Book info

• Title
• Author J. G. Ballard
• Year
• Genres

Thoughts

This book is intensely dark and disturbing, telling the short story of a shiny new high-rise tower block in the 1970s gradually descending into a pit of death, despair and uncivilised behaviour. It’s brooding and depressing and generally left me feeling the world is a little bit worse than I thought.

That being said, it’s an impressive piece of writing. How things can go from normality to whatever you would call the end result without any overt activities to turn things around is incredible. The gradual isolation is described so well, that feeling of gradually alienating yourself from the outside world, I was practically living it too.

It’s good this is a shorter story, as you need to get fully involved in the narrative to really appreciate each stage along the journey to insanity. It’s just important to be able to pull yourself out of it and realise that in any normal situation, people would just leave the building. Phew!

Rating: Unrated