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Aldous HUXLEY"Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World has the modern age firmly in its sights. With devastating irony and fascinating precision, the novel, published in 1932, describes a futuristic world some six centuries hence in which mankind has been re-engineered for maximum efficiency, and contained and controlled by the constant satisfaction of pleasure. It is a less violent vision than that of Huxley’s friend and former student George Orwell, in 1984, but it is possibly even more disturbing."(1)
"A squat grey building of only thirty-four stories. Over the main entrance the words, CENTRAL LONDON HATCHERY AND CONDITIONING CENTRE, and, in a shield, the World State’s motto, COMMUNITY, IDENTITY, STABILITY."(2)
De Director leidt nieuwelingen — dat zijn allemaal jongens — rond in de Fertility Room. Hij laat de ruimte te zien waar eicellen en sperma bewaard worden, vertelt over de technieken om snel mensen van mindere kwaliteit te maken, waarbij 70 % van de vrouwen steriel is, en zo verder.
"For particulars, as every one knows, make for virtue and happiness; generalities are intellectually necessary evils. Not philosophers but fretsawyers and stamp collectors compose the backbone of society." [mijn nadruk] (3)
[Een waar woord :-) ]
"how the fertilized ova went back to the incubators; where the Alphas and Betas remained until definitely bottled; while the Gammas, Deltas and Epsilons were brought out again, after only thirty-six hours, to undergo Bokanovsky’s Process."(6)
"“But in Epsilons,” said Mr. Foster very justly, “we don’t need human intelligence.”
Didn’t need and didn’t get it. But though the Epsilon mind was mature at ten, the Epsilon body was not fit to work till eighteen. Long years of superfluous and wasted immaturity."(18)
"In a gap between two tunnels, a nurse was delicately probing with a long fine syringe into the gelatinous contents of a passing bottle. The students and their guides stood watching her for a few moments in silence.
“Well, Lenina,” said Mr. Foster, when at last she withdrew the syringe and straightened herself up.
The girl turned with a start. One could see that, for all the lupus and the purple eyes, she was uncommonly pretty.
“Henry!” Her smile flashed redly at him—a row of coral teeth."(21)
De direteur gaat met de groep naar de Infant nurseries / Neo-Pavlovian conditioning rooms.
"Books and loud noises, flowers and electric shocks— already in the infant mind these couples were compromisingly linked; and after two hundred repetitions of the same or a similar lesson would be wedded indissolubly. What man has joined, nature is powerless to put asunder.
“They’ll grow up with what the psychologists used to call an ‘instinctive’ hatred of books and flowers. Reflexes unalterably conditioned. They’ll be safe from books and botany all their lives.”"(26)
"It was decided to abolish the love of nature, at any rate among the lower classes; to abolish the love of nature, but not the tendency to consume transport. For of course it was essential that they should keep on going to the country, even though they hated it. The problem was to find an economically sounder reason for consuming transport than a mere affection for primroses and landscapes. It was duly found."(28)
In het verhaal dat volgt worden wat feiten gegeven zoals dat talen als Pools, Duits en Frans nu dode talen zijn, en dat de normale levendbarende voortplanting totaal vervangen is door dit systeem.
"(“For you must remember that in those days of gross viviparous reproduction, children were always brought up by their parents and not in State Conditioning Centres.”)"(30)
Daarna gaat het over de ontdekking van hypnopedia: het leren tijdens de slaap, morele opvoeding. Een voorbeeld:
"“Alpha children wear grey. They work much harder than we do, because they’re so frightfully clever. I’m really awfully glad I’m a Beta, because I don’t work so hard. And then we are much better than the Gammas and Deltas. Gammas are stupid. They all wear green, and Delta children wear khaki. Oh no, I don’t want to play with Delta children. And Epsilons are still worse. They’re too stupid to be able …”"(34)
"Outside, in the garden, it was playtime. Naked in the warm June sunshine, six or seven hundred little boys and girls were running with shrill yells over the lawns, or playing ball games, or squatting silently in twos and threes among the flowering shrubs." [mijn nadruk] (36)
"In a little grassy bay between tall clumps of Mediterranean heather, two children, a little boy of about seven and a little girl who might have been a year older, were playing, very gravely and with all the focussed attention of scientists intent on a labour of discovery, a rudimentary sexual game.In a little grassy bay between tall clumps of Mediterranean heather, two children, a little boy of about seven and a little girl who might have been a year older, were playing, very gravely and with all the focussed attention of scientists intent on a labour of discovery, a rudimentary sexual game."(36)
Geschiedenis wordt uitgedrukt als zoveel jaar "before the time of Our Ford", de jaartelling gaat dus in Before Ford (B.F.) en After Ford (A.F.) en de T (denk aan de T-Ford) is een soort van kruisteken. Dit is ongeveer het jaar 632 A.F.
