The green cloud

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The green cloud (orig. The Last Man Alive ) is a 1938 children's book by the Scottish writer and educator Alexander Sutherland Neill .

The German edition was translated by Harry Rowohlt and was published by Rowohlt Verlag in 1971 with illustrations by FK Waechter . In the same year, the book was awarded the newly founded Buxtehuder Bulle youth book award.

action

The 99-time millionaire Pyecraft visits Summerhill boarding school with his airship . He invites the teacher AS Neill and the children Betty, Bunny, Robert, Gordon, Evelyn, Jean, David and Michael to an aviation. During the flight a mysterious green cloud appears below them, which soon disappears again.

Pyecraft, Neill and the children land back on earth and discover that all people on earth have turned to stone. You decide, as the last people on earth, to build a new order of your own and to fly around the earth in an airship to look around. But soon there are problems in the form of feral dogs, escaped zoo animals and bloodthirsty gangsters who have survived on a mountain peak in the Andes.

Gradually all survivors die, either through violent crimes or random occurrences, until at the end the teacher Neill is the last person left on earth.

Narrative technique

The plot of the novel is built into a framework in which Neill tells the story to his students. At the end of each chapter, the students (who all appear by name in the story) express criticism of the story. In keeping with the anti-authoritarian upbringing of the Summerhill School, Neill partially implements the children's criticism, wishes and suggestions as the story progresses.

The unusual and sometimes very explicit depictions of violence for a children's book, especially from the thirties . For example, they stem largely from the students' desire to hear such accounts.

filming

The book was in 2001 by German director Claus Strigel filmed . However, the film of the same name differs in large parts from the original. B. Changed the names of the characters and relocated the plot to 21st century Germany.

literature

  • Alexander S. Neill: The green cloud. Told the kids about Summerhill . New edition Rowohlt, Reinbek 1994, ISBN 3-498-04611-X .
  • Alexander S. Neill: The last man alive. A story for children from the age of seven to seventy . Gollancz, London 1970, ISBN 0-575-00514-9 .
  • Alexander S. Neill: The Green Cloud. An audio book . Eichborn Verlag, Frankfurt / M. 2005, ISBN 3-0369-1163-4 (4 CDs, read by Harry Rowohlt ).