The Drowned World

I loved this vignette of a novel that describes London almost totally submerged in water, with just a few buildings poking above the waves. The ice-caps have melted, the temperature is in the high 120Cs, and a handful of survivors of a new world order is at a testing station, keeping an eye on the giant iguanas and weather gauges. They're ordered out to head northwards - high command believes it's hopelessly hot - but a few decide to disobey orders and remain. They have been infected by heat sickness that seems to encourage them to reverse their evolutionary development and to revert to an earlier state of being in mankind... a dreamlike state short of 'rationality' as we know it. Mad bandits arrive, as do giant crocodiles. Treasures of the past are plundered - though even the 'pirates' aren't quite sure why they're doing it. The world has gone crazy and the feeling of wanting to retreat somewhere sane is prevalent - though when everything has gone upsidedown (quite literally) it's hard to know what makes sense and what doesn't. It's a book full of ideas and will no doubt survive the test of time, perhaps for the wrong reasons (as far as human kind and climate changing are concerned). The writing is sharp and witty; the main character, has taken a top floor suite at the Ritz and often ponders whether it is 'only the external landscape which is altering' as the 'luminous, dragon-green, serpent-haunted sea' laps at his window sills.

This book gave me nightmares. Which I wasn't expecting! Written in Ballard's usual matter-of-fact style, it makes the content all the more chilling (which is a bit ironic, given that it is set in a superheated, flooded London, set in the not very distant future. The descriptive passages are second to none, although the characters and dialogue are a bit dated; things I was more than happy to let go. Perhaps its always dangerous to read a book about global catastrophe in times like these, but it certainly adds to the effect. A compulsive read. Highly recommend.

The Drowned World JG Ballard Some of the most successful science fiction has gone back to the past in imagining the future. 2001 a Space Odyssey starts in the earliest days of human history before catapulting out to a space station in Earth orbit. Jurassic Park brings back dinosaurs. Then of course, there's Back to the Future. J.G Ballad's story The Drowned World is an archetypal story of the future that includes a vision of the past. The sun has become hotter, creating a flooded, tropical Earth. The climate has returned to a state that prevailed during the Triassic period. Human survivors of this watery apocalypse find themselves drifting back in dreams to an earlier incarnation of life on Earth. Life has a buried memory of all that has gone before, and those buried memories begin to emerge during sleep. This is a great premise for a story that can range from past to future. I would also say that the idea has biological accuracy. I once read a book by the evolutionary theorist and writer Lynn Margullis tracing the echoes of ancient life in our own cells. She points out, for example, that the salt balance of human tissue fluids mimics the salt balance of the ancient ocean from which life first emerged onto the land. (See Microcosmos by Lynn Margullis for more.) So this is a fascinating scenario for a book, which in many ways is poetically explored. There are a few downsides, however. The dialogue between the characters can be that of "British schoolteachers hoisted out of the 1930s", as Martin Amis puts it in an introduction. The middle part of the story, centred on an evil looter, also becomes very conventional - the rescue of a damsel in distress trapped in the bad guy's lair. The damsel herself is vapid and lifeless, trying to hang on to the superficial cosmetics of her former self, even as she sinks into her Triassic dreams. All of the characters, for that matter, are somewhat two-dimensional. Will Self makes an interesting suggestion on Ballard’s characters in an essay written for the reissue of The Drowned World in 2013. Self writes that Ballad is not creating characters in the normal sense, with backstories designed to make us identify with them and read on. Instead, these are archetypes of people responding to change. Some are vigorous in their resistance, wanting to hang onto what they know. Others are accepting, waiting to see what the new situation will bring. The damsel in distress is a combination of these reactions. In that sense The Drowned World is more of a myth or a fairy story than a novel, despite aspects of the novel that are straight out of the Ian Fleming style of writing. And perhaps even the “thriller” sections have more to them than meets the eye. Sections depicting people trying to hold on to their lost civilization are the same sections where hackneyed old plots emerge....

This is considered a groundbreaking SF novel of its time and the novel that shot JG Ballard to fame. The premise of a world drowning by the rising sea level appears very prescient, but actually here it is increased solar activity that is the culprit not man-made climate change. However, I didn't enjoy this book for a number of reasons. Firstly, I actually found the storyline quite dull and difficult to engage with. Ballard's writing contains very many florid and repetitive descriptions of plants and swamps, never missing an opportunity to throw in an adjective, simile or metaphor. This makes his writing style seem quite contrived. Some of the scenario just seemed too extreme, for example Strangman seems to be able to drain literally vast quantities of water in a matter of minutes and hold back the enormous pressures with wooden logs. Although Ballard was first, the plot seemed to parallel many of Brian Aldiss's novels where in the aftermath of a global catastrophe all sorts of weird characters room around eking out an existence, such as in Greybeard and others. The characters and attitudes seem very dated; a book that hasn't aged well. I was disappointed.

This book review is for the Drowned World by J.G. Ballard. The book I read is the one in the picture I provided. First thing I want to do is qualify this review. In all honesty, I didn't read the whole thing. After around the 5th or 6th chapter I started skimming sections. The descriptions were just too much for me. Tedium was setting in. I did read enough to get the gist of what was going on. I'll give it two stars only because the writer at least shows intelligence in his writing style. The problem is he chooses style over substance. I'm going to keep story details brief and not discuss the plot much... I did not like this story at all. I like post-apocalyptic stories. I don't like post apocalyptic stories that are very negative. I also don't like post-apocalyptic (or any story for that matter) in which characters don't behave in a logical or realistic way relative to the fictional world they are in. The author uses just too much detail. Yes, it enriches the world but you reach a point where boredom sets in. It's great to set up the world but then the plot needs to move. Ballard reminds me a lot of the 'Wheel of Time' author, Robert Jordan, except that Ballard's descriptions are more meaningful than Jordan's. Jordan's books become unreadable half way through his series because of the never ending meaningless descriptions. In those books, you get a line of dialogue followed by a paragraph of descriptions then another line of dialogue and then another paragraph or two of descriptions. It gets monotonous. *****WARNING - SOME SPOILERS BELOW THIS POINT***** For me, the evolution going backward 'thing' just doesn't work. I find this to be a very poor idea. How about forward evolution? For the record, I didn't like 'Altered States', another story in which evolution goes backward. My other big complaint is the depiction of the characters. Completely unbelievable to me. I hate the defeatist attitude of Kerans. I think Beatrice is completely unbelievable. The story tells us that Beatrice is a woman who enjoys the fine things in life and lives a luxurious lifestyle. Mankind is leaving and heading north. No woman of her type would decide to be left alone in a jungle... ever... under any circumstance. Sure, if she were like Jane Goodall and was working on scientific research but this is definitely not the case. Beatrice was not only not a tomboy but she was the opposite. There is no way she would forego the comforts of a good life knowing that she had just a few months before her supplies ran out and she was going to be forced to 'rough it' for life. I just find it preposterous that these two (Beatrice and Kerans) would just stay behind while humanity went northward. I'm not even going to bother going into the unbelievable reactions to the city when it was drained. At least there was somewhere to go. As ...