We’re building in precisely the same way in the country as we build in the cities, and our first glimpse of a rural community is like the first glimpse of any suburb: a petrol station, a shopping centre. American villas, satellite dishes. Presumably television has taught us how homes should be built. Big garages, new gardens, patios and barbecues; the Norwegian-American family, standing in the garden grilling, disguised as Norwegian. American immigration is greater than Norwegian immigration to the US. But the Americans have arrived in a somewhat unusual way, they have ridden and driven, sailed and flown, shot and broken their way into Norwegian homes, into Norwegian living rooms, right out of the television screen and into Norwegian daily life.

Tomas Espedal, Tramp. trans. James Anderson. Seagull Books, 2010 (2006)