A resurrected Danish science fiction novel from 1969 is proving to be startlingly prescient in its exploration of cryogenics, medical ethics, and the dystopian consequences of chasing eternal life. Anders Bodelsen's 'Freezing Point', recently reissued by Faber, follows a man who chooses to be frozen to cure his cancer, only to awaken into a deeply flawed future.
A Choice Between Now and Forever
The novel's protagonist, Bruno, is a magazine fiction editor in 1973. After a fateful meeting with a ballet dancer named Jenny, he is diagnosed with cancer. His doctor, Josef Ackerman, presents him with a radical choice: undergo conventional, gruelling radiotherapy or become a pioneer in an experimental programme where patients are 'frozen down' into suspended animation until a cure is found.
Bruno, unsurprisingly for the narrative, chooses the latter. He is revived 22 years later in 1995, biologically still 33 but chronologically middle-aged. His cancer is cured, but the society he awakens to is a chilling Orwellian dystopia, not a utopia.
A Dystopia Forged by Immortality
In this future, the technology of 'all-life' – the term for the near-immortality achieved through cryogenics – has become the world's most pressing political flashpoint. The treatment is not free; it must be worked and paid for, creating a stark class divide. Those who choose 'now-life' and accept natural death are forced into mortgaging their vital organs to maintain the lavish lifestyles offered as a reward for not taking the treatment.
Mass surveillance is universal, and the regime grows increasingly repressive. In a direct echo of Orwell's Newspeak, the old language is gradually outlawed, rendering previous modes of thought and dissent literally unthinkable. Doctors and the tech corporations they work for wield ultimate power, and Ackerman himself becomes a victim of the system he helped create.
More Than a Simple Dystopia
While the dystopian framework may seem familiar, Bodelsen's novel, part of the Danish new wave, uses its sci-fi premise to probe urgent questions about capitalism, ageing, and the fundamental difference between life and eternity. It is leavened by a strain of dark humour and genuine pathos, particularly in Bruno's reflections on what he has lost.
The novel maintains a clever meta-commentary on the art of fiction itself, with recurring symbols – like skating on thin ice and the ballet Coppélia – adding to a powerful sense of dreamlike déjà vu. Its resurrection decades into its own future adds a poignant layer, making its 1970s setting seem both alien and refreshingly simple compared to the claustrophobic, pressurised reality Bruno encounters, which feels unnervingly close to our own.
Freezing Point by Anders Bodelsen, translated by Joan Tate, is published by Faber (£9.99). It stands as a thought-provoking, inventive, and beautifully written novel of ideas that thoroughly deserves its second chance at life.
