Freezing Point (Bodelsen novel)

Freezing Point
AuthorAnders Bodelsen
Original titleFrysepunktet
TranslatorJoan Tate
LanguageDanish
PublisherGyldendal
Publication date1969
Publication placeDenmark
Published in English
1971
Pages167

Freezing Point (Danish: Frysepunktet), published as Freezing Down in the United States,[1] is a 1969 novel by the Danish writer Anders Bodelsen.[2][3]

Plot

In 1973, Bruno is a 32-year-old editor at a weekly magazine. His job involves coming up with story ideas for fiction writers the magazine publishes, but his own literary ambitions have failed and he thinks he has little to live for. He becomes infatuated with a gloomy ballet dancer. When he finds out he is seriously ill with cancer, he accepts an offer to cryopreserve his body until he can be cured.

He wakes up in a dystopian 1995 where magazines do not exist anymore and there is little interest in literature. Instead, life extension and organ trade are major parts of culture. Society has become divided between those who opt for "all-life", which means near-immortality, and those who choose "now-life", where they can live an affluent life as mortals by mortgaging their vital organs. The stability of this society is under constant threat from imbalance of supply and demand. Its regime has become repressive, engaging in mass surveillance and control of language.

Reception

In 1971, The New York Times wrote that Bodelsen "speculates on the metaphysics of geriatry with wit and imagination".[1]

Upon republication in 2025, Nina Allan of The Guardian called Freezing Point an "uncannily prescient" and "subtly experimental" novel about subjects such as fiction writing, capitalism, the attitude to ageing, and the difference between life and eternity. She wrote that its "strain of dark humour" makes it "enjoyably entertaining in spite of the grim reality being portrayed".[4]

References

  1. 1 2 "Freezing Down". The New York Times. 28 February 1971. Retrieved 25 April 2026.
  2. ↑ Clee, Nicholas. "Skating on thin ice". The Times Literary Supplement. Retrieved 25 April 2026.
  3. ↑ "Freezing Point by Anders Bodelsen". Publishers Weekly. 11 December 2025. Retrieved 25 April 2026.
  4. ↑ Allan, Nina (18 December 2025). "Freezing Point by Anders Bodelsen review – a prescient classic of cryogenics". The Guardian. Retrieved 25 April 2026.
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