Status
Available
Call number
Library's review
England, London, ca 1985
Indeholder kapitlerne "1. Kritisk masse", "2. Selskabelighed", "3. En beboers død", "4. Op!", "5. Den lodrette by", "6. Fare i himlens gader", "7. Rejseforberedelser", "8. Rovfuglene", "9. I nedkastningszonen", "10. Den udtørrede sø", "11. Straffeekspeditioner", "12. Mod
"1. Kritisk masse" handler om at de sidste i det første af fem højhuse på 40 etager flytter ind. Dem på 31 etage kaster en flaske champagne ned, der havner på dr Robert Laings altan på 25 etage. Hans syv år ældre søster Alice Frobisher bor i en lejlighed på 28 etage sammen med sin mand. I højhuset bor næsten 2000 mennesker, der ligner hinanden på økonomi og livssituation, for lejlighederne er dyre ejerlejligheder. Laing på 30 år er lige blevet udnævnt til seniorlektor i fysiologi og har været gennem en træls skilsmisse. ???
"2. Selskabelighed" handler om ???
"3. En beboers død" handler om ???
"4. Op!" handler om ???
"5. Den lodrette by" handler om ???
"6. Fare i himlens gader" handler om ???
"7. Rejseforberedelser" handler om ???
"8. Rovfuglene" handler om ???
"9. I nedkastningszonen" handler om ???
"10. Den udtørrede sø" handler om ???
"11. Straffeekspeditioner" handler om ???
"12. Mod tinderne" handler om ???
"13. Kropsbemaling" handler om ???
"14. Den endelige triumf" handler om ???
"15. Aftenunderholdning" handler om ???
"16. En lykkelig ordning" handler om ???
"17. Søpavillonen" handler om ???
"18. Blodhaven" handler om ???
"19. Nattelege" handler om ???
???
Indeholder kapitlerne "1. Kritisk masse", "2. Selskabelighed", "3. En beboers død", "4. Op!", "5. Den lodrette by", "6. Fare i himlens gader", "7. Rejseforberedelser", "8. Rovfuglene", "9. I nedkastningszonen", "10. Den udtørrede sø", "11. Straffeekspeditioner", "12. Mod
Show More
tinderne", "13. Kropsbemaling", "14. Den endelige triumf", "15. Aftenunderholdning", "16. En lykkelig ordning", "17. Søpavillonen", "18. Blodhaven", "19. Nattelege"."1. Kritisk masse" handler om at de sidste i det første af fem højhuse på 40 etager flytter ind. Dem på 31 etage kaster en flaske champagne ned, der havner på dr Robert Laings altan på 25 etage. Hans syv år ældre søster Alice Frobisher bor i en lejlighed på 28 etage sammen med sin mand. I højhuset bor næsten 2000 mennesker, der ligner hinanden på økonomi og livssituation, for lejlighederne er dyre ejerlejligheder. Laing på 30 år er lige blevet udnævnt til seniorlektor i fysiologi og har været gennem en træls skilsmisse. ???
"2. Selskabelighed" handler om ???
"3. En beboers død" handler om ???
"4. Op!" handler om ???
"5. Den lodrette by" handler om ???
"6. Fare i himlens gader" handler om ???
"7. Rejseforberedelser" handler om ???
"8. Rovfuglene" handler om ???
"9. I nedkastningszonen" handler om ???
"10. Den udtørrede sø" handler om ???
"11. Straffeekspeditioner" handler om ???
"12. Mod tinderne" handler om ???
"13. Kropsbemaling" handler om ???
"14. Den endelige triumf" handler om ???
"15. Aftenunderholdning" handler om ???
"16. En lykkelig ordning" handler om ???
"17. Søpavillonen" handler om ???
"18. Blodhaven" handler om ???
"19. Nattelege" handler om ???
???
Show Less
Publication
[Kbh.] [Borgen] [1983] 200 s. portr. 20 cm
Description
"When a class war erupts inside a luxurious apartment block, modern elevators become violent battlegrounds and cocktail parties degenerate into marauding attacks on enemy floors. In this visionary tale, human society slips into violent reverse as once-peaceful residents, driven by primal urges, re-create a world ruled by the laws of the jungle."--Provided by publisher.
Media reviews
The first sentence of J. G. Ballard’s High-Rise ranks, in my estimation, among the most striking ever written.