"“Exquisite little creature!” said the Director, looking after her. Then, turning to his students, “What I’m going to tell you now,” he said, “may sound incredible. But then, when you’re not accustomed to history, most facts about the past do sound incredible.”
He let out the amazing truth. For a very long period before the time of Our Ford, and even for some generations afterwards, erotic play between children had been regarded as abnormal (there was a roar of laughter); and not only abnormal, actually immoral (no!): and had therefore been rigorously suppressed.
A look of astonished incredulity appeared on the faces of his listeners. Poor little kids not allowed to amuse themselves? They could not believe it.
“Even adolescents,” the D.H.C. was saying, “even adolescents like yourselves …”(...)
“In most cases, till they were over twenty years old.”" [mijn nadruk] (38)
Ze komen de Controleur tegen:
"at the sight of the stranger, he sprang to his feet and darted forward, his hand outstretched, smiling with all his teeth, effusive.
“Controller! What an unexpected pleasure! Boys, what are you thinking of? This is the Controller; this is his ford-ship, Mustapha Mond.”"(39)
"His fordship Mustapha Mond! The eyes of the saluting students almost popped out of their heads. Mustapha Mond! The Resident Controller for Western Europe! One of the Ten World Controllers. One of the Ten … and he sat down on the bench with the D.H.C., he was going to stay, to stay, yes, and actually talk to them … straight from the horse’s mouth. Straight from the mouth of Ford himself."(40)
"“You all remember,” said the Controller, in his strong deep voice, “you all remember, I suppose, that beautiful and inspired saying of Our Ford’s: History is bunk. History,” he repeated slowly, “is bunk.”"(41)
De controller vertlet ook al over hoe het vroeger was, met vaders en moeders, een thuis, en zo meer.
"Home, home—a few small rooms, stiflingly over-inhabited by a man, by a periodically teeming woman, by a rabble of boys and girls of all ages. No air, no space; an understerilized prison; darkness, disease, and smells."(43)
"Family, monogamy, romance. Everywhere exclusiveness, a narrow channelling of impulse and energy.
“But every one belongs to every one else,” he concluded, citing the hypnopædic proverb."(47)
Nog steeds de Controleur over de wereld en de mensen:
"Wheels must turn steadily, but cannot turn untended. There must be men to tend them, men as steady as the wheels upon their axles, sane men, obedient men, stable in contentment."(50)
"“Sleep teaching was actually prohibited in England. There was something called liberalism. Parliament, if you know what that was, passed a law against it. The records survive. Speeches about liberty of the subject. Liberty to be inefficient and miserable. Freedom to be a round peg in a square hole.”" [mijn nadruk] (55)
"“Or the Caste System. Constantly proposed, constantly rejected. There was something called democracy. As though men were more than physico-chemically equal.”"(55)
"“We have the World State now. And Ford’s Day celebrations, and Community Sings, and Solidarity Services.”"(60)
"“Work, play—at sixty our powers and tastes are what they were at seventeen. Old men in the bad old days used to renounce, retire, take to religion, spend their time reading, thinking—thinking!”"(63)
Tussendoor gebeuren er ook dingen. Bernard Marx van het Psychologie Bureau wordt in de lift vermeden door Henry Foster. Lenina Crowne gaat naar de GIRLS’ DRESSING-ROOM en kletst met Fanny.
"Fanny worked in the Bottling Room, and her surname was also Crowne. But as the two thousand million inhabitants of the planet had only ten thousand names between them, the coincidence was not particularly surprising."(43)
Het gaat over uitgaan. Fanny is verbaasd dat Lenina nog steeds uitgaat met Henry Foster.
"“But after all,” Lenina was protesting, “it’s only about four months now since I’ve been having Henry.”
