The Drowned World and J.G Ballard

>>8695646
I think it grows on you are you read it. I went into it very unsure, and stayed that way through most of the novel, but it definitely came through as one of my favourites from the era.

It's definitely pulpy, but that pulp is underpinned by some really fascinating psychology. That melding of styles is what Ballard does, basically, and personally I love it. For something less indebted to pulp, but also a lot less comprehensible, try The Atrocity Exhibition.

>>8695646

I agree. Read this earlier this year and the pulp was frankly a little much for me. The sort of psychological ploy was cool, but in my opinion not cool enough to justify the needless 'damsel in distress', bizarre racial caricatures etc. Some scenes are very aesthetically cool though.

>>8695792
Keep in mind that this is early Ballard. As he progresses he loses some of the pulp trappings.

>>8695646

I read it in summer a few years ago. I liked the atmosphere a lot.

The pulp is bad, and borderline racist and sexist, but some of the writing and the scenes are pretty damn enchanting, and the pulp is essentially just a vehicle for the underlying psychological themes.

>>8695792
Bizarre racial trappings? You mean using words like "mullato" and "negro" and the minstrel-type song Strangman's crew sing? Hardly bizarre for the time period. If you're only halfway you'll still be waiting on the more psychologically rich parts of the novel, the really interesting stuff is still to come. The Drowned World is worth reading for the insight it gives into the rest of Ballard's oeuvre, I think that The Crystal World is better written and covers similar ground, but if you've read TDW you're equipped to move onto his other works. This is my recommended Ballard order:

The Drowned World
High-Rise
Crash/The Atrocity Exhibition
Empire of the Sun/The Kindness of Women
Super-Cannes
Cocaine Nights

Those are what I'd call compulsory Ballard. They'll give you a very well-rounded picture of the man and his work. The other novels are all still worth reading, though, Running Wild is a little gem. Concrete Island is a good complement to the other 70s novels and Millenium People is politically pointed contemporary satire with the typical Ballardian psychoanalytic depth.

>>8695646
>>8695856
god, stay in your fucking general

>>8695856
>>8695838
>>8695792
What you all have in common is this kind of implacable sense of the book's atmosphere. I felt the same way after reading it, it's difficult to pin down precisely what generates this moody, hot, sinuous thoughtscape in the text but it's unmistakably there.

>>8695886
Indeed, it's something almost indescribable, the story itself is nothing amazing, and it seems (on the face of it) to be just rgeularmpulp, but it has a certain atmospheric quality...

>>8695875
I think the whole racial trappings thing is more the aristocratic white man lording over animalistic blacks DESU

>>8695908
>implying white people didn't lord it over blacks during colonialism

Fucking depiction/endorsement confusion again.

>writing about something or someone racist doesn't make the writer or their work racist

>>8695932
Not saying it does, but I think that's what OP means.

I finished the book.

What were the dreams about?

Why did Kerans want to flood the lagoon again?

>>8695856
stop reading books