Tag: j.g. ballard

Review: The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard

E.F. Sunland

20 Books of Summer: Book 5

J.G. Ballard’s High-Rise and Concrete Island are both creepily brilliant, but The Drowned World doesn’t meet their high bar. The writing is spectacular, but the characters are too flat for my taste. They’re buried under so much allegory that they lack surface-level believability or function. In the past, I’ve admired that Ballard writes stories that work on multiple levels, but The Drowned World is primarily a riff on Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness. read more

Review: Concrete Island by J.G. Ballard

E.F. Sunland

There’s a narcissistic part of my brain that mulls the AMA questions I’ll answer when I’m an established writer. Which authors have most inspired/influenced you? Bradbury, Poe, Crichton—and now, J.G. Ballard. I only read High-Rise because of Tom Hiddleston, but Ballard’s bizarre story obliterated that gorgeous man’s face/voice/everything from my brain by the story’s close (which is a testament to its strength). What captivated me about High-Rise is how concept-driven it is—how it becomes more intense as it swerves into implausibility. It’s hard for me to get behind books that eschew sensible plot/characters for the sake of a message, but I love Ballard’s voice and unpredictability. He sells ideas that shouldn’t work and brings them to life. Don’t we all hope to write this way? read more

Review: High-Rise by J.G. Ballard

E.F. Sunland

I’m posting out of order. I have in-progress reviews, but I’m coming off a book high and I’d rather blog about J.G. Ballard’s High-Rise. It’s a trippy, bizarre, downhill slide of a book with spurts of absurdist humor. I’m partial to weird books that are well-written and Ballard spins a tight tale about a high-rise populated with affluent professionals whose class struggle grows increasingly animalistic. The narrative rotates to follow three main characters: Richard Wilder, an occupant of the 2nd floor and member of the high-rise’s “lower” class; Dr. Robert Laing, a 25th floor occupant; and Anthony Royal, the architect on the top (40th) floor. As the building degrades, sharp lines of blacked-out floors divide the classes and Wilder leads raids to the upper floors. Laing and Royal begin their own expeditions and carve out niches for their own desires. read more