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The Drowned World | 
 enlarge | Author: J.g. Ballard
Publisher: HarperPerennial
Category: Book
List Price: £7.99
Buy New: £2.94
You Save: £5.05 (63%)
New (20) Used (6) from £2.45
Rating:  17 reviews
Sales Rank: 57319
Media: Paperback
Pages: 176
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 7.7 x 5.3 x 0.6
ISBN: 0007221835
EAN: 9780007221837
ASIN: 0007221835
Publication Date: February 20, 2006
Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days
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Amazon.co.uk Review
This torrid, powerful 1962 novel--the 17th of Millennium's very strong SF Masterworks classic reprints--was a major turning point in J.G. Ballard's career. In this future our old world has been gradually drowned as global warming melts the ice-caps and primordial jungles and swamps have returned to tropical London, recreating the ancient ecology of the Triassic age. According to the logic of Ballardian "inner space", these Turkish-bath surroundings evoke the psychological suction of the deep past, calling the human "hindbrain" back to the enfolding warmth of the womb. The text is rich with dreamy phrases like "the fata morgana of the terminal lagoon" and "the brighter day of the interior, archaeopsychic sun". As various members of an expedition to London busy themselves with more or less futile schemes like draining Leicester Square in hope of loot, the passive central character Kerans moves in his own "neuronic odyssey" to a strange acceptance of and assimilation by this lushly transformed world, vanishing into a final epiphany of heat and light. There is little narrative drive or sense of story (fans of rip-roaring, action-adventure SF tend not to get on with Ballard). The Drowned World is a potent, sensual mood-piece--static, jewelled and unforgettable. --David Langford
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| Customer Reviews: Read 12 more reviews...
Thought provoking July 1, 2008
John Hopper (London, UK)
I much preferred this to The Drought - the settings turn out to be more familiar and the characters seemed somewhat easier to relate to (though likeable would be going too far). The central idea of regression to thought patterns displayed millions of years ago by earlier life forms is a fascinating and quite sobering one.
 I'm not quite sure what Ballard is doing, but it's a lot of fun trying to figure it out January 29, 2008
Mr. P. Rigby (wigan, england)
Plenty of superlatives have been thrown around to describe Ballard. In order to avoid that, my opening gambit will be a quote by Christopher Priest. "I'm not quite sure what Ballard is doing, but it's a lot of fun trying to figure it out."
If you want a summary of the plot read the other reviews, my intention here is just to note the pleasure and excitement of reading this book. In the novel, Ballard's obvious intention is to explore what we can do with the genre normally referred to as sci-fi. In a traditionally British way he decides not to make everything as big as possible but instead reduces the elements of the catastrophe to the psychology at play.
As you would expect from any Ballard book there's a twisted longing to become the centre of the catastrophe and an uncomfortable thrill in enjoying the world going to hell.
The Chapter 'A NEW PSCHOLOGY' is almost a manifesto in itself with regards to how Ballard would go on to create a whole new take on what H.G. Wells called scientific romance. The novel covers biological manipulation, time travel, ecological disaster and all in ways so original that it makes the mind whirl. It's dream like in so many ways, but most interestingly in that 'it seemed logical in the dream but now...' feeling so common when trying to relate your inner mental journeys to someone else.
This is the first book by Ballard that I have read an actually got the whole 'Ballard is a genius' thing. The prose is controlled and effective and after I had finished i went back to re-read some chapters again, just for the hell of it.
Strongly recommended.
Planet Sauna April 20, 2007
T. Bobley (UK)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
The world is heating up as a result of solar instability. Ice caps have melted and oceans have risen, flooding low-lying areas. Once temperate zones remaining above sea level have become areas of lush, tropical jungle. Surviving populations have had to migrate to the cooler, polar regions. A party of soldier and scientist representatives of these exiled people, have travelled down from the north to study the new flora and fauna that is mutating and evolving rapidly back towards ancient Triassic forms. Some members of the party start to have disturbing dreams of belonging to a hotter, wetter climate and feel drawn in the direction of the equator by some sort of ancestral memory of living in a primeval swamp. The bloated sun and steaming jungle start to feel like a fond memory of the womb to those who are most susceptible and the hypnotic pull of it dominates even their waking hours.
Some reviewers have complained that this is not proper science fiction, not hard science fiction, not fast-paced, not plot-driven. Ballard places it in an area on the fringe of science fiction that he calls `speculative fantasy' - an area where `dream and reality become fused together'. When I started the book I hoped it might be something like John Wyndham's `The Kraken Wakes', but it's different in almost every way, apart from the flooding. There's no enemy to defeat in order to re-establish normality. There are no solutions to the problem, other than avoidance in the shrinking cool zone. A few individuals are making mental adjustments to the catastrophic climate change that seem superficially like a sort of Lamarckian evolutionary adaptation, but the chances of their survival, in isolation, in the crocodile populated swamp areas look doubtful. The reader has to adopt a fantastic amount of suspension of disbelief to swallow the notion of race memory and reverse evolution. Even so, I sank into the story and festered happily away in its swamps and lagoons right from the start and was reluctant to slurp out of it at the end. Ballard's descriptions are, to use one of his own descriptions, like a fata Morgana: shimmering and evocative.
Very Good Book March 27, 2007
Mr. C. M. Owen (Leominster, UK)
0 out of 7 found this review helpful
March 07: To much description, not enough dialogue. Uses big words when it could use simple ones - dressing up in clothes it doesn't need to wear. Book gets interesting towards the last 70 pages. Some of the imagery from the book was beautiful.
Back into deep time... December 21, 2006
dogbarkssome (England)
6 out of 20 found this review helpful
JG Ballard's first novel hits the ground running, already focusing on one of the authors recognisable themes of the relationship between characters psychological condition and their environments: here with a global warming-style flooded Earth leading humanity back into an earlier reptile mindscape. Good solid early Ballard, The Drowned World may be fairly light in terms of conventional SF narrative drive but it is rich in haunting imagery and insight.
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