“Only four months! I like that. And what’s more,” Fanny went on, pointing an accusing finger, “there’s been nobody else except Henry all that time. Has there?”
Lenina blushed scarlet; but her eyes, the tone of her voice remained defiant. “No, there hasn’t been any one else,” she answered almost truculently. “And I jolly well don’t see why there should have been.”
“Oh, she jolly well doesn’t see why there should have been,” Fanny repeated, as though to an invisible listener behind Lenina’s left shoulder. Then, with a sudden change of tone, “But seriously,” she said, “I really do think you ought to be careful. It’s such horribly bad form to go on and on like this with one man. At forty, or thirty-five, it wouldn’t be so bad. But at your age, Lenina! No, it really won’t do. And you know how strongly the D.H.C. objects to anything intense or long-drawn. Four months of Henry Foster, without having another man—why, he’d be furious if he knew …”"(47-48)
"“Of course there’s no need to give him up. Have somebody else from time to time, that’s all. He has other girls, doesn’t he?”
Lenina admitted it.
“Of course he does. Trust Henry Foster to be the perfect gentleman—always correct. And then there’s the Director to think of. You know what a stickler …”"(49)
Lenina zegt dat ze wel geïnteresseerd is in Bernard Marx.
"Fanny looked startled. “You don’t mean to say … ?”
“Why not? Bernard’s an Alpha Plus. Besides, he asked me to go to one of the Savage Reservations with him. I’ve always wanted to see a Savage Reservation.”(...)
“And then he spends most of his time by himself—alone” There was horror in Fanny’s voice.
“Well, he won’t be alone when he’s with me. And anyhow, why are people so beastly to him? I think he’s rather sweet.”"(52)
In een aparte lijn ergert Bernard Marx zich aan hoe Henri Foster tegenover anderen praat over Lenina in termen van "heb jij haar al gehad?".
"The lift was crowded with men from the Alpha Changing Rooms, and Lenina’s entry was greeted by many friendly nods and smiles. She was a popular girl and, at one time or another, had spent a night with almost all of them."(63)
Over Bernard Marx die fysiek wat minder is en Helmholtz Watson die fysiek juist meer dan perfect is, maar ergens mee zit.
Henry en Lenina zijn uit geweest en vliegen met hun helicopter terug naar Londen. Ze hebben het over de verschillende klassen. In Londen gaan ze naar Westminster Abbey Cabaret waar ze dansen. Bernard gaat meedoen met een Solidarity Service, een soort van spirituele dienst om Ford in extase te aanbidden. Alleen voelt Bernard niet echt die extase, hij doet alsof.
"“Yes, I thought it was wonderful,” he lied and looked away; the sight of her transfigured face was at once an accusation and an ironical reminder of his own separateness. He was as miserably isolated now as he had been when the service began—more isolated by reason of his unreplenished emptiness, his dead satiety. Separate and unatoned, while the others were being fused into the Greater Being; alone even in Morgana’s embrace—much more alone, indeed, more hopelessly himself than he had ever been in his life before."(99)
Lenina zit te peizen over haar komende reis naar het Wilden Reservaat in New Mexico met de excentrieke Bernard Marx. Hun eerdere uitjes waren niet zo'n succes geweest.
"Pretty harmless, perhaps; but also pretty disquieting. That mania, to start with, for doing things in private. Which meant, in practice, not doing anything at all. For what was there that one could do in private.() Walking and talking—that seemed a very odd way of spending an afternoon."(101-102)
"But Lenina was crying. “It’s horrible, it’s horrible,” she kept repeating. “And how can you talk like that about not wanting to be a part of the social body? After all, every one works for every one else. We can’t do without any one. Even Epsilons …”"(104)
"“Don’t you wish you were free, Lenina?”
“I don’t know what you mean. I am free. Free to have the most wonderful time. Everybody’s happy nowadays.”
He laughed, “Yes, ‘Everybody’s happy nowadays.’ We begin giving the children that at five. But wouldn’t you like to be free to be happy in some other way, Lenina? In your own way, for example; not in everybody else’s way.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she repeated."(105)
Bernard krijgt op zijn kop van de Directeur. Hij vind het best.
Dan dus de reis naar New Mexico. Bij de beheerder moeten ze het hele verhaal aanhoren over het Reservaat van zo'n 60.000 indianen en halfbloedjes, waar het huwelijk nog iets betekent en kinderen nog gewoon geboren worden.