User reviews
LibraryThing member michaelmacfarlane
This book centres around a typical Ballardian theme which is the idea of the upper middle classes going slightly beserk. Whilst I did enjoy the idea of the residents of a fancy modern high rise apartment block shutting out the outside world and degenerating into tribal warfare, it seemed like that
Show More
idea had been explored fully by the middle of the novel. The two central characters did not have stories compelling enough to make the ending satisfactory. Although only a very short novel, it probably could have been distilled into a novella or short story. To anyone who wants to get into JG Ballard I would recommend starting with the semi autobiographical Empire of the Sun. Whilst not typical of his other works, it gives a clear insight as to why he writes such vividly brutal dystopian fiction. Show Less
LibraryThing member roblong
I'm coming to the conclusion that I like the idea of Ballard's books rather than the books themselves. Was looking forward to this one but never quite got into it, and even though it's a short novel it felt a bit of a slog.
The ideas are interesting, and the situation well handled in some respects
There are some satisying bits and he does a good job of putting over why people actually want their civilisation to be torn up in this way, but for me it reads like an extended synopsis rather than a really good novel.
The ideas are interesting, and the situation well handled in some respects
Show More
(if slightly forced; you have to suspend some serious disbelief that not one person calls the police), but it doesn't really come alive. The main reason is obvious the moment you open the book - block paragraph after block paragraph describing someone doing something, but no real interaction between the characters or dramatic tension built up between them. It's particularly frustrating as being let off the leash is just what the characters want, and why the plot follows the path it does...There are some satisying bits and he does a good job of putting over why people actually want their civilisation to be torn up in this way, but for me it reads like an extended synopsis rather than a really good novel.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Sean191
Second book from Ballard and it was just too out there. Especially after reading Concrete island. The opinion I've formed of Ballard: He creates a situation to explore human nature, but I don't think he puts enough thought into how plausible the situation is or he doesn't care since it's secondary
Show More
to the main point of studying the people. Unfortunately, I don't feel his take on people is realistic or profound. I don't think I'll be reading further books from him. Show Less
LibraryThing member mrgan
My favorite Ballard book so far. Unlike some of his other work, High-Rise is remarkably sober and straightforward in its structure: it starts with a newly built high-rise building, a neatly self-contained neighborhood which condenses all of modern western civilization into one box. Then a little
Show More
thing goes wrong, then a few more, and pretty soon it's Sodom & Gomorrah. When I say the book is sober, I mean that Ballard describes these events in a very readable manner. But the events themselves become highly disturbing—it's hard to imagine a vice or crime or sin that doesn't make it to the page here. Yet Ballard is almost tender with how he describes these, and his poetry is often touching. If you've got the stomach for it, don't miss this one. Show Less
LibraryThing member isabelx
Laing listened to her spirited description of the continuous breakdown of services within the building, the vandalizing of an elevator and the changing cubicles of the 10th-floor swimming-pool. She referred to the high-rise as if it were some kind of huge animate presence, brooding over them and
High-Rise has been on my Kindle for a while, so I decided to read it before the film came out. It starts with Laing barbecuing a dead dog on his balcony and saying that things in the block are finally getting back to normal, so it's immediately obvious that his view of things may be a little skewed! I enjoyed watching the way the social structure disintegrates, slowly at first then ever faster, but it's a satire rather than something that could ever really happen.
Now to see the film.
Show More
keeping a magisterial eye on the events taking place. There was something in this feeling – the elevators pumping up and down the long shafts resembled pistons in the chamber of a heart. The residents moving along the corridors were the cells in a network of arteries, the lights in their apartments the neurones of a brain.High-Rise has been on my Kindle for a while, so I decided to read it before the film came out. It starts with Laing barbecuing a dead dog on his balcony and saying that things in the block are finally getting back to normal, so it's immediately obvious that his view of things may be a little skewed! I enjoyed watching the way the social structure disintegrates, slowly at first then ever faster, but it's a satire rather than something that could ever really happen.
Now to see the film.
