Concrete Island: A Novel [Paperback]

J. G. Ballard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 5, 2001

On a day in April, just after three o'clock in the afternoon, Robert Maitland's car crashes over the concrete parapet of a high-speed highway onto the island below, where he is injured and, finally, trapped. What begins as an almost ludicrous predicament soon turns into horror as Maitland—a wickedly modern Robinson Crusoe—realizes that, despite evidence of other inhabitants, this doomed terrain has become a mirror of his own mind. Seeking the dark outer rim of the everyday, Ballard weaves private catastrophe into an intensely specular allegory.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Visionary of both style and substance . . . the literary equivalent of Salvador Dalí or Max Ernst."—The Washington Post Book World

"Ballard's novels are complex, obsessive, frequently poetic, and always disquieting chronicles of nature rebelling against humans, of the survival of barbarism in a world of mechanical efficiency, of ethropy, anomie, breakdown, ruin . . . The blasted landscapes that his characters inhabit are both external settings and states of mind."—Luc Sante

About the Author

J. G. Ballard is the author of numerous books, including Empire of the Sun, the underground classic Crash, and The Kindness of Women. He is revered as one of the most important writers of fiction to address the consequences of twentieth-century technology. His latest book is Super-Cannes. He passed away in 2009.

Product Details

• Paperback: 176 pages
• Publisher: Picador; 1st edition (October 5, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 031242034X
• ISBN-13: 978-0312420345
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #230,142 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Born in Shanghai in 1930, J. G. BALLARD is the author of sixteen novels, including "Empire of the Sun," "The Drowned World," and "Crash." He lived in London until his death in April 2009.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

61 of 66 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars A brilliant work but not for everyone. January 3, 2001

By Tensegrity Dan

Format:Paperback

Gosh, I hate to see this great, little book slammed or passed over because people were unaware of what they were getting themselves into when they bought it.

Some of the negative or lukewarm reviews are correct in that those readers obviously did not like certain elements of the book, notably the lack of logical narrative progression or fuller character development but they are mistaken to consider these peculiarities of style as deficiencies worthy of criticism. This book is not intended to be a straightforward adventure story or a character driven drama, or even a novel with some surrealistic elements.

Concrete Island, like Ballard's most popular book Crash, is a novel length exploration of abstract concepts wrapped in a traditional narrative format. Consider Ballard's earlier, short science-fiction stories, where a characters' specifics are more or less incidental to the situations in which they are placed. Or his later short works where characters are no more than conceptual cyphers or sometimes just a specific instance of a notional character spanning across several stories.

With that in mind, the events and settings are supposed to be surreal and incomplete. The characters are supposed to be unrealistic and uni-dimensional. You aren't supposed to identify with anyone or anything, at least not physically, and then only to the extent that you might become aware of forces acting in your own life or impulses in your own psyche which these fantastical situations and characters represent.

So if you are familiar with Ballard's other work, or are interested in Ballard but want something a bit more approachable than, say, Crash or Atrocity Exhibition, then you will really enjoy Concrete Island - its relatively tight and fast moving, much more fleshed out than his shorter works with plenty for your brain to chew on for a while, but without frying your mind as much the Ronald Reagan-Liz Taylor psychosexual stuff.

12 of 14 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Descent To a Personal Hell November 11, 1998

By Bob Burton([e-mail])

Format:Paperback

Our physical nightmares nowadays are usually imposed from the outside: terrorism, plagues, stray asteroids, footloose vampires, these are the agents of horror. Another literary thread--starting, I suppose, with Poe, continuing through Ambrose Pierce, and going on to William Golding--deals with the nightmares we can create for ourselves, in isolation or in small groups. With "Concrete Island," first published in 1973, J.G. Ballard carries forward this latter tradition, but in a postmodern environment of superhighways, abandoned outbuildings, and rippling plains of weeds. The book itself is as constricted and airless as the story it tells, and won't be to everyone's taste. But if your appetite is whetted, read "Concrete Island." Ballard is a master of his genre.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars An inventive modern allegory - lost in the middle of the city May 11, 2009

By Nathan Andersen TOP 100 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Paperback

A Londoner who has spent his adult life trying to disconnect from those around him finds himself lost in the middle of the city. Robert Maitland is a successful architect, who feels stifled at home with his wife but is unable to commit to his lover. He has self-consciously arranged things at work so that he wouldn't be missed if he left for a while. So when he finds himself stranded, marooned, in the grassy junkyard median between three overlapping highways, he knows it's up to him to find his way out. Initially his injuries prevent him from climbing the steep embankment or the high fence that surrounds his little island. He is injured further when he tries to flag a passing vehicle during rush hour, and then it is a question of survival. Before long, he discovers that leaving is not at the top of his list of concerns.

There are clear (and quite deliberate) parallels with Robinson Crusoe, but this is very much a modern novel of alienation, that highlights the longing for isolation, solace, and self-sufficiency in a world where we are utterly dependent on others and on technologies; where we seem to be connected in so many ways, but are in fact bound by these connections, both alienated and enslaved. If that sounds heady, the novel isn't. Ballard's art is almost effortless, and he depicts the ironies of modern life, ostensibly liberated by technology and commerce, in simple and subtle ways. This was the book I happened upon as a late introduction to the late J.G. Ballard, and I found it to live up to his strong reputation as a high concept novelist of provocative pulp fiction. I'll definitely read more.