J.G. Ballard, 1981 (Vintage paperback, 1994).
Not many people are familiar with the work of J.G. Ballard - more's the pity!
You may have heard of the movies "Empire of the Sun" and "Crash", however, which are both based on his books - autobiography and novel, respectively.
He died not long ago, so I decided to tuck into my collection of his novels.
His writing style is distinctive, cool, phantasmagoric and challenging - never an easy ride.
"Hello America" is no exception - I would not recommend it as a first foray into Ballardland, but definitely tackle it after "The Drowned World" ( first novel, about a world, and the city of London, in particular, submerged by water from the ice caps - sound accurate? - written over 40 years ago).
Hello America is set about 100 years in the future - the continent has been transformed, seemingly, into a desert, and we take up the story with an expedition team from Europe landing on the coast of New York in search of....
Their discoveries are part of the treasure of the novel, so I won't tell you a thing, except to say that there is an hilarious, bizarre, Gothic scenario played out in a Las Vegas casino evoking the "ghosts" of Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and Judy Garland.
There are many twists and turns in the novel, which achieves its purposes of captivating, delighting, scaring and challenging the reader.
Highly recommended!
G.
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The Drowned World sounds a little like The Kraken Awakes by John Wyndham.
ReplyDeleteCertainly there are common elements shared by Wyndham and Ballard.
ReplyDeleteOne of these is the "apocalyptic" scenarios (Wyndham's Kraken, Triffids and Cuckoos)...tho Wyndham is possibly more about plot rather than psychology/characters.
There is a line back to HG Wells's War of the Worlds as well.
G.