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The Drowned World

3.6 of 5 stars 3.60 · rating details · 3,246 ratings · 193 reviews

Appearing in hardcover in
America for the first time, this neglected Ballardian masterpiece promises to
be a touchstone for environmentalists the world over.First published in 1962, J.G.
Ballard’s mesmerizing and ferociously imaginative novel not only gained him
widespread critical acclaim but also established his reputation as one of the
finest writers of a generation. The Dro...more

Hardcover, 208 pages

Published July 23rd 2012 by Liveright (first published 1962)

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Jun 24, 2010 Ben Babcock rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010-read, science-fiction, owned

What images do the words "science fiction" conjure in your mind? Do you think of spaceships, lasers, phasers, light-sabres? Rockets, robots, and radon gas? Green chicks and blue boxes? Science fiction is a genre built upon difference. Science fiction stories are essentially thought experiments in which the author asks what would happen if the world were different in one or many ways.

We often (rightly) associate science fiction with fantastic technologies, but that kind of mental picture is a rat...more

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Mar 27, 2008 Ben rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2008

Dull plotting.

Duller psychology.

Shallow characters.

Improbable coincidences galore.

Pretty racist.

And yet almost entirely saved by some great descriptive work in painting the submerged world.

Worth reading, barely.

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Jun 18, 2012 Alice Bridgwater rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fantascienza, favorites

Davvero stupendo, soprattutto se si considera che è stato scritto negli anni '60! Descrive uno scenario apocalittico assolutamente verosimile e quanto mai moderno!
Il sole gigantesco che invade gli occhi e la mente, i rettili che riprendono il sopravvento, l'acqua che ricopre e cancella i segni di ogni civiltà... un lento ritorno al punto di partenza, al liquido amniotico del brodo primordiale in cui la vita si è sviluppata e verso cui tornerà...
Geniale..
"I loved this book only recently read e...more

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Apr 19, 2013 Daniel Edelman rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

HOLY COW... This is a book written by a well educated british colonial gent and holy shit, does it read like it.

Actually it reads more like the musings of Hedley Lamarr in "Blazing Saddles." A never ending whirl of psychobabble and 10 dollar words. What that leaves you with is 145 pages of prose about ponds and the jungle and our return to a more primitive state. What THAT leaves you with is 50 or so pages of hollow characters more or less exchanging hollow bon mots.

Also, this book is clearly w...more

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Feb 26, 2013 Helmut Barro rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Das Herz der Helligkeit

Die Trias kehrt zurück: Eine Sonnenstörung lässt die Temperaturen auf der Erde enorm ansteigen und wirft die Menschen aus der Bahn - nicht nur werden große Teile der Erde unbewohnbar, auch das Innenleben der Menschen verändert sich schleichend. Wie bei den imperialistischen Kolonisten spaltet sich die Menschheit in zwei Gruppen: Die, die die Moral aufrechterhalten und das alte Leben in neuer Umgebung streng weiterleben, und die, die dem "Sonnenfieber" nachgeben, und so lan...more

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Sep 08, 2012 David Bradley rated it 3 of 5 stars

First off, thanks to First Reads and Liveright publishing for giving me a chance to read The Drowned World.

J.G. Ballard is often praised for his prophetic, creative settings and The Drowned World is no exception. Envisioning a world with unmanageable heat, extreme storms, melted ice caps, and oceans flooding major cities, The Drowned World holds surprising similarities to some scientific predictions of the future effects from Global Warming. Ballard's ability to bring a harsh reality and detail...more

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Mar 16, 2012 Kathy rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 1001-books, read-in-2012

Dear Kerans, Here's an idea - go up to Hampstead. It'll be dry there and you can walk about.

