by J.G. BALLARD
'The elevators pumping up and down the long shafts resembled pistons in the chamber of a heart. The residents moving along the corridors were the cells in a network of arteries, the lights in their apartments the neurones of a brain.'
Damn this is a darkly prophetic novel, from the world-renowned author (born in 1930, in Shanghai) of 'Empire of The Sun' and 'Crash.'
'High-Rise' was first published in 1975 when the majority of the massive high-rise estates that have come to dominate the skyline of many an urban area were still an idealistic pipedream, and this purposefully disturbing satire closely examines how 'community spirit' within just one high-rise in particular fundamentally breaks down. Inevitably, the quality of living within the mighty brick tower soon degenerates as the inhabitants come to survive on their wits alone. As the power wavers and paranoia increases, many of the people who live in this high-rise resort to acts of violence and violation; they think that anything can and should go, as morals - literally - are flung out of the window, to dry, for good.
'A cloudless sky, as dull as the air over a cold vat, lay across the concrete walls and embankments of the development project. At dawn, after a confused night, Laing went out onto his balcony and looked down at the silent parking-lots below. Half a mile to the South, the river continued on its usual course from the city, but Laing searched the surrounding landscape, expecting it to have changed in some radical way.'
Set in London, the entirety of this austere and gravely atmospheric novel is set within the high-rise, which means the intensity of being metaphorically stuffed inside for 170+ pages conjures up a perfectly relevant air of claustrophobia from the reader's point of view. The hoped-for rosiness of high-rise living that crashes down is seen, predominantly, through the eyes of three men within the building: the aforementioned Laing, a man called Wilder (who obsessively begins making a documentary about the upheaval) and - last but not least - Anthony Royal, who designed the building and who presides over it from the top floor.
'High-Rise' is satirical in terms of acknowledging a definitive hierarchy within the high-rise� with, naturally, the more educated and successful people living on the top floors and the less-so residing nearer to ground level: 'Royal was certain that a rigid hierarchy of some kind was the key to the elusive success of these huge buildings.'
J.G. Ballard is a craftily skilled writer, and shades of the oppressive violence in the novel 'A Clockwork Orange' should readily be recognised. Don't approach this caustic example of writing expecting any laughs whatsoever, for this is serious business with a more-than-serious point to make. Mankind isn't meant for living in such close quarters to so many other people: men, women and children need the time and space to breathe, to relax and to be their own people. Even if the world's growing population (due to the combined effects of high birth rates in so many countries and much higher life expectancies in nearly all countries) is meaning that we are all finding it increasingly difficult to find a decent tract of ground-level land to inhabit and 'call our own,' as competition for space gets stronger and stronger and stronger and stronger and stronger and stronger and stronger� and we all fall down?
(Steve Rudd)
ISBN 0-586-04456-6 (FLAMINGO CLASSICS)
www.fireandwater.com