Lenina vindt het allemaal maar niks, wat ze ziet. Zelfs het zien van een oude man die voorzichtig een ladder afdaalt schokt haar.
"“Old?” she repeated. “But the Director’s old; lots of people are old; they’re not like that.”
“That’s because we don’t allow them to be like that. We preserve them from diseases. We keep their internal secretions artificially balanced at a youthful equilibrium. We don’t permit their magnesium-calcium ratio to fall below what it was at thirty. We give them transfusion of young blood. We keep their metabolism permanently stimulated. So, of course, they don’t look like that. Partly,” he added, “because most of them die long before they reach this old creature’s age. Youth almost unimpaired till sixty, and then, crack! the end.”"(129)
Ook het ritueel daarna schokt haar. Maar dan komt een jongen John in hun ruimte. Dat blijkt de zoon te zijn van een vrouw en een man van De Andere Kant die ook ooit hier kwamen. De vrouw kreeg een 'ongelukje', was zwanger van hem geworden, en hij liet haar hier achter. De vrouw heet Linda.
"As for the man who was his father, Linda had never seen him again. His name was Tomakin. (Yes, “Thomas” was the D.H.C.’s first name.) He must have flown away, back to the Other Place, away without her—a bad, unkind, unnatural man."(139)
Ze bezoeken Linda in een vervallen huisje aan de rand van het dorp. Lenina walgt van alles wat ze daar ziet en vooral ook van de vrouw en haar verhalen.
Intussen praten John en Bernard buiten met elkaar. John vertelt hem alles wat hij zich van vroeger herinnert. Ze werden alle twee gediscrimineerd en lastig gevallen. Hij omndat hij anders was, zij omdat ze het met de mannen van andere vrouwen deed, voor haar normaal, maar niet voor de vrouwen hier die in monogamie leefden.
"The happiest times were when she told him about the Other Place. “And you really can go flying, whenever you like?”
“Whenever you like.” And she would tell him about the lovely music that came out of a box, and all the nice games you could play, and the delicious things to eat and drink, and the light that came when you pressed a little thing in the wall, and the pictures that you could hear and feel and smell, as well as see, and another box for making nice smells, and the pink and green and blue and silver houses as high as mountains, and everybody happy and no one ever sad or angry, and every one belonging to every one else, and the boxes where you could see and hear what was happening at the other side of the world, and babies in lovely clean bottles—everything so clean, and no nasty smells, no dirt at all—and people never lonely, but living together and being so jolly and happy, like the summer dances here in Malpais, but much happier, and the happiness being there every day, every day.…"(151-152)
"“I wonder if you’d like to come back to London with us?” he asked, making the first move in a campaign whose strategy he had been secretly elaborating ever since, in the little house, he had realized who the “father” of this young savage must be. “Would you like that?”" [mijn nadruk] (166)
Bernard gaat een plan uitvoeren zodat hij Linda en John kan meenemen naar Londen. terwijl Lenina weggevlucht is in een soma-roes. John is verliefd op Lenina en sluipt binnen als Bernard weg is. Hij bekijkt haar terwijl ze ligt te slapen, maar durft niets te doen.
Het is na de vakantie. De Directeur heeft afgesproken met Bernard Marx en Henri Foster.De directeur zet zijn beschuldigingen aan het adres van Bernard door en wil hem voor straf naar Ijsland sturen, iets waarop Bernard bepaald niet zit te wachten. En dit is zijn wraak: hij brengt Linda binnen met wie de Directeur dus John verwekte en die haar aan haar lot overliet.
"“But I’m Linda, I’m Linda.” The laughter drowned her voice. “You made me have a baby,” she screamed above the uproar. There was a sudden and appalling hush; eyes floated uncomfortably, not knowing where to look. The Director went suddenly pale, stopped struggling and stood, his hands on her wrists, staring down at her, horrified. “Yes, a baby—and I was its mother.” She flung the obscenity like a challenge into the outraged silence; then, suddenly breaking away from him, ashamed, ashamed, covered her face with her hands, sobbing. “It wasn’t my fault, Tomakin. Because I always did my drill, didn’t I? Didn’t I? Always … I don’t know how … If you knew how awful, Tomakin … But he was a comfort to me, all the same.” Turning towards the door, “John!” she called. “John!”