The first couple of chapters of this book are quite intriguing, but as soon as you realise that this is central London and the buildings aren't even fully submerged, you know that the rest of Britain IS STILL THERE. So why is everyone acting like the world has been drowned? Didn't JG Ballard have the first notion of physical geography? DUH! Schoolboy error. When London drowns, you can say goodbye to East...more

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Jun 20, 2011 MJ Nicholls rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: novels, sassysassenachs

The novel Ballard liked to pretend was his debut—The Wind from Nowhere, anyone?—depicts a world stuffed to the runnels with silt, salt water, silt and more silt. Rich in near pornographic descriptions of bogs, croc-filled lagoons and giant lizards, this is a tough and horrendous novel, all the more so knowing this fate awaits our grandchildren.

Because Ballard is always right. The flood is coming. Get your paddles, ladies. In the meantime, read this book. What is it? Hmm. Apart from the sumptuous...more

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Jun 15, 2011 Shawn rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-sci-fi, read-lit

Quite a nice little novel, part of Ballard's "elemental apocalypse" quartet. Not as good as The Crystal World, on par with The Drought aka THE BURNING WORLD (although very different in focus), better than The Wind from Nowhere (which was probably a better title than THE BLOWING WORLD).

Much like all the others save WIND, this is in some ways Ballard reworking THE HEART OF DARKNESS by Conrad. In an oddly prescient, if coincidental, mirroring of global warming, the angle of the Earth's orbit has ch...more

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Nov 17, 2009 Derek rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

fittingly, The Drowned World takes place in London, post-global warming when the ice-caps have melted & sea levels have risen, turning the city into a fecund swamp...the surprising thing is that Ballard wrote The Drowned World in 1962, when i'm sure little was known about climate change...not only is the [drowned:] world more flooded [& mottled with vast alluvial silt deposits:], but the rising temperatures had also induced a regression back to a new Triassic Age dominated by reptiles &...more

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Sep 03, 2012 Heather rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: first-reads, science-fiction, fiction

I won a free advance reading copy of the 50th anniversary edition of The Drowned World, with a new introduction by Martin Amis, from W.W. Norton via a Goodreads giveaway. I've been meaning to read something by Ballard for a while, and this book, an early vision of a world in which global warming has melted the polar ice caps and the permafrost, with rising heat and rising waters turning most of the world into jungle or swamp, seemed as good a place to start as any. In his introduction, Amis says...more I won a free advance reading copy of the 50th anniversary edition of The Drowned World, with a new introduction by Martin Amis, from W.W. Norton via a Goodreads giveaway. I've been meaning to read something by Ballard for a while, and this book, an early vision of a world in which global warming has melted the polar ice caps and the permafrost, with rising heat and rising waters turning most of the world into jungle or swamp, seemed as good a place to start as any. In his introduction, Amis says that "what really matters in Ballard," what really makes his books interesting, is the "fusion of mood and setting, the mapping of a landscape of a troubled mind" (11). Certainly, The Drowned World is concerned with the inner world—more on that below—but the descriptions of the outer world were the part of this book I liked the best.

But let me back up a little. As mentioned above, The Drowned World is set in a future in which the world has gotten hot. It's so hot, in fact, that Northern Greenland is a balmy 80-something degrees; civilization, or what's left of it, has basically packed up and moved to the Arctic and the Antarctic. The drowned cities of Europe aren't entirely empty, though: there are a few holdouts, determined to stay despite the ever-rising waters, and there are travelling scientists and military teams mapping the changing coasts and taking measurements of the rising temperatures and waterlines, and taking the holdouts away to safety. There are also looters, diving for whatever technology or treasure they can salvage—but we'll get to them later. Robert Kerans, the protagonist of this book, is one of the scientists, though he's more at home in the ruined city than most of the rest of the members of his expedition. He's settled in to the still-climate-controlled-but-abandoned penthouse suite at the Ritz, and is having an affair with a solitary holdout named Beatrice Dahl, who has a penthouse apartment of her own in a nearby building. (Alan Bodkin, Kerans's co-worker in the biological testing station, is also drawn to the ruined city, though for different reasons: he's old enough to have actually lived in London as a child, before it was submerged.) Early in the book, Kerans learns that his team will be leaving the city in three days: he's not sure he wants to go with them. Beatrice is determined to stay behind, and Bodkin, too, has no interest in going. So they stay, the three of them.