Show Less
LibraryThing member john257hopper
This is a re-read, prompted by having watched the 1987 Doctor Who TV story Paradise Towers, which was a (not very well realised) pastiche of Ballard's novel. It is as creepy a piece of dystopian fiction as I remember it, and undoubtedly one of Ballard's best, but the sheer lack of realism struck me
Show More
even more forcibly than on the first reading. The high-rise may be a closed community psychologically, but the residents could physically remove themselves from the situation at any time. This is, however, not the main point of the novel, which, like most other Ballard novels, is to take an ordinary environment and have ordinary people living in that environment do extraordinary and increasingly bizarre things, following the course of their collective bizarre behaviour to its logical conclusion. This gives the novel, and most of his other works, a feeling of otherworldiness about them, which is simultaneously appealing and repelling (heightened in this case by my having a bad cold when reading this!). Show Less
LibraryThing member adpaton
Given Ballard’s nightmarish childhood in a Japanese prison camp [which he details in Empire of the Sun] it’s no wonder his novels are often strange and unsettling – although always brilliant.
High Rise was written over 40 years ago but except the technology – no CD players or cell phones
The story deals with a new luxury high-rise in London: recently divorced Dr Robert Laing has a studio apartment and feels no need to engage with his many neighbours but, as an observer, is an early witness to the social breakdown in the block as residence engage in a dystopian orgy of sex, destruction and murder within the sealed world of the block. Unsettling and horribly convincing.
High Rise was written over 40 years ago but except the technology – no CD players or cell phones
Show More
– it seems completely contemporary, focussing as it does on human nature; the book has been re-issued to coincide with the release of the film.The story deals with a new luxury high-rise in London: recently divorced Dr Robert Laing has a studio apartment and feels no need to engage with his many neighbours but, as an observer, is an early witness to the social breakdown in the block as residence engage in a dystopian orgy of sex, destruction and murder within the sealed world of the block. Unsettling and horribly convincing.
Show Less
LibraryThing member jmach226
High Rise by J.G. Ballard is a fantastic novel set in the not so distant past or the not so distant future. Although written in 1975, this novel rings true for all generations. The book has similarities to Lord of the Flies if the flies were grown men and women set on ruling their high rise
Show More
apartment building. The startling concept throughout the book is how normal everyone thought the actions in the building were. Residents eating house pets and raiding empty apartments. I was pleasantly surprised by the way I felt drawn to certain characters in the high rise jungle despite their actions. This book is a truly timeless read. Show Less
LibraryThing member TheCrow2
I know it's a book from 1975 but it's still like someone asked Bret Easton Ellis to write his version of the Lord of the Flies. Of course it's not a realist book, anyone can say thousands of things why it couldn't happen like that, but it doesn't matter. This is a great story about the isolation of
Show More
a micro society and its sinking back to the Stone Age level, a great parabola about how fragile a society and the human psyche can be. A must! Show Less
LibraryThing member john257hopper
This was my first Ballard novel, but certainly won't be my last. I do like dystopian fiction and this depicts horrifically and initially quite realistically the decay of life in a tower block where residents have no sense of social responsibility of proper appreciation of the threads that bind
However as the decay progresses and the horrors mount, questions of lack of realism do arise. There are 2000 people in this high-rise, many of them with high powered and quite public jobs. Why do no employers and colleagues notice people not turning up to work? Why do none of the residents communicate with the outside world during the early stages and later fail to escape from the horrors going on? Surely many residents would shop and eat outside - the supermarket and restaurant cannot cater for so many people and seem to receive no deliveries. Where is the plague of rats and consequent disease that would result from such accumulations of rubbish?
These problems aside, this is a great and chilling piece of writing. I've already bought The Drought from eBay.
Show More
together a community. However as the decay progresses and the horrors mount, questions of lack of realism do arise. There are 2000 people in this high-rise, many of them with high powered and quite public jobs. Why do no employers and colleagues notice people not turning up to work? Why do none of the residents communicate with the outside world during the early stages and later fail to escape from the horrors going on? Surely many residents would shop and eat outside - the supermarket and restaurant cannot cater for so many people and seem to receive no deliveries. Where is the plague of rats and consequent disease that would result from such accumulations of rubbish?
These problems aside, this is a great and chilling piece of writing. I've already bought The Drought from eBay.
Show Less
LibraryThing member Nickelini
An interesting premise, if you can suspend belief that no one would have called the police.
