High-Rise (Flamingo Modern Classic)
by J.G. Ballard
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Read in August, 2008
recommends it for:
Ballard fans
I don't know why it always takes me so long to read a Ballard book. I never race through them at high speed. On the contrary it always takes me weeks or even months to get through a Ballard novel. When it comes to collections of his short stories the situation is even worse: I began reading *The Venus Hunters* in 1989 but didn't finish it until 2005. Rather a long time for a single book! Even *Vermilion Sands* took me ages to finish and that collection contains one of the best short stories (per...more
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Read in May, 2006
I believe that this was one of the first works by Ballard that explored the potentially dark underbelly of affluent people in large groups. One of the unfortunate critiques of Ballard is that this is a very similar motif to most of the books that he has written in the last few years. Change the setting (high rise apartment, shopping mall, palatial villa), add anarchy and bitterness, and go. Basically, everything seems all warm and yuppie from the outsiders view, but there is a primal undercurren...more
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Read in December, 2007
recommends it for:
sci-fi lovers and high-rise inhabitants
J. G. Ballard is a bit of a one-trick pony. Every novel I've read of his (and I've read quite a few) features the same type of characters going through the same type of breakdown, usually engineered by a powerful psychotic antagonist or a dystopic setting, with always a pessimistic end result. The Drowned World explored this in a planet where the polar caps melted; The Drought went the opposite way, thrusting the characters into a mad world with no water; Super-Cannes showed what happened when...more
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High-Rise masterly depicts the peculiarities of modern life, no matter how much luxurious it is. All those squabbles, which once seemed to be petty, gradually escalate into a grave vendetta. At the beginning, the feud demonstrates the struggle of upper, middle, and lower classes against each other. Later on, the fight topples down the last smattering signs of civilization and man's social restraints. The hidden fact finally shows off; bare and bitter, the tenants are now taking pleasure in shedd...more
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recommends it for:
SF peeps, post-postmodernists
And yet I could not look away. All Ballard books follow more or less the same trajectory: the decline and fall of various systems and the false sense of order they imply. Perhaps it was Ballard's own infamous childhood experiences as a POW in China during WWII but things irretrievably falling apart are his realm. Once you accept that he cannot write a book without this plot device you can enjoy how well he works with it and within it. In this short novel, the protagonist/Ballard person finds tha...more
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I read this following the theme of London-based novels. I found it to be a gratuitous, over the top, indulgence in crudity, meanness, and the worst imaginable in human beings. There is no underlying true story. The whole thing is fantastic, unrealistic. I finished it as quickly as possible to be done with it. It sounded like an immature man fantasizing about what life would be like if there were no social rules and everyone decayed into the gutter. Defecating in the hallways and peeing on ...more
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Read in July, 2007
Yeah, this was pretty great. The fact that this preposterous premise is so believably developed is nothing short of astounding. It's gripping, chilling and beautiful, all while retaining a sense of unbelievable grotesqueness. I really need to read more of his stuff. Unfortunately, the other two books I've got open wound up taking a back seat to this. I have no idea how people manage to juggle multiple books at once. The only reason it's working for me is cause I've got a short story collection a...more
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Read in January, 2008
This is certainly one of the better Ballard novels I've read but I found it suffered from the same problem I usually have with Ballard. Like many authors of the "hard" science fiction that he started out writing, great ideas are expressed in mediocre fiction. I kind of wish that Ballard stuck to writing essays (and his are always stimulating) instead of couching his ideas concerning the interface of culture and technology in wildly implausible plots and forced allegory. That being ...more
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Read in January, 1982
recommended to paul by:
Metal Hurlantrecommends it for: Disgruntled Community Planners
A clever if flawed extrapolation on the theme of planned communities, the democratisation and, consequently, the effective devaluation of 'good taste' -- as also, later and most effectively critiqued by the likes of Martin Amis, Chuck Pahlaniuk, et al -- and the dissolution of social cohesion and, indeed, civilisation under the overbearing pressure of architecture itself, like many of Ballard's works, the reputation of High Rise, like that of Crash, far exceeds its ac...more
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Read in January, 1992
The master of the "literal" metaphor, J.G. Ballard gives us a ready-made society in a live-work-play high-rise apartment building/shopping center that devolves into a Lord of the Flies style battle for survival. Consumerism, class struggle, the ingrained tribal tendencies of humans and their quick reversion to animalistic tendencies under duress--it's like a sociology class without all the fun sucked out.
There is always so much to talk about in a Ballard novel, and this is o...more
There is always so much to talk about in a Ballard novel, and this is o...more
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Coming soon to a theater near you! - I wonder if they'll keep the French New Wave aspect of the novel; the television producer with warpaint, stalking the corridors of the high-rise with his video camera "shooting" his prey. Unfortunately, this film will probably be dismissed as Fight Club-for-the-Wealthy (why go to a dirty club downtown when you can scrap with the Van Richensteins down the hall?) and be more panned than scanned.
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Modern Apartment living at its best! JG Ballard is one of the few writers who has a weird understanding about humans living in the 20th (and 21st) Century. Whatever it is the erotic pull of car accidents and wanting death, or being stuck on the side of a freeway - he captures the essence of 'modern life' that is both unique as well as understandable. And it's the understandable part that is the scary part.
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I checked out under five books from my college library and this one made the trip outside its doors with me twice. After living in a large apartment complex not too long ago, I can see how something like what happens in the book could happen in real life. Count me in if it does!
I actually want to read it again and plan to do so very soon.
I actually want to read it again and plan to do so very soon.
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Read in June, 2002
recommends it for:
apartment building dwellers who want to kill their neighbors
This is the kind of story the British do very well, i.e. social satire of modern society. For all his sci-fi rep J.G. Ballard is the equal to Huxley, Orwell and Burgess. “High Rise” is excellent storytelling about a little city in a building gone berserk. If you haven’t read Ballard yet you need to check him out.
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Read in July, 2007
recommends it for:
everyone
Saying it is a murder floor by floor for a higher level apartment doesn't do the book justice. It is true, but so much more occurs It's more a stark reversal of communities starting at a literal upper, middle, and lower class that fractures into clans, bands, and individuals as the population density is relieved.
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Read in January, 2000
Yeah. This is great stuff man moves into an ultra modern high rise. Suddenly things go wrong. Mass violence just explodes. People start going loopy. Over the top. Revolting. Psycho thriller stuff. Of course, it's just Ballard's way of commenting on modern life.
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Read in November, 2007
This book is one of my favorites.
It's about a bunch of folks that move into a high rise that has all the bells and whistles you could think of. Then things start breaking and it turns into this whole Lord of the Flies social upheaval thing.
It's about a bunch of folks that move into a high rise that has all the bells and whistles you could think of. Then things start breaking and it turns into this whole Lord of the Flies social upheaval thing.
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A terrific fable about urban life after an unnamed disaster, as the residents of a London apartment block melt down and turn against each other. The woman who feeds her cat with her own blood has become iconic around my house.
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Read in May, 2007
I love love love Ballard's work, especially Cocaine Nights and Super Cannes - this is a lot shorter but quite hard work. The premise is extraordinary but I didn't enjoy it as much as his other work. Still worth reading though.
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What a marvelous, roiling head-fuck this book is. When reading it, you are both shocked by and sympathize with the residents of the building as their lives are first broken apart and then rebuilt into something much more primal
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