Rushing to Paradise [Hardcover]

J. G. Ballard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 1995

A slightly mad environmentalist named Dr. Barbara takes over a Pacific atoll and creates a utopian community, which quickly becomes a less than ideal place. By the author of Empire of the Sun.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In one of Picador's first hardcover titles, Ballard (Crash) offers another of his tautly imagined experiments with 20th-century pathology. Here he traces an environmental crusade from its media-driven invasion of a South Seas atomic test site to its establishment of an endangered species' sanctuary, to its metamorphosis into an atavistic cult. Ballard's futuristic characters are nearly always less individual personalities than mutating preoccupations, and this cast of environmental utopians who quixotically strand themselves to save an albatross colony is no exception. Sixteen-year-old Neil Dempsey, who is drawn into the expedition by the charismatic, inscrutable "Dr. Barbara" (Rafferty), is joined by a Hawaiian who dreams of an independent island kingdom, a Boston Brahmin missionary, an animal-rightist airline stewardess and a band of German eco-hippies. Amid Ballard's hallucinatory evocation of the island's native flora, imported endangered fauna and abandoned military and scientific installations, Dr. Barbara proves ready to sacrifice anything or anyone for her unstable cause, whether to the international media, the island jungle or her artificial paradise. Although the naive and uncertain Neil proves a comparatively weak narrative lens for Dr. Barbara and her spiraling projects, Ballard's story moves tensely along, an apocalyptic cautionary tale for the millennium.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

Jonathan Oliver's excellent narration is wasted on this tale of an ecological mission gone awry. Dr. Barbara, banned from medicine for practicing euthanasia, establishes a sanctuary for endangered species on a remote Pacific island. Neil, a fatherless 16-year-old, joins Barbara's project because he hopes "perhaps Dr. Barbara can protect me as well as the albatross." Neil is the doctor's most loyal follower, even when he discovers that she has resumed practicing euthanasia on healthy but bothersome members of the mission. The doctor also abandons the facade of running a sanctuary and focuses instead on her true desireAto create a Women's Republic that requires, for purposes of procreation, a single male. Neil is chosen to sire the next generation, and Barbara soon disposes of all unnecessary males. This depressing story of human savagery essentially goes nowhere and is recommended only where Ballard has a very strong following.ABeth Farrell, Portage Cty. Dist. Lib., OH
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Audio Cassette edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 238 pages
• Publisher: Picador USA; 1 edition (May 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 031213164X
• ISBN-13: 978-0312131647
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.9 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,131,665 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.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Rushing to purgatory, June 3, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Rushing to Paradise: A Novel (Paperback)

In Rushing to Paradise, J.G. Ballard paints a memorable and disturbing picture of idealism run amok within the paradise of a Pacific atoll. It is a book that glitters with dark ironies; from the opening paragraphs, with deranged femme-fatale Dr. Rafferty bullhorning slogans to the deserted beaches of Saint-Esprit, to her commune's timely rescue from this obsessed woman by the hated French military. Rushing to Paradise is likely to outrage some with its dry send-ups of environmentalism and feminism. Nonetheless, it is worthy book; strange, vivid, unpredictable, and at times...wonderful. I recommend buying two copies in the event one is lost.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ballard bites off a big chunk with this one, January 18, 2001

By 

Dan Seitz "cinnatusc" (Somerville, MA, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Rushing to Paradise: A Novel (Paperback)

And I'm glad to say it was easy for him to chew. This is a perceptive and actually pretty nasty take on the more extreme ends of enviromentalism and feminism, the points where the former becomes psychosis and the latter becomes sexism of a virulent and violent sort.

What I love most about Ballard is his willingness to probe the darker corners of the human psyche. It's a rare gift to want to explore these places, let alone use them to comment on our society. This is an excellent book and worth your cash!

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not your average book, August 18, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Rushing to Paradise: A Novel (Paperback)

I really liked Rushing to Paradise and I don't see how it generated such negative reviews; except to say that it IS a "politically incorrect" book. Author Ballard has strange, almost hallucinatory descriptive powers which he delivers in cool, matter of fact language. Above all, the book resonates with a twilight of the gods atmosphere. Maybe not for everyone, but this doesn't make it a bad book. Quite the contrary.