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The Drowned World

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For the 1998 song by Madonna, see Drowned World/Substitute for Love. For the 2009 Doctor Who audio story, see The Drowned World (Doctor Who audio).

The Drowned World
Cover of first edition (paperback)
AuthorJ. G. Ballard
LanguageEnglish
GenreScience fiction
PublisherBerkley Books
Publication date
1962[1]
Publication placeUnited Kingdom
Media typePrint (hardback & paperback)
Pages158

The Drowned World (1962), by J. G. Ballard, is a British science fiction novel that depicts a post-apocalyptic future in which global warming, caused by increased solar radiation, has rendered uninhabitable much of the surface of planet Earth. The story follows a team of scientists who are researching the environmental developments occurred in the flooded and abandoned city of London. The novel is an expansion of the novella “The Drowned World”, which was first published in Science Fiction Adventures magazine, in the January 1962 issue, Vol. 4, No. 24.

In 2010, Time Magazine named The Drowned World one of the top-ten best post-apocalyptic books.[2] The novel has been identified as a founding text in the literary genre known as climate fiction.[3]

Synopsis

In the mid-22nd century, violent and prolonged solar storms enlarge the Van Allen radiation belt, which deteriorated the ionosphere of the Earth. The solar radiation bombarding the planet increased surface temperatures, raised the levels of the seas, and so established a tropical climate throughout most of the planet; with most of Earth no longer habitable by humans, the survivors migrate to the North Pole and to the South Pole, which the planetary tropical climate has rendered fit for human habitation.

In 2145, under the command of Colonel Riggs, Dr Robert Kerans is part of a scientific expedition sent to catalogue the flora and fauna of the lagoon that covers the city of London.[4] In the course of their scientific work, the members of the expedition begin to experience strange dreams. Amidst talk of the army and the scientists moving north, Lieutenant Hardman, the other officer in the expedition, flees the London lagoon and heads south; a search team sent to fetch him failed.

As the other inhabitants of the lagoon finally flee the overheating sunlight and head north, Kerans and two other scientists, the reclusive Dr. Beatrice Dahl and Dr Alan Bodkin, decided to remain. Moreover, a group of pirates, led by a man named Strangman, arrive to loot treasures from the deep waters of the London lagoon. After draining the lagoon, Strangman and his pirates expose the city of London, which disgusts the scientists Kerans and Bodkin; the latter attempts and fails to explode the flood defences and re-flood the London area. Afterwards, with Kerans and Beatrice resigned to their fate, the pirate leader Strangman vengefully pursues and kills the scientist Bodkin.

Meanwhile, Strangman and his pirates become suspicious of Kerans, and they imprison him and Dr. Dahl. The pirates torture Kerans, which he survives; although weakened by the torture, Kerans attempts and fails to free Dahl from captivity. Kerans and Dahl are confronted by Strangman and his pirates, but Colonel Riggs and the army return to rescue them from the pirates. Rather than punish Strangman, the military uthorities co-operate with him, which angers and frustrates Dr. Kerans, who then successfully re-floods the lagoon, at which Dr. Bodkin had failed.

Weakened by a wound, Kerans flees the lagoon and heads southwards, without aim, and encounters the frail figure of Lieutenant Hardman, who has become blind. After aiding Hardman, Dr. Kerans continues travelling south, like “a second Adam searching for the forgotten paradises of the reborn sun.”

Themes

As with many of Ballard's later works, the novel depicts characters who seize on apocalyptic or chaotic breakdowns in civilization as opportunities to pursue new modes of perception, unconscious urges, or systems of meaning.[5] Writer Travis Eldborough stated that Ballard's work, and this novel in particular, allows us to "ask whether our sense of self—and of self as independent, sovereign, irrevocable—is itself a construction, and a temporary one."[6]

Critic Brian Baker states that The Drowned World "explores the deep implications of time, space, psychology and evolutionary biology in order to dismantle anthropocentric narratives and, in turn, open up alternative ways of experiencing, and conceiving of, contemporary human subjectivity."[7] Scholar Jim Clarke stated that in the novel and its 1966 successor The Crystal World, "Ballard's solitary protagonists traverse liminal states, often as psychological as physical, in which civilization recedes to the status of memory, and existence comes to be dominated and defined by the environment."[8]

Reception

Following the novel's release, writer Kingsley Amis called Ballard "one of the brightest new stars in post-war fiction," and described the book as containing "an oppressive power reminiscent of Conrad." Galaxy Science Fiction writer Algis Budrys mocked The Drowned World as "a run, hide, slither, grope and die book".[9]

In a retrospective piece for The Telegraph, writer Will Self noted that Ballard's work was unappreciated during his life, and that following a critical reappraisal of his work, "The Drowned World shows him to be the most important British writer of the late 20th century."[10] Writer Martin Amis states that "it is the measure of [Ballard's] creative radicalism that he welcomes these desperate dystopias with every atom of his being," but criticized the novel's perfunctory plotting, stating that "We conclude that Ballard is quite unstimulated by human interaction – unless it takes the form of something inherently weird, like mob atavism or mass hysteria. What excites him is human isolation."[11]

See also

References

  1. ^ "JG Ballard's The Drowned World Reviewed". jgballard.ca.
  2. ^ Romero, Frances (7 June 2010). "Top 10 Post-Apocalyptic Books". Time Magazine. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
  3. ^ Clarke, Jim (2013). "Reading Climate Change in J.G. Ballard". Critical Survey. 25 (2): 7–21. doi:10.3167/cs.2013.250202.
  4. ^ "The Drowned World | W. W. Norton & Company". books.wwnorton.com. Retrieved 6 February 2016.
  5. ^ "Will Self on JG Ballard's 'The Drowned World'". Telegraph.co.uk. Retrieved 6 February 2016.
  6. ^ Elborough, Travis. "Reality is a Stage Set: Travis Elborough talks to J. G. Ballard".'" (PDF). Humanities Review. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
  7. ^ Baker, Brian (March 2008). The Geometry of the Space Age: J. G. Ballard's Short Fiction and Science Fiction of the 1960s. Continuum. pp. 11–22. ISBN 9780826497260. Retrieved 2 April 2018. {{cite book}}: |website= ignored (help)
  8. ^ Clarke, Jim (2013). "Reading Climate Change in J.G. Ballard". Critical Survey. 25 (2): 7–21. doi:10.3167/cs.2013.250202. JSTOR 42751031.
  9. ^ Budrys, Algis (December 1966). "Galaxy Bookshelf". Galaxy Science Fiction. pp. 125–133.
  10. ^ Self, Will. "Will Self on J.G. Ballard's 'The Drowned World'". The Telegraph. Retrieved 2 April 2018.
  11. ^ Amis, Martin. "Rereading The Drowned World". Retrieved 2 April 2018.

Sources

  • McCarthy, Patrick A., (1997). "Allusions in Ballard's The Drowned World", Science-Fiction Studies #72, 24:2, July, 302–10.
  • Rossi, Umberto, (1994). "Images from the Disaster Area: An Apocalyptic Reading of Urban Landscapes in Ballard's The Drowned World and Hello America", Science-Fiction Studies #62, 21:1, March, 81–97.
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