LibraryThing member clfisha
The 1st line pretty much sums this up:
"Later, as he sat on his balcony eating the dog, Dr Robert Laing reflected on the unusual events that had taken place within this huge apartment building during the previous three months"
Written in 70s, set in the (then) futuristic vision of huge luxury high
It is fascinating as much for this societal breakdown as it is for the latter twist into more offbeat horror story. This twist in facts freshens the plot as much as it serves to jar narrative. In fact some of these later ideas are evocative enough to stay with me and make me wish for a survival horror game based on the book. Apart from the ideas the other highlight in the book is the use of setting; the fact that the building not only creates the initial conflicts but also drives the plot much more than his passive protagonists. The high rise grounds the more over the top happenings in reality, which it has to be said doesn't seem that out of date (people start film everything even if it’s not in digital).
Of course this brings me to the book‘s failures. A dystopia always requires disbelief in its setup and always leans towards exaggeration but you will have to cope with both aspects throughout the book. Although it is a sobering thought that he did witness societal breakdown and incarceration in camps during WWII, so how much of an exaggeration it is who knows. His characters are weirdly passive, misogynistic things who just ramble in and out of a tall tale. Getting 3 protagonists (male) gives a great multi view point of ongoing events and help to keep the pace up but they are all unlikeable, irritating and sexist. Now whilst you are really going to have accept the inherent sexism and move on (or giggle at it or maybe use as a case study in a certain type of male psychology) it’s hard to take the other faults. Well Ok it's a bit easier as we know it’s not going end well...
Oddly while I recognise I dislike some aspects of the book, I couldn’t imagine the book without them and enjoyed it because of them. In fact I will be picking up some more, probably [Drowned world] and do recommend this book to horror and dystopian fans. Ballard is so widely influential it is probably worth trying him at least once, although lovers of [The empire of the sun] may be a bit shocked.
"Later, as he sat on his balcony eating the dog, Dr Robert Laing reflected on the unusual events that had taken place within this huge apartment building during the previous three months"
Written in 70s, set in the (then) futuristic vision of huge luxury high
Show More
rises blocks which contain everything you need (schools, shops, restaurants) which soon breakdown into a hellish dystopia. If you have read Ballard before you can see how this goes: a violent, intense and dramatic breakdown. It is fascinating as much for this societal breakdown as it is for the latter twist into more offbeat horror story. This twist in facts freshens the plot as much as it serves to jar narrative. In fact some of these later ideas are evocative enough to stay with me and make me wish for a survival horror game based on the book. Apart from the ideas the other highlight in the book is the use of setting; the fact that the building not only creates the initial conflicts but also drives the plot much more than his passive protagonists. The high rise grounds the more over the top happenings in reality, which it has to be said doesn't seem that out of date (people start film everything even if it’s not in digital).
Of course this brings me to the book‘s failures. A dystopia always requires disbelief in its setup and always leans towards exaggeration but you will have to cope with both aspects throughout the book. Although it is a sobering thought that he did witness societal breakdown and incarceration in camps during WWII, so how much of an exaggeration it is who knows. His characters are weirdly passive, misogynistic things who just ramble in and out of a tall tale. Getting 3 protagonists (male) gives a great multi view point of ongoing events and help to keep the pace up but they are all unlikeable, irritating and sexist. Now whilst you are really going to have accept the inherent sexism and move on (or giggle at it or maybe use as a case study in a certain type of male psychology) it’s hard to take the other faults. Well Ok it's a bit easier as we know it’s not going end well...
Oddly while I recognise I dislike some aspects of the book, I couldn’t imagine the book without them and enjoyed it because of them. In fact I will be picking up some more, probably [Drowned world] and do recommend this book to horror and dystopian fans. Ballard is so widely influential it is probably worth trying him at least once, although lovers of [The empire of the sun] may be a bit shocked.