In addition to the obvious hardships of survival in a post-apocalyptic landscape, they have to contend with the strange dreams that nearly everyone has started having: "jungle dreams," as Beatrice puts it (64). The dreams, which feature the drumming of the dreamer's pulse and the relentless light and heat of the sun, are an echo and exaggeration of the real swamp and jungle outside. In drowned London, tropical flora and fauna are taking over: there are marmosets and iguanas, bats and giant insects and giant foliage. In the dream-world, there aren't just lizards: there are dinosaurs. Bodkin theorizes that the dreams aren't really dreams, but rather ancient memories encoded in the dreamers' genes that are surfacing because of the changed climate: the dreamers are somehow travelling back through time in their minds, learning how to live in the Triassic-era world that's taking shape around them. There is lots of Freudian psychoanalysing that goes along with this: "Perhaps these sunken lagoons simply remind me of the drowned world of my uterine childhood," Kerans ponders at one point, and it's hard not to groan a bit at that (40). Speaking of groaning, I also wasn't crazy about the character of Beatrice, who doesn't do much beyond drinking, painting her nails, and doing her make-up, and whose motivations are hardly explored. And then there are the looters: after Kerans and Bodkin and Beatrice have been alone in the ruined city for a bit, they're joined by a band of looters, led by an albino named Strangman who has a mysterious power over his black crew. The crew are superstitious and violent, and the scenes in which they feature often have an uncomfortable air of minstrelsy (like: when they find a cache of still-dry evening-wear and run around in tuxedos and bow-ties, this is portrayed as funny/absurd, even though earlier in the book Kerans wears tailored suits left behind by the penthouse suite's last occupant, and Bodkin wears a paisley cummerbund, which are surely equally absurd, given the circumstances). (That said: the back cover notes that this book is a retelling of Heart of Darkness, which I haven't actually read, so possibly any issues of race in Ballard's book are related to issues of race in Conrad's.)

After the arrival of Strangman and his crew, the book increasingly takes on an action-movie feel, with chases and shoot-outs, but there's also still the lure of the watery world and the jungle, the weird pull towards the south that Kerans continues to feel. And that, for me, is what works most about this book: the changed world and the descriptions of it, from the start of the book, when Kerans is on a hotel balcony looking at "dense groves of giant gymnosperms crowding over the roofs of the abandoned department stores four hundred yards away on the east side of the lagoon" (17). I love passages like this:

In the early morning light a strange mournful beauty hung over the lagoon; the somber green-back fronds of the gymnosperms, intruders from the Triassic past, and the half-submerged white-faced buildings of the 20th century still reflected together in the dark mirror of the water, the two interlocking worlds apparently suspended at some junction in time, the illusion momentarily broken when a giant water-spider cleft the oily surface a hundred yards away. (21)

Or this, from a dive that Kerans takes under Strangman's supervision:

A few small angel fish swam past, their bodies gleaming like silver stars in the blue blur that extended from the surface to a depth of five feet, a 'sky' of light reflected from the millions of dust and pollen particles. Forty feet away from him looked the pale curved hull of the planetarium, far larger and more mysterious than it had seemed from the surface, like the stern of an ancient sunken liner. The once polished aluminium roof had become dull and blunted, molluscs and bivalves clinging to the narrow ledges formed by the transverse vaulting. Lower down, where the dome rested on the square roof of the auditorium, a forest of giant fucus floated delicately from their pedestals, some of the fronds over ten feet tall, exquisite marine wraiths that fluttered together like the spirits of a sacred neptunian grove. (122)

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Sep 03, 2012 Roy Elmer rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary-literature, science-fiction, literary-fiction

The Drowned World is so many things. It's not an easy read, by any stretch of the imagination and some of the themes take a little work to get around, but if you put the effort in, you will almost definitely be rewarded.

