I read this a long time ago, perhaps 30 years, and the story may have been older than that, in Danish. I remember some fragments that are really quite bizarre, but the main gist was that the general population lived in a sort of kindergarten, where everything was kept non-scary. Some points I remember:
- Everybody was known by their first name only.
- When people got too old, they were given a party and euthanised. This was called something euphemistic, like 'retiring' or 'being let go' or similar.
- Once, an air-plane passed over the community and made a loud noise - and it was later announced that the pilot had been 'let go' as a consequence.
There is of course a young, male hero, who runs away, but this is where I think I may be mixing up two stories, because I seem to remember there was something about all the worries and trauma of reality being kept away from most people, but then channeled into a few individuals, somehow.