Show Less
LibraryThing member KateSherrod
Look at the rest of this novel's entry on GoodReads, or at least at the user reviews, and you'll find dozens of people saying that High Rise is basically Lord of the Flies with a cocktail hour, but I find a bit more than that going on. Specifically, I find that this book feels more like a tribute
We start off the novel in a flash-forward to its ending, with one of its triple protagonists (and the most typically Ballardian-as-I-so-far-understand-that-term), Robert Laing, finishing off a meal of a roasted Alsatian dog on his balcony amid the high rise's presumable last convulsions of self-destruction. He might well do as an Edward Prendick stand-in (Prendick being the unfortunate who washes up on Doctor Moreau's island), rational, reserved, scientifically trained, somewhat familiar with his new host's reputation but presuming that in arriving he has reached something that can pass (or more than pass) for civilization, only to learn to his horror that not only his first but also his second and maybe even his third impressions are horribly wrong; his host, Anthony Royal, the Moreau-esque architect of the high rise seems a bit eccentric for choosing to live in his creation (albeit in one of two penthouses), but rational enough for all that, until things in his creation start to deteriorate and, far from deploring his fellow-residents' abandonment of civilized standards of behavior, he is covertly encouraging it, all but rubbing his hands together in glee at the prospect of his captive population's devolution into savages, if not outright animals. For his last act, he plans to take his Alsatian and a pack of other dogs down into the depths of the building, a-hunting, and to open up all the high rise's windows to let in the teeming flocks of gulls and other birds that have attended him on the roof over the last year. And yes, there's even a Leopard-Man, Richard Wilder, a TV news man who starts off with the aim of making a documentary about the high rise but finishes stalking its corridors in improvised war paint, brandishing a spear, raping and pillaging (pretty much literally) his way up from the second floor to the 40th.
And as I said, High Rise almost reminds me more of Blindness. Say, Blindness with sighted people, and sighted people living in luxury at that. The comparison might not seem a logical one to make, but stick with me here. In Blindness, victims of a sudden and inexplicable plague are quarantined and left to fend for themselves in a disused mental institution. The rest of society sort of pokes food at them now and then but they're otherwise isolated and unsupervised and helplessly revert to an animalistic proto-society centered around resource-grabbing, bullying and despair. And, like in High Rise, this proto-society winds up living in amazing squalor, the kind of squalor that only hundreds of newly-blind people who can not even find the toilets, much less keep them working -- or, in the case of High Rise, two thousand maniacs who have vandalized all the sanitary systems in an early wave of passive aggression and then in a later wave of real aggression and savagery just start letting the sacks of garbage pile up everywhere -- can be squalid. Both novels are books you can smell.
But instead of innocent victims of an inexplicable plague of "white blindness", High Rise features a self-selected population of well-to-do tax accountants, doctors, lawyers, airline pilots and television executives, living in more splendid isolation, but isolation just the same, their tower of luxury condos cut off from the rest of the world by acres of parking lot, food and liquor poked through to them via a floor of shopping in the building, all their needs accommodated on-site (swimming pools, an elementary school, the aforementioned shopping level) -- and, with no municipal authority aside from what they invent themselves, these people also revert to a state of low-level tribalism, the pet-owners versus the parents, the upper floors versus the lower**, the common areas and especially the elevators the battlegrounds.
All of this is ultimately and essentially Anthony Royal's creation. Revealed as a secret hater of the uniformity, simplicity and elegant functionality of mid-20th-century industrial design, he has created its apotheosis in this building and is gratified to see that his hatred is justified; all that sameness and ease and tedium drives people insane, and he gladly goes along for the ride, strutting around in his white suit with bloody handprints on the hips and chest, his take on a new executioner's uniform, even as Wilder hunts him from below and Laing disappears into the middle floors, Ballard's typical passive spectator saying "Huh, well. How about that?"
And yes, there are elements of Lord of the Flies, too, of course, in the demented, gleeful perversity exhibited by these three and all the other residents of the building, most of whom are only designated by their occupation and floor, e.g. the newspaper columnist from the 37th***, as they explore the "limitless possibilities of the high rise."
Thus, with High Rise, Ballard proves that you don't need an environmental catastrophe to bring out the strangest and worst in people; sometimes you just need an enclosed space with minimal supervision**** and too many resources held in common. Which is to say that Ballard totally outdid himself here.
Frighteningly enough, he also made all of this seem plausible. Very much so.
My friends who are Ballard fans (and really, I seem only to have two kinds of friends, Ballard fans and people who just haven't read him yet) seem mostly to name this as their favorite of his novels, if not their favorite novel ever. Certainly it's my favorite of what I've read so far -- and it's going to be pretty hard for the Master to top himself. But we'll see. I have a few yet to go, after all!
*Interestingly enough, the film director/screenwriter Richard Stanley wrote both the 1996 film adaptation of The Island of Doctor Moreau and the upcoming one of High Rise.
