The first profiles provide the setup: One icy December night regarding the northern Dutch city of Groningen, forty-year-dated household members man Kees Popinga strolls down to the fresh new pier to help you check up on a shipping birth the guy scheduled himself inside the capability while the head clerk out-of an esteemed delivery organization. Nonplussed, Kees treks by the the neighborhood bar only to see through the screen, to their amazement, his employer, Julius de- Coster, sipping during the a dining table.

Julius waves to own him ahead when you look at the, and you may, anywhere between swigs out of brandy, breezily says to Kees inside too many conditions he, Mr. Pop-in-ga, are Popinga the fresh new Poopstick, perfect stooge, a beneficial ninny thus blind the guy decided not to see how the guy, Julius de Coster, could have been embezzling, taking and you can cheating for years, let-alone that have extraela, a nice-looking younger lady everybody in the organization, along with Kees Popinga, imagined hitting the hay with.

Also, Julius continues on, because the he produced a bad money from inside the glucose, the business became bankrupt and not only commonly Popinga cure their employment also their lives coupons, therefore his family as well as almost every other private attributes. Decreasing his voice, Julius plus informs Mr.

Bad Mr. Popinga! Nothing can beat getting your really-purchased, comfortable Dutch bourgeois industry already been crashing off from inside the a stack out-of rubble. And how, we possibly may ask, does our very own staid, traditional distribution clerk answer so it disaster? Next day, the guy produces 1st significant choice: to keep underneath the talks about between the sheets.

Exactly what! Perhaps not check out the office, Kees? Mrs. Popinga was shocked, as you would expect. Oh, yes, “” new world “”, this new guy. I realize: “The main element are he thought entirely at ease. Sure – this is why he need acted all the together.”

Thus, for the first time within his mature existence Kees Popinga features a style away from comfort and you will pleasure, your state without anxiety and constant alarming, just what he knows because “the actual your” – and also for justification: of numerous the religious and you may philosophical tradition maintaining for example a variety of serenity and pleasure is, in fact, our birthright, the correct nature. Since existential psychologist R.D. Laing seen: “Our ‘normal’ ‘adjusted’ county is too often the abdication regarding ecstasy, the newest betrayal of our genuine potentialities.”

And in addition we read: “Kees had constantly dreamed of being one thing besides Kees Popinga. One said as to the reasons he was very totally the way he was – thus totally Kees Popinga – and just why the guy actually overdid it. As the the guy understood that in case the guy provided also an inches, little perform stop your once again.”

Put another way, it is all or little.- as the slim layer away from tight term is even slightly cracked, the entire edifice reduces. It’s because if, inside the very own clerkish way, Kees Popinga grasps R.D. Laing’s belief: “The condition of alienation, of being sleep, to be involuntary, to be out of a person’s brain, ‘s the standing of regular man. Area extremely thinking its normal man.”

Pop-in-ga that this ‘s the really evening he, this new really-respected Julius de Coster, is faking his personal committing suicide and you can fleeing the nation

Kees Popinga finally rouses himself off bed, shaves, showers, clothing and you will, as opposed clique aqui agora to informing his wife away from their preparations, renders their family and you can family relations forever, that have resolved so you’re able to as well as say goodbye to his identity since the an effective “normal man.”

This is the genuine him

What follows when he travels so you’re able to Amsterdam getting sex which have Pamela (Julius de Coster bragged about the guy put this new luscious Pamela up inside the an especially posh hotel) immediately after which to Paris was a really unusual number of situations, a narrative Luc Sante in his Inclusion to this Ny Comment Courses (NYRB) model phone calls each other galling and you may comic.