The pace of the novella is languid from start to finish. There is very little action and not a lot in the way of intense drama. I've read reviews that have cited this as grounds for criticism, but I really don't think it is. The pacing and the slow, steady drawl of the plot has b...more The Drowned World is so many things. It's not an easy read, by any stretch of the imagination and some of the themes take a little work to get around, but if you put the effort in, you will almost definitely be rewarded.

The pace of the novella is languid from start to finish. There is very little action and not a lot in the way of intense drama. I've read reviews that have cited this as grounds for criticism, but I really don't think it is. The pacing and the slow, steady drawl of the plot has been built quite purposely by Ballard to denote Kerans's changed perception of the world and the adjustment to his understanding of reality that becomes necessary once he understands that the old ways, and human civilisation cannot be returned to. The pacing mirrors the heat, which mirrors Kerans's mind, and it just works perfectly.

The plot is about a sort of re-establishment of natural order that has been disrupted by man. There is a thin veil of science thrown over it, but at its heart, Ballard has written a study of human nature that is reminiscent of Conrad's Heart of Darkness. Man becomes beast, becomes man and we see this played out in Kerans as he begins to feel the slow devolution in to a creature that must fit with his environment, not bend it to meet his will.

There are some parallels with religious texts here and a sort of old testament versus new debate between Kerans and Strangman that takes the form of a battle of wills between the need to regain the old world and to adjust to the new. It's a genuinely fascinating dichotomy that works really well and is genuinely engaging.

There is no real conclusion to the tale, but then there really shouldn't be one in this case. Ballard leaves the whole thing open to interpretation and gives the reader the option to take the story in any direction that he or she may choose. This is probably for the best as it means that there can always be hope and there can be greater possibilities for Ballard's take on mankind post-flood. That said, it did mean that there were a few minor unresolved points that I would have liked to see addressed. I would have loved to know more about the efforts of man clinging on in the North, for example. This by no means detracts from the story, and I think that my wondering what might have been only leads me to appreciate the story that was told all the more.

I would definitely suggest reading this to any fan of Ballard, to any fan of science fiction, of apocalyptic literature, or of anyone who fancies something a little offbeat and different. Don't be put off by the negative reviews. The comments are justified in the minds of other reviewers, and the points made are valid, but if you approach the book with an open mind, you won't be disappointed. It's a 5 from me.(less)

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Aug 28, 2012 Kaleb rated it 3 of 5 stars

I would read an entire volume on the thoughts & studies of Dr. Alan Bodkin:

"Is it only the external landscape which is changing? How often recently most of us have had the feeling of déjà vu, of having seen all of this before, in fact of remembering these swamps and lagoons all too well. However selective the conscious mind may be, most biological memories are unpleasant ones, echoes of danger and terror. Nothing endures for so long as fear. Everywhere in nature one sees evidence of innate r...more

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Aug 06, 2011 Jason Carlin rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Not a whole lot to say about this book, as it's not like your regular novel where you may have an idea of what's going to occur next. Plot just isn't there, but neither does it seem to need it to keep you interested, as the world itself(in any post-apocalypse novel) does it on its own. That's not to say that those types of novels are void of plot, but just that if they lack it then their imagined world usually can stand up on its own if it's been clearly created. I had this problem with The Drow...more

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Dec 11, 2008 Ethan Miller rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Wow! I am beginning to think J.G. Ballard has the touch. I can't say that the "Drowned World" propelled me along the way that "High Rise" did but still Ballard's blend of big, dark concepts that you can continue to wrangle with long after you finish and his ability to spin a great yarn with sharp, succinct characters is such a rare thing. So quickly the edgiest concepts in post modern sci-fi can get lost in a labyrinth of it's own genius that too often leave the reader outside scratching for the...more

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Feb 26, 2013 Jeff Scott rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: bleak, fiction

