The peasants, goes a tedious old joke about Wat Tyler's mob, are revolting. In JG Ballard's unnerving, prophetic novel Millennium People, ho...
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reviews
Nov 09, 2011
Megan
rated it: 
I am surprised so many people gave up on this book.
This is the first Ballard novel I've read, and the last one he wrote. I picked it up at a $5 book store, and I'm glad I did.
Ballard doesn't waste time developing three dimensional characters or an extensive background. The story starts on the first page, and what we need to know, we find out along the way.
The book follows David Markham, a psychologist, whose private investigation into his ex wife's death in More...
This is the first Ballard novel I've read, and the last one he wrote. I picked it up at a $5 book store, and I'm glad I did.
Ballard doesn't waste time developing three dimensional characters or an extensive background. The story starts on the first page, and what we need to know, we find out along the way.
The book follows David Markham, a psychologist, whose private investigation into his ex wife's death in More...
Oct 22, 2011
Ken
rated it: 
THE MILLENNIUM PEOPLE is a wry take on Karl Marx's revolutionary theory. Marx felt that the end of the political status quo would occur when the workers on the bottom of the economic pyramid called it quits, and turned to violence, however Ballard sees the impetus for revolt coming from the more well-off middle class. Ballard envisions radical social change as a kind of, "Upholstered Apocalypse".
David Markham's ex-wife is killed by a terrorist bomb at Heathrow Airport, More...
Aug 19, 2011
Quinten
rated it:
By the end of this book, I started to enjoy it again. For a novel about a terrorist campaign, with a bombing or random act of violence every other chapter, it feels very slowly paced.
Millenium People is a slightly wry examination of the activist culture. What would happen if the middle class rebelled? We would get the early 2000s and late 1990s, and according to Ballard, particularly in London, to wear a cause and attend a demonstration is a cultural artifact. There is a rebellion in C More...
Millenium People is a slightly wry examination of the activist culture. What would happen if the middle class rebelled? We would get the early 2000s and late 1990s, and according to Ballard, particularly in London, to wear a cause and attend a demonstration is a cultural artifact. There is a rebellion in C More...
Dec 25, 2010
Jim
rated it:
I've read the previous two novels Ballard wrote before this one, Cocaine Nights and Super-Cannes, and this continued to explore the themes of middle class rebellion against a society they have unwittingly created. The story is about a violent uprising championed by a small group of disillusioned professionals including a doctor and parish minister. You can almost imagine it happening. The things the middle class aspire to - good housing, schooling, law enforcement, job security - have become bey
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Nov 14, 2010
F.R.
rated it:
I read a comment piece this week about how the London-centric nature of the British media distorts the national argument. It put forward the theory that those working for newspapers, TV and radio don’t really appreciate that the views of their friends and neighbours in Islington or Hampstead are not necessarily shared by the wider populous. That piece (by whom, and where I read it, are details I’m afraid I cannot remember) stayed vivid in my mind as I read this novel about residents of well-to-d
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Nov 25, 2011
Susan
rated it:
Have heard of JG Ballard, but didn't realize he was such a prolific novelist and short story writer. Plan to find more of his work at the library.
Although I liked this dysutopian, futuristic-in-the-now novel, it was uneven in execution. I found it gripping for two-thirds and a bit "convenient" the last third, especially the very end. David Markham, a psychologist twice married, becomes involved with a terrorist "group" and actions in London. His first wife had been kille More...
Although I liked this dysutopian, futuristic-in-the-now novel, it was uneven in execution. I found it gripping for two-thirds and a bit "convenient" the last third, especially the very end. David Markham, a psychologist twice married, becomes involved with a terrorist "group" and actions in London. His first wife had been kille More...
Nov 24, 2011
Eric
rated it:
J.G. Ballard's penultimate novel, Millennium People, with its mad-as-hell middle class in revolt, is so relevant to recent events that it's almost scary. The book is essentially a British Fight Club for grown-ups, or a Glamorama without the ceaseless name-dropping and product placement. Sadly, it is also a book that induces that unique disappointment of almost-greatness, the letdown of wasted potentiality.
