The Following Story

Nooteboom suggested that the novel "covers the last two seconds of Mussert’s life, one second of memory, and one second of the passing from life into death." With its invocation of Socrates and the eternal return, the book points toward the idea that after death something survives to be born into life again. What do we die for? To become something else or to help other living things continue to live?

"That is the difference between gods and men. Gods can change themselves; humans can only be changed."The idea of metamorphosis in this novel is again a rampant theme. Humans have no control over themselves, over time, over the actions of the world. We are all just living another persons idea of a life another person's story until we die. But even in death we are not free to change but again only be changed. Like the beetle changed the rat we are changed by the factors that continue to live.

"Whosoever attempts to interfere with time, wheresoever that may be, whosoever seeks to stretch it, retard it, channel it, stem its flow, divert it, should know that my law is absolute, that my magisterial hands indicate the ephemeral, nonexistent now, as they always do. They stand aloof from corrupting division, from the mercenary now of the scholar; mine is the only true now, the durable now encompassing sixty counted seconds." -Although humans cannot control time, time can show up in many different forms. If the novel ends where it begins, then has any time passed at all? Time is so apparent in this book it is obvious Nooteboom is extremely perplexed by it. Clocks are described in detail, when the beetles actions have been fast forward Nooteboom says he realizes this is not possible, or is it? I believe Nooteboom is trying to conclude that time is what frees our bodies and minds and allows for the dead to continue on.

"Then an article about the budget deficit, which I have myself, and a piece about corruption in the Third World, but I had already read all about that in Tacitus..." Nooteboom again suggests the myth of the eternal return. Everything that happens has happened before and will continue to happen again.