He came in at once, paused for a moment just inside the door, looked round, then soft on his moccasined feet strode quickly across the room, fell on his knees in front of the Director, and said in a clear voice: “My father!”"(180)
"Pale, wild-eyed, the Director glared about him in an agony of bewildered humiliation.
My father! The laughter, which had shown signs of dying away, broke out again more loudly than ever. He put his hands over his ears and rushed out of the room."(181)
"After the scene in the Fertilizing Room, all uppercaste London was wild to see this delicious creature who had fallen on his knees before the Director of Hatcheries and Conditioning—or rather the ex-Director, for the poor man had resigned immediately afterwards and never set foot inside the Centre again...(181)"
Niemand wil Linda zien, en die vlucht in een soma-verslaving waaraan ze binnen een paar maanden zal overlijden.
"It was John, then, they were all after. And as it was only through Bernard, his accredited guardian, that John could be seen, Bernard now found himself, for the first time in his life, treated not merely normally, but as a person of outstanding importance."(185)
Bernard slaat door in zijn succes en schept graag op, waarbij hij zelfs respectloos probeert Mustapha Mond de les te lezen. Vrouwen willen nu van alles met hem.
Ook Lenina is nu bekend geworden door haar ervaringen in het Wildenreservaat en als kenis van Bernard en zeker van John. Maar ze heeft nog geen seks gehad met John die wat verlegen op afstand blijft, terwijl zij hem steeds leuker vindt.
Op een groot feest ter ere van hem, wil John helemaal niet verschijnen. Bernard gaat daarmee nogal af.
"Pierced by every word that was spoken, the tight balloon of Bernard’s happy self-confidence was leaking from a thousand wounds. Pale, distraught, abject and agitated, he moved among his guests stammering incoherent apologies, assuring them that next time the Savage would certainly be there,"(209)
"Bernard was back among the miseries of space and time. It was in the lowest spirits that he taxied across to his work at the Conditioning Centre. The intoxication of success had evaporated; he was soberly his old self; and by contrast with the temporary balloon of these last weeks, the old self seemed unprecedentedly heavier than the surrounding atmosphere."(214)
"Bernard continued perversely to nourish, along with his quite genuine affection, a secret grievance against the Savage, to meditate a campaign of small revenges to be wreaked upon him."(214)
"Helmholtz and the Savage took to one another at once. So cordially indeed that Bernard felt a sharp pang of jealousy. In all these weeks he had never come to so close an intimacy with the Savage as Helmholtz immediately achieved."(218)
Lenina baalt van de situatie met John. Ze wil hem, maar hij vindt zichzelf nog steeds niet waardig voor haar en bovendien vindt hij dat ze moeten trouwen voordat ze seks hebben. Als ze hem probeert te verleiden wordt hij woedende en zegt dat ze een hoer is. Lenina snapt er niets van.
John is bij het overlijden van zijn moeder Linda.
"Linda had been a slave, Linda had died; others should live in freedom, and the world be made beautiful. A reparation, a duty. And suddenly it was luminously clear to the Savage what he must do; it was as though a shutter had been opened, a curtain drawn back."(251)
John gaat het uitdelen van soma verhinderen. Hij roept tegen iedereen dat hij vrijheid komt brengen en gooit het soma uit het raam. Bernard, Helmholtz schieten te hulp.
"Suddenly, from out of the Synthetic Music Box a Voice began to speak. The Voice of Reason, the Voice of Good Feeling. The sound-track roll was unwinding itself in Synthetic Anti-Riot Speech Number Two (Medium Strength)."(257)
[Huxley schrijft soms met veel humor. ]
De drie worden naar de ruimtes van Controleur Mustapha Mond gebracht. In het gesprek komt o.a. ter sprake dat kunst en wetenschap de stabiliteit in gevaar kunnen brengen. Hun straf voor hun protest en opstandigheid zal zijn dat ze naar een eiland moeten waar uitsluitend mensen zoals zij rondlopen.