Ballard's narrator/protagonist, David Markham, is a psychologist who does consu More...
Ballard's narrator/protagonist, David Markham, is a psychologist who does consu More...
Oct 17, 2010
Artur
rated it:
Ballard é o Le Corbusier da literatura. Frio e preciso, colocou a mão no pulso da modernidade contemporânea - o urbanismo alienante e os indivíduos solipsistas obcecados na vivência das suas neuroses. Este livro tem todas as peças do puzzle que é um livro de Ballard, mas falta qualquer coisa nesta história de um grupo de pessoas da classe média que ao concluírem que são o novo proletariado se revoltam, quase proclamando um estado anarquista num condomínio fechado, vista pelos olhos de um psicólo
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Feb 05, 2011
Mark
rated it:
At first this seems like a kind of Ballard-by-numbers, referencing a number of themes and devices from earlier novels including Crash, High Rise, and Running Wild - but here played for laughs around the central premise of a middle class revolution initiated by the citizens of 'Chelsea Marina' (a housing development which Owen Hatherly is sure is a fictionalized Millennium Village) .
This central premise affords plenty of opportunity for humorous riffing on upper middle class lifestyles More...
This central premise affords plenty of opportunity for humorous riffing on upper middle class lifestyles More...
Mar 15, 2010
Steve
rated it:
The novel opens with an act of terrorism at Heathrow, but typical of Ballard’s style, it is soon revealed that the perpetrators are not religious fundamentalists, but rather members of this country’s professional classes, whose goal is to shatter the apathetic, conformist attitude of the middle-classes. This atrocity does indeed act as a catalyst for the residents of Chelsea Marina to cast aside their bourgeois paraphernalia, and abandon their unflinching dedication to civic responsibility. The
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Jul 20, 2009
Lucy
rated it: 
Last week my girlfriend said "are you still reading your shit book?"I mounfully replied "yeah" with a sigh. I trudged on with it though and finally I have finished it and I can sum it up in no better words than "that shit book".
The story is about a middle class revolution in chelsea. The middle-classes fighting against their mortgages, service charges on flash apartments, school fees etc. I realise it is supposed to be a clever commentary on the lack of More...
The story is about a middle class revolution in chelsea. The middle-classes fighting against their mortgages, service charges on flash apartments, school fees etc. I realise it is supposed to be a clever commentary on the lack of More...
Jul 28, 2011
Jennifer
rated it:
I have not read any other of Ballard's novels--which include Crash and Empire of the Sun, to name a few that have been made into movies--but the guy is clearly an amazing storyteller. Millennium Poeple, which was originally published in Britain in 2003 but has only just come out over here, creates an England in which the upper middle class begins to protest the trappings of its own success: trophy homes, hugely expensive private school fees for their highly groomed children, the Land Rover, the
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Oct 01, 2011
Don
rated it:
There is something a bit pedantic about Ballard's portrayal of the folk of Chelsea Marina and their attempt at middle class revolution. Over-hiked service charges, parking fines, the stress induced by school fees and riding lessons leads to a monumental sense of grievance for this 'new proletariat which provokes rent strikes, demos and symbolic acts of property destruction.
But this satire is the backdrop which allows Ballard to engage with the personality of Dr Richard Gould, a nihil More...
But this satire is the backdrop which allows Ballard to engage with the personality of Dr Richard Gould, a nihil More...
Jan 10, 2012
Lori
rated it:
from audiogo for review
Listened 12/22/11 - 1/9/12
3 Stars - Recommended to readers familiar with genre
8 CD's (approx 9 hours)
Audiobook Publisher: AudioGo
The middle class residents of Chelsea Marina are rebelling. Tired of being squeezed, they are influenced by neighbor Richard Gould to make a stand - by refusing to pay their mortgage and heating bills, smoke bombing random pedestrian businesses, and setting fire to their homes as the police come to evict More...
