I have to be honest with you, though: I never read the book — any of his writings, for that matter. My fascination for 2001: A Space Odyssey lies in Kubrick’s craftsmanship. I can’t say, in all honesty, that the story, as such, appealed to me, but the beauty of it… Now, there’s something to admire, to revel in!

Stanley Kubrick’s particular sense of aesthetics, like Tim Burton’s, Akiro Kurosawas’, Jim Jarmusch’s and David Lynch’s (to mention but a few), made all the difference.

I first saw 2001: A Space Odyssey some time during the mid-seventies, in my early teens, at which point I finally also got to see A Clockwork Orange. Both left the susceptible young Petterson seriously and permanently awestruck.