"Because our world is not the same as Othello’s world. You can’t make flivvers without steel—and you can’t make tragedies without social instability. The world’s stable now. People are happy; they get what they want, and they never want what they can’t get. They’re well off; they’re safe; they’re never ill; they’re not afraid of death; they’re blissfully ignorant of passion and old age; they’re plagued with no mothers or fathers; they’ve got no wives, or children, or lovers to feel strongly about; they’re so conditioned that they practically can’t help behaving as they ought to behave. And if anything should go wrong, there’s soma. Which you go and chuck out of the window in the name of liberty, Mr. Savage. Liberty!” He laughed. “Expecting Deltas to know what liberty is! And now expecting them to understand Othello! My good boy!”"(263)
"Mustapha Mond smiled. “Well, you can call it an experiment in rebottling if you like. It began in A.F. 473. The Controllers had the island of Cyprus cleared of all its existing inhabitants and re-colonized with a specially prepared batch of twenty-two thousand Alphas. All agricultural and industrial equipment was handed over to them and they were left to manage their own affairs. The result exactly fulfilled all the theoretical predictions. The land wasn’t properly worked; there were strikes in all the factories; the laws were set at naught, orders disobeyed; all the people detailed for a spell of low-grade work were perpetually intriguing for high-grade jobs, and all the people with high-grade jobs were counter-intriguing at all costs to stay where they were. Within six years they were having a first-class civil war. When nineteen out of the twenty-two thousand had been killed, the survivors unanimously petitioned the World Controllers to resume the government of the island. Which they did. And that was the end of the only society of Alphas that the world has ever seen.”"(268)
"“One would think he was going to have his throat cut,” said the Controller, as the door closed. “Whereas, if he had the smallest sense, he’d understand that his punishment is really a reward. He’s being sent to an island. That’s to say, he’s being sent to a place where he’ll meet the most interesting set of men and women to be found anywhere in the world. All the people who, for one reason or another, have got too self-consciously individual to fit into community-life. All the people who aren’t satisfied with orthodoxy, who’ve got independent ideas of their own. Every one, in a word, who’s any one. I almost envy you, Mr. Watson.”
Helmholtz laughed. “Then why aren’t you on an island yourself?”
“Because, finally, I preferred this,” the Controller answered. “I was given the choice; to be sent to an island, where I could have got on with my pure science, or to be taken on to the Controllers’ Council with the prospect of succeeding in due course to an actual Controllership. I chose this and let the science go.”"(273)
Met John praat de Controleur nog even verder. Er is nog een kracht die de stabiliteit in gevaar kan brengen: religie. De Controleur haalt de Bijbel samen met wat andere religieuze boeken uit de brandkast.
"“Call it the fault of civilization. God isn’t compatible with machinery and scientific medicine and universal happiness. You must make your choice. Our civilization has chosen machinery and medicine and happiness. That’s why I have to keep these books locked up in the safe. They’re smut. People would be shocked if …”"(281)
"The Savage nodded, frowning. “You got rid of them. Yes, that’s just like you. Getting rid of everything unpleasant instead of learning to put up with it. Whether ’tis better in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them … But you don’t do either. Neither suffer nor oppose. You just abolish the slings and arrows. It’s too easy.”"(287)
"“But I don’t want comfort. I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin.”
“In fact,” said Mustapha Mond, “you’re claiming the right to be unhappy.”
“All right then,” said the Savage defiantly, “I’m claiming the right to be unhappy.”
“Not to mention the right to grow old and ugly and impotent; the right to have syphilis and cancer; the right to have too little to eat; the right to be lousy; the right to live in constant apprehension of what may happen tomorrow; the right to catch typhoid; the right to be tortured by unspeakable pains of every kind.” There was a long silence.
“I claim them all,” said the Savage at last."(289)
John kiest voor alleen-zijn en een kluizenaarsbestaan en krijgt zijn zin.
"The Savage had chosen as his hermitage the old lighthouse which stood on the crest of the hill between Puttenham and Elstead."(293)
"Guiltily he blushed. After all, it was not to sing and enjoy himself that he had come here. It was to escape further contamination by the filth of civilized life; it was to be purified and made good; it was actively to make amends."(297)
Maar reporters weten hem te vinden. Hij jaagt ze weg. Maar iemand maakt stiekem een film van zijn zelfbestraffingen. Die gaat viraal.
"The effect of Darwin Bonaparte’s film was immediate and enormous. On the afternoon which followed the evening of its release John’s rustic solitude was suddenly broken by the arrival overhead of a great swarm of helicopters."(306)
Uiteindelijk hangt John zichzelf op.