Listened 12/22/11 - 1/9/12
3 Stars - Recommended to readers familiar with genre
8 CD's (approx 9 hours)
Audiobook Publisher: AudioGo
The middle class residents of Chelsea Marina are rebelling. Tired of being squeezed, they are influenced by neighbor Richard Gould to make a stand - by refusing to pay their mortgage and heating bills, smoke bombing random pedestrian businesses, and setting fire to their homes as the police come to evict More...
Jun 06, 2009
Lisa
rated it:
Entertaining book with some great ideas as Project Mayhem meets the English middle classes, with people battling suburban alienation and spiritual emptiness suddenly setting fire to their Peter Jones bedsheets, burning down the NFT and shoplifting from delis, trying to find meaning in gratuitous and meaningless violence.
David Markham is a psychologist trying to find some meaning behind his (ex) wife's death in a bomb blast at Heathrow airport, and gradually being drawn in to the rev More...
David Markham is a psychologist trying to find some meaning behind his (ex) wife's death in a bomb blast at Heathrow airport, and gradually being drawn in to the rev More...
May 27, 2009
Christopher
rated it:
Sorry JGB.
I read Crash between school and university and it made an enduring impression on me so when the BG chose this I looked forward to it but...
It's just so poorly written; the lame killer lines on chapter and section endings, the poor similes, the lack of serious narrative drama despite the mystery book form. The main man, why was he such an awful psychologist, how come he never worked out people's motives, why was he such a poor judge of character and motivation?
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I read Crash between school and university and it made an enduring impression on me so when the BG chose this I looked forward to it but...
It's just so poorly written; the lame killer lines on chapter and section endings, the poor similes, the lack of serious narrative drama despite the mystery book form. The main man, why was he such an awful psychologist, how come he never worked out people's motives, why was he such a poor judge of character and motivation?
More...
Aug 02, 2010
Will
rated it:
While reading this book, I told my wife it was about a middle-class revolution. She responded with indignation, "The middle class can't revolt!" That's one of the novel's main points. Allowing that some of the bourgeois have joined the ranks of the proletariat, Ballard suggests that they've done so by choice and that the conversion is superficial at best. Que sera sera.
I would complain that the characters are half-developed, but having just finished Bret Easton Ellis's Impe More...
I would complain that the characters are half-developed, but having just finished Bret Easton Ellis's Impe More...
Oct 09, 2011
Kate
rated it:
Protest is one of the central themes of the book, and it is presented in an exaggerated, absurdist manner. An animal rights protest at a cat show results in a convention center's worth of terrorized animals pissing in unison. The scene crystallizes (at least for me) the questionable utility of direct action protest. (Not at all sure this was the author's intent, but this is what I took from it as it confirms my own feelings about the misplaced anger, insufferable self-righteousness, and outright
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Jul 30, 2007
Martin
rated it:
Primary-school-teacher similes; ‘…she wore her insecurities like a collection of favourite costume jewellery.’
Meaningless and cheesy sentences; ‘Looking into her eyes, I sensed that I could see my whole future.’
No mystery in the characters, they are laid bare within two pages. All their curious traits, failures and successes are listed. This however lets the real reason for reading race on, namely the story. Which is gripping, amusing and thought provoking. A more com More...
Meaningless and cheesy sentences; ‘Looking into her eyes, I sensed that I could see my whole future.’
No mystery in the characters, they are laid bare within two pages. All their curious traits, failures and successes are listed. This however lets the real reason for reading race on, namely the story. Which is gripping, amusing and thought provoking. A more com More...
Aug 24, 2011
Kelly
rated it:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Jan 23, 2011
Natalia Pì
rated it:
It's an intriguing book with a good story, however, for some reason I had a hard time focusing while reading it, which is why it took me some time. The characters are occasionally irritating, but I guess that was the writer's intention... Still I guess it sometimes prevented me from going back to reading.
