"The Drought" (book review)

This is early JG Ballard, from the same era as The Drowned World and The Terminal Beach.
True to style, we are presented with a dystopian vision of the future (in fact, a huge drought is happening in North Eastern Africa at present - Ballard's nightmare scenarios are all too real).
Arthur Ransom leaves the town of Hamilton for the beach, spends 10 years surviving on painstakingly trapped and filtered sea water and returns to the town when he comes across wild lions (must be water somewhere).
The strength of this writing is its density of prose - even the chapter titles have a poetic tinge to them - if your eyes should skip one word, you're lost...this book is not to be read with half a brain (hence, not a good experience for chemo day!).
Ballard is a dispassionate writer, in the sense that you get a detailed account of the characters' actions, and where they are, but you need to join the dots, and even add in your own dots, to get an idea of their feelings.
As such, the book is diametrically opposed in style to the one I am currently reading (Teacher Man by Frank McCourt).
It's not a style I would spend my whole life reading, but it is an essential one to experience and admire.
I finished the book without having experienced any great sympathy for the central characters (they didn't ask or demand my sympathy), but I did have an uneasy, scared feeling in my guts which, having today heard the stunning news about the African drought (humans competing with elephants for scant food and water supplies), SHOULD be there.
Want an easy read?
Stay away!