On the surface, The Drowned World has a typical 1960s sci-fi pulpy vibe with caricatured characters, and a apocalyptic scenario. Ballard takes this concept a little deeper by highlighting the violence of man through a retelling of Conad's Heart of Darkness. It is this aspect most readers take issue with as do I. It is understandable that Ballard would want to highlight violence and depravity, but it seems lazy to retell it rather than using something new. Perhaps the revulsion from Darkness woul...more

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Mar 16, 2012 Andy rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I have to say I loved the premise of the book. But for me personally the flow of the story was a little too... floaty... It seemed like the same subjects were touched on again and again, and the actualy progression of the story was a little too slow for my taste. Which was actually surprising because I love this type of story.

I was tempted to give this a 2 of 5, but since the premised ticked a lot of boxes for me it gets a 3.

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May 14, 2011 Keely rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, reviewed, uk-and-ireland, novella

The problem with writing a racially-charged tale of madness and death, lost deep in an alien and antagonistic jungle is that you're going to draw comparisons to 'Heart of Darkness', and that's not a comparison from which most novelists are going to emerge unscathed. The white men lose themselves in the brutality of the primordial past, going 'native', or even beyond native, but Ballard does not have the unique voice or psychological insights of Conrad.

Ballard distinguishes himself as a competent...more

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Feb 23, 2012 Evan Leach rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science-fiction, 1960-1969, brit-lit

The Drowned World is set in a future earth where solar flares have changed the face of the planet. Global temperatures have increased dramatically, and the surviving humans are huddled around the Arctic & Antarctic circles. Between the poles, most of the planet has reverted to tropical jungles and lagoons where midday temperatures approach 140 degrees (or higher). The story focuses on a group of soldiers and scientists sent south to map and study the lagoons that now blanket Europe. But as t...more The Drowned World is set in a future earth where solar flares have changed the face of the planet. Global temperatures have increased dramatically, and the surviving humans are huddled around the Arctic & Antarctic circles. Between the poles, most of the planet has reverted to tropical jungles and lagoons where midday temperatures approach 140 degrees (or higher). The story focuses on a group of soldiers and scientists sent south to map and study the lagoons that now blanket Europe. But as the group spends more and more time in their Triassic surroundings, they find that the prehistoric world around them, despite its dangers, has a powerful attraction on them that they can’t satisfactorily explain. Think Heart of Darkness meets Jurassic Park.

I am a big fan of Heart of Darkness and loved Jurassic Park when I read it as a teenager, so the premise grabbed me from the start. Making the story even more attractive are Mr. Ballard’s prose chops, which are considerable. This was the first book I read by Ballard, who also wrote Empire of the Sun (adapted into a movie that won the Oscar for Best Picture). I was very impressed by his writing and look forward into checking out his later work in the future. Fans who like their sci-fi seasoned with some fancy language will enjoy reading The Drowned World (it reminded me a little bit of Jack Vance). The book also features a great villain and some memorable scenes, particularly in the second half.

What holds the book back for me is the behavior of the main characters. The crux of the book is how these hostile & unfamiliar surroundings influence the psychology & actions of its inhabitants. But unlike, say, Colonel Kurtz in Heart of Darkness, I never fully bought that the characters were reacting to their situation in a realistic or natural way (this does not include the villain, who was my favorite character in the book). Without giving away any spoilers, I’ll just say that the protagonist and a few key side characters become extremely attracted to their prehistoric environment, which causes them to exhibit some bizarre behavior. I simply found the book’s explanation for this unconvincing, which made it tough to get fully invested in the plot.

That said, The Drowned World is still a fun ride. The prose & atmosphere make the book a good read, particularly if you’re a Heart of Darkness fan, even if it’s hard to buy completely into what the characters are doing. 3.5 stars, recommended for fans of sci-fi.
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Oct 31, 2009 Drake rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Honestly, ‘The Drowned World’ was one of the books I most anticipated reading this year. After Ballard’s death last April, I finally wanted to get around to reading this classic. Post-apocalyptic science fiction, mankind’s struggle for survival, men battling in an ocean covered world, all of it was right up my alley. Perhaps this was one of the reasons I was so let down as I trudged through it.

