who in turn deceives the world with his forgeries; a German writer is cheated by his country after the Second World War; the protagonist of "The Diamond Man" is cheated by a spirit; in "The Sleepwalker" a Swedish painter is continually cheated by his environment; in "Marlowe" a neglected poet cheats the system that had ignored him for years; and the concluding story, "After Armageddon," ends with an explosion of all kinds of cheating against a backdrop of torture and slaughter.