One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway in Around the World in 80 Books

Oct 19, 2015 Jim rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: true-crime, non-fiction, craziness, freemasonry

Oh my! What to say about this one? Seierstad has done a great job of pulling us into the world of Anders Breivik. Her research has been thorough,so far as that goes, and required a lot of travel and interviewing on her part. I think she has attempted to be very fair in her account, giving biographical sketches of the murderer and his victims. She has certainly managed to elicit sympathy for the victims, but I think she narrowly missed the mark in other areas.

Breivik's history, you see, is given Oh my! What to say about this one? Seierstad has done a great job of pulling us into the world of Anders Breivik. Her research has been thorough,so far as that goes, and required a lot of travel and interviewing on her part. I think she has attempted to be very fair in her account, giving biographical sketches of the murderer and his victims. She has certainly managed to elicit sympathy for the victims, but I think she narrowly missed the mark in other areas.

Breivik's history, you see, is given in minute detail. We know where and how he was born, who his friends were, that he had an over-inflated sense of self worth. We know the reasons he gave for his attack, but I didn't come away with the why, the catalyst, the trigger if you will. Seierstad does not tell us why Breivik went from graffiti artist to mass murderer. Maybe it's just me, but I didn't have a sense of who he was...I was only told what he did.

Breivik started out as a relatively normal member of a broken home. His mother was odd, but functionally odd. He had friends of different ethnicities and eventually ran a marginally legal and prosperous business selling fake or "novelty" diplomas. Then it stopped. For two years he became a reclusive figure playing a video game in a dark room, unemployed and dodging friends. On the heels of this self-imposed seclusion, he took an extreme right-wing stance and commenced acquiring the materiel required for mass slaughter.

Breivik now hated immigrants and Marxists. He blamed the Labour party for flooding the country with refugees and migrants from the Middle East. This is a sentiment that is rapidly spreading in Scandinavian countries, by the way, with clashes between citizens and migrants an almost daily occurrence now. The normally tolerant Scandinavians are becoming fed up with the drain on the economy and still the government takes in more and more migrants. This is what Breivik had to say about it in his statement to the court on page 445:

Oslo is a city in ruins. I grew up in the West End, but I see that the city authorities are buying apartments, public property, for Muslims, who create ghettos. Many Muslims despise Norwegian culture, feminism, the sexual revolution, decadence. It starts with demands for special dispensations and ends with demands for self-rule. Sitting Bull and Crazy Horse are heroes acclaimed by the indigenous people of the United States - they fought against General Custer. Were they wicked or heroic? American history books describe them as heroes, not terrorists. Meanwhile, nationalists are called terrorists. Isn't that hypocritical and highly racist?"

So Breivik collected ingredients and made a bomb, thankfully a smaller bomb than he had wanted to make due to time constraints. He legally acquired firearms and stockpiled ammunition, then commenced his assault. He was cool and professional, unlike the local police forces who were totally unprepared for such an eventuality. Their response was like something out of Keystone Kops. Breivik crossed to the island where the youth wing of the labour party were having a rally, and started killing kids, unhurried and throwing in the odd snappy one-liner to boot, until the police finally managed to get to the island and arrest him. They showed remarkable restraint...many police forces would have shot him on sight, but Breivik got his day in court and his subsequent 21 years in jail, where he sits to this day.

I have to say that Seierstad has given a great account of the events leading up to the massacre, and the slaughter itself might be too much for some folks, but hey...it's slaughter....you know that going in. I don't think she quite captured the essence of Breivik, but perhaps that is unattainable. My biggest peeve is that there are no photos, sketches, maps...nothing!! I don't need photos of dead kids, but images of them alive and smiling so I know what they look like. And at least a map of the island showing the ferry landing and distance from the mainland...maybe a dot or two where bodies were found. Hell, you wrote a book over 500 pages long, go the extra mile and give me a map, why doncha?

Overall, an excellent gritty read, well worth your time. ...more

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