First of all, the story is quite disjointed. Episodes leap from one to another in no coherent manner....more

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Oct 19, 2012 Eija rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: luettu-käännös

Eletään tulevaisuutta, missä maapallon ilmasto on lämmennyt dramaattisesti ja jäätiköt ovat sulaneet. Maailman harvalukuinen väestö on paennut viileämmille alueille napaseuduille, missä elämä on vielä siedettävää. Kirjan tapahtumapaikkana on veden vallassa oleva Lontoo, jossa vain korkeimpien rakennusten ylimmät kerrokset ovat asuinkelpoisia. Ilmasto on trooppinen ja päivällä kuumuus on sietämätöntä. Kirjassa kuvataan juuri tätä ahdistavaa kuumaa trooppista ilmastoa hienosti ja sen pystyy hyvin...more

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Jul 27, 2012 Paul Pensom rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The first book I've read by Ballard, a fact which surprised me, as I'd always had him mentally marked as a writer with whom my sympathies lay.

The Drowned World is one of his first novels, and it's an astonishing piece of work. The backstory is that solar storms have ramped up the Earth's temperature to Triassic levels, and the resultant rise in the water table has formed primeval swamps where once our great cities stood.

A less imaginative writer would have used this premise as the springboard fo...more The first book I've read by Ballard, a fact which surprised me, as I'd always had him mentally marked as a writer with whom my sympathies lay.

The Drowned World is one of his first novels, and it's an astonishing piece of work. The backstory is that solar storms have ramped up the Earth's temperature to Triassic levels, and the resultant rise in the water table has formed primeval swamps where once our great cities stood.

A less imaginative writer would have used this premise as the springboard for a latterday 'Lost World' type adventure, but for Ballard this set and setting is the opportunity to explore the innerspace of the psyche, where the enervating heat beats us back in to the dark recesses of our own minds.

Ballard is awesome on landscape. I don't think I've read better descriptive passages since Cormac MCarthy's 'Blood Meridian'. Here is an early description of one of the lagoons which have supplanted London:

"Even through the massive olive-green fronds the relentless power of the sun was plainly tangible. The blunt refracted rays drummed against his bare chest and shoulders … The solar disc was no longer a well-defined sphere, but a wide expanding ellipse that fanned out across the eastern horizon like a colossal fire-ball, its reflection turning the dead leaden surface of the lagoon into a brilliant copper shield."

If the novel has a weakness it is in the characterisation. The sole female in the book feels tokenistic, and although the lassitude of the hero aptly reflects the cloying intensity of the landscape, the attempt to graft a conventional plot on to this strange environment is not altogether successful. One almost feels that Ballard felt constrained by the conventions of the novel at the time — a nod to 'Heart of Darkness' isn't explored with anywhere near the license it should have been. Instead we get rather suspect racial caricatures and some unconvincing Grand Guignol posturing.

But these shortcomings still cannot overwhelm the power of the central conceit; mankind's superfluity and subsequent Gaiaesque return to source. The characters may recede, but the sluggish waters and the drowned world beneath a pitiless sun will not. (less)

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Jul 22, 2012 Jason rated it 5 of 5 stars

The sense of place is so visceral in The Drowned World that you would do well to keep a cold glass of water and a fan nearby as you read.

It is the story of a not-so-distant future in which the polar icecaps have melted and the noonday sun in London (now a tropical lagoon) may easily top 150 degrees Fahrenheit.

Bear in mind that this book was published in 1962.

Little wonder that the setting would seep into you, dear reader, for it has certainly seeped into the scientific survey team that has vent...more

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Jan 22, 2012 Perry Whitford rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Anyone who hates the cold weather!

