Significado del título de la obra, fuente Wikipedia:
El ha-ha o salto de lobo es utilizado en el paisaje y el paisajista para crear una barrera vertical a la vez que se ofrece una vista ininterrumpida del paisaje,
pudiendo así reemplazar a las cercas visibles y evitar que el ganado invade las zonas ajardinadas. Otro uso, posterior,
fue en el diseño de los manicomios,
para dar así la impresión de espacios abiertos y «... de la vista de la campiña, que es para los orates una agradable distracción
y recreo,
utilisimos para su tratamiento moral».
De como Josephine, la protagonista, enferma de esquizofrenia e internada en un hospital psiquiátrico, pierde su virginidad con Alasdair, otro interno no esquizofrénico, que a los pocos días abandonaría el manicomio y del que nunca sabría nada más, tan solo unas flores y una carta de despedida:
"He was close beside me, breathing heavily, with his hands on my wrists. I could feel his leg running down mine, and his face hovering over me. The draught from his nostrils tickled my face; his lips twitched like butterflies. 'You are so real,' he whispered. 'I'm afraid of the other ones, the people who posses the earth'
He stretched farther over and pushed his face closer until I could only see the whites of his eyes, and hear his breathing, heavy and close, and feel hot sheets of air pouring down my throat.
The feel of solid thins is very good; the feel of the hard sand by the river; the feel of the stone wall of the settlement, the feel of water when you are thirsty, the cold of a glass after a nightmare, and the sound of another voice that is no your own talking.
The water flowed noisily over the jutting-out wood; the fire fell to powder in its hearth, and we lay there."
Al final, Josephine, en un intento de salvar su existencia, que se encuentra secuestrada en el manicomio por las atroces técnicas que en los años 50 y 60 utilizaban, se escapa, y los lectores leemos estas líneas finales con la esperanza de que lo consiguiera realmente:
"If you could stay away for fourteen days, I remembered Alasdair had told me, they could not reclaim you, so I climbed over the pile of rubble that I have been my wall and had enclosed my world, said good-by to the hill, and ran and ran until I knew for certain that I had not after all been extinguished, and that my existence had been saved."
Me interesa la narración de la visión interior que Josephine tiene del mundo, donde los conceptos se mezclan, las líneas se desdibujan y todo se mezcla con imágenes fantásticas del mundo surrealista de la protagonista:
"Sometimes the operative's sleeve passed over, and I saw the broad threads of tweed running in and out, up and down, in a glow of flickering greens and blues and browns that had a fire as their source. Sometimes a silver fish swam singing into my arm and I was singing for joy too, and wondering why the others were not singing at the sight of all this things"