It's thought-provoking and funny, in a strange, dark way... I think you can see with this writer's later novels that he really was a good observer of where we were going.
It's thought-provoking and funny, in a strange, dark way... I think you can see with this writer's later novels that he really was a good observer of where we were going.
Jul 20, 2011
Scott
rated it:
I've really enjoyed everything I've read by JG Ballard, but I was lukewarm on this, his last novel. The premise of middle-class revolt seemed more forced than prescient. All his other books that I have read feature a generally solitary protagonist in a post-apocalyptic world totally removed from normality. This one has several central characters and is set in a recognizable present. Ballard's contempt for the complaints of the comfortable middle classes in revolt is clear and makes it hard to be
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Sep 26, 2011
Brittany
rated it:
I won this book on Goodreads First Reads. This was a very interesting book to me. It accurately depicts what COULD happen in any culture if you push people far enough. All it takes is one person that doesn't like a change that is happening and a bunch of people that are willing to follow that person in retaliation. Some of the acts that were carried out were a bit disturbing on some levels, but overall the author gave some pretty accurate scenes. Unfortunately this book took me longer than I wan
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Aug 26, 2011
Allison
rated it:
I don't know if I should consider this "read" since I gave up on the novel, but for lack of a better term, that's where it's going. It's been a long time since I gave up on a novel, but this was extremely slow moving and-after 130 pages (half the book!)--I realized I didn't care if all the characters died on the next page, I still wasn't going to want to read this. So back to the library this goes.
Jul 15, 2010
Kassady
rated it:
I mostly liked this book because of the geographical references to london. I get the satirical reference to middle class suburbanites that feel they are ignored and repressed, and i know im not supposed to care - the problem is that I really dont. I dont identify, if i was middle class I would probably buy a Nick Horby book and lose my self in High Fidelity which is infinitely more readable and enjoyable
Jul 19, 2011
Katrina
rated it:
This is only one of two books I stopped reading. I got through around page 20 something and had no idea what the plot was other than some guy exploring some town after a revolution. It didn't catch my attention at all in the beginning, which is probably the number one rule for authors when they write a book. Now, I know some books start off slow but this book isn't very long and I just had the feeling the whole book would just be bad. I hate writing bad reviews but this book just did nothing for
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Jan 11, 2012
Ray
rated it:
wow. i really haven't disliked a book this much in so long. Millennium People was intensely cynical. There is nothing wrong with cynicism if it communicates an underlying truth. But there was just something really off about Ballard's treatment of the middle-class and their problems. It was either completely out of touch or overly sympathetic.
Jul 28, 2011
I just couldn't finish this book. There's no denying the craft behind this book buy I just couldn't get into its premise. I know Ballard's point is the shallowness of middle class society but I just couldn't get into any of the characters. It's funny I could get into a book where the characters routinely kill innocents in the name of saving the world and whose writer has a long way to go before she's as polished as Ballard's but I can't get past 100 pages of this one. I just can't swallow the n
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Feb 09, 2010
Chris
rated it: 
This book bored me and the characters seemed cliched and absurd, why I should care about their middle class troubles is beyond me, I'm not a big fan anyway, but I will persevere as he comes up in polls all the time. I have Empire of the Sun on the shelf and am hoping its going to be his best, unlike this one, but after that I shall read no more.
Nov 14, 2011
Glenn
rated it: 
A brilliant, funny and prescient novel of middle-class revolution and the search for meaning. Dr. Markham, a well-to-do London psychologist, finds his world rocked when his ex-wife is killed in a terrorist bombing at Heathrow Airport. Markham leaves his job and second wife behind to go undercover, searching for the terrorists, only to find something much stranger. A pediatrician whose moral barometer is quite off, a priest who has lost his faith and possibly his mind, and a film scholar turned r
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