The world has flooded after years of solar storms weaken the Van Allen Belt, humanity has been exiled to secluded communes in the poles. The story follows a group of roving biologists, analyzing the evolution of the botanic life smothering the old, transformed continents.

Ballard's descriptive prowess is very hypnotic and seductive, using repetitions of the same tropes to create a vivid sense of the incapacitating heat and humidity on the human cast. There are continual passages giving life to t...more

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Jan 28, 2013 Jason Bosworthick rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Set in a world where solar flares have caused the Earth to heat up year by year and melt the polar ice-caps, (a theme that is being worryingly being echoed today; some 51 years later), the reader is introduced to a world that is mostly submerged. In the stead of the world's greatest cities great lagoons and lakes now rest. Vegetation of gargantuan sizes are gradually reclaiming the world; returning it to a state recognised from the Triassic period in history.

It is this visionary sci-fi tale that...more

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Jun 15, 2009 Thylacoleo_carnifex rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Mar 14, 2012 Ryan rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The Drowned World
J.G. Ballard
176, paperback

Alas, our second choice for 'book club,' this of course being February's selection and also just happens to be the book I selected for such. I wanted a quick easy read since we had just come off the heals of Blood Meridian.

The author, J.G. Ballard, has lived a very interesting life in my opinion. He was born and raised in Shanghai before the onset of World War 2 and lived in a Japanese internment camp throughout the onset of the war. During this period,...more

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Jan 04, 2013 Sian Pickles rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

my second journey into ballard world, having read kingdom come last year. i'm a bit of a bitty/slow reader and really wish i'd just dedicated a weekend to this book so i could have whizzed through and got the full throttle of adrenaline and weirdness. unfortunately i generally read a few pages in bed every night before falling asleep - my fault not the books. it's amazing to think that this was written so long ago, with all the floods and freak weather fronts currently battering the uk it's quit...more

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Jan 07, 2013 Bob Bogle rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Sometimes we hear of a musician's musician: someone who is so busy following his own strange, unfamiliar muse that public acclaim eludes him. Someone like, say, Thelonious Monk, who was long mocked because his music was incomprehensible to critics who, like the vast majority of the listening public, wanted music that sounded like music was supposed to sound. That followed the charted rules.

JG Ballard's 1962 novel THE DROWNED WORLD is neither great plotting nor great writing. It is very early wor...more

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Jul 10, 2010 Jouni rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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About J.G. Ballard

J.G. Ballard (James Graham Ballard) was born in 1930 in Shanghai, China where his father was a businessman. After the attack on Pearl Harbour, Ballard and his family were placed in a civilian prison camp. They returned to England in 1946. After two years at Cambridge, where he read medicine, Ballard worked as a copywriter and a Covent Garden porter before going to Canada with the RAF.

In 1956 his f...more

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“Strangman shrugged theatrically. "It might," he repeated with great emphasis. "Let's admit that. It makes it more interesting—particularly for Kerans. 'Did I or did I not try to kill myself?' One of the few existential absolutes, far more significant than 'To be or not to be?', which merely underlines the uncertainty of the suicide, rather than the eternal ambivalence of his victim." He smiled down patronisingly at Kerans as the latter sat quietly in his chair, sipping at the drink Beatrice had brought him. "Kerans, I envy you the task of finding out—if you can.” — 2 people liked it

“Nothing endures for so long as fear. Everywhere in nature one sees evidence of innate releasing mechanisms literally millions of years old, which have lain dormant through thousands of generations but retained their power undiminished. The field rat’s inherited image of the hawk’s silhouette is the classic example - even a paper silhouette drawn across a cage sends it rushing frantically for cover. And how else can you explain the universal but completely groundless loathing of the spider, only one species of which has ever been known to sting? Or hatred of snakes and reptiles? Simply because we all carry within us a submerged memory of the time when the giant spiders were lethal, and when the reptiles were the planet’s dominant life form.” — 1 person liked it

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The Drowned World

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