**Even before all the really interesting stuff happens, a new class system has developed in the building, with the residents of the upper floors literally looking down on the middle and lower floors' residents, even though the outside world would homogenize the lot of them as privileged upper class white bastards.
***So we first come to know each other, in this modern civilized world, and so, mostly, we remain. How much do you know about your neighbors? And how much, do you suppose, do you merely think you know? And how much do you care?
****Readers who object to the non-presence of police or emergency services are missing the point. Part of the residents' madness is their commitment to keeping it all "within the family", counting on the awe and envy in which they believe the rest of the world holds them to keep curiosity at bay. From the outside, as Royal notes at one point when every single floor has erupted into furious, angry partying on the balconies, the luxury high rise looks like it's just one swingin' good time that never ends. And everyone keeps showing up for work, more or less decently groomed despite the lack of water and electricity, right up until the very end, to maintain the facade and the fiction that everything's just fine and don't you wish you were as awesome as we are.
Show More
to H.G. Wells and The Island of Doctor Moreau* with a dash of Jose Saramago's Blindness thrown in for extra flavor.We start off the novel in a flash-forward to its ending, with one of its triple protagonists (and the most typically Ballardian-as-I-so-far-understand-that-term), Robert Laing, finishing off a meal of a roasted Alsatian dog on his balcony amid the high rise's presumable last convulsions of self-destruction. He might well do as an Edward Prendick stand-in (Prendick being the unfortunate who washes up on Doctor Moreau's island), rational, reserved, scientifically trained, somewhat familiar with his new host's reputation but presuming that in arriving he has reached something that can pass (or more than pass) for civilization, only to learn to his horror that not only his first but also his second and maybe even his third impressions are horribly wrong; his host, Anthony Royal, the Moreau-esque architect of the high rise seems a bit eccentric for choosing to live in his creation (albeit in one of two penthouses), but rational enough for all that, until things in his creation start to deteriorate and, far from deploring his fellow-residents' abandonment of civilized standards of behavior, he is covertly encouraging it, all but rubbing his hands together in glee at the prospect of his captive population's devolution into savages, if not outright animals. For his last act, he plans to take his Alsatian and a pack of other dogs down into the depths of the building, a-hunting, and to open up all the high rise's windows to let in the teeming flocks of gulls and other birds that have attended him on the roof over the last year. And yes, there's even a Leopard-Man, Richard Wilder, a TV news man who starts off with the aim of making a documentary about the high rise but finishes stalking its corridors in improvised war paint, brandishing a spear, raping and pillaging (pretty much literally) his way up from the second floor to the 40th.
And as I said, High Rise almost reminds me more of Blindness. Say, Blindness with sighted people, and sighted people living in luxury at that. The comparison might not seem a logical one to make, but stick with me here. In Blindness, victims of a sudden and inexplicable plague are quarantined and left to fend for themselves in a disused mental institution. The rest of society sort of pokes food at them now and then but they're otherwise isolated and unsupervised and helplessly revert to an animalistic proto-society centered around resource-grabbing, bullying and despair. And, like in High Rise, this proto-society winds up living in amazing squalor, the kind of squalor that only hundreds of newly-blind people who can not even find the toilets, much less keep them working -- or, in the case of High Rise, two thousand maniacs who have vandalized all the sanitary systems in an early wave of passive aggression and then in a later wave of real aggression and savagery just start letting the sacks of garbage pile up everywhere -- can be squalid. Both novels are books you can smell.
But instead of innocent victims of an inexplicable plague of "white blindness", High Rise features a self-selected population of well-to-do tax accountants, doctors, lawyers, airline pilots and television executives, living in more splendid isolation, but isolation just the same, their tower of luxury condos cut off from the rest of the world by acres of parking lot, food and liquor poked through to them via a floor of shopping in the building, all their needs accommodated on-site (swimming pools, an elementary school, the aforementioned shopping level) -- and, with no municipal authority aside from what they invent themselves, these people also revert to a state of low-level tribalism, the pet-owners versus the parents, the upper floors versus the lower**, the common areas and especially the elevators the battlegrounds.
All of this is ultimately and essentially Anthony Royal's creation. Revealed as a secret hater of the uniformity, simplicity and elegant functionality of mid-20th-century industrial design, he has created its apotheosis in this building and is gratified to see that his hatred is justified; all that sameness and ease and tedium drives people insane, and he gladly goes along for the ride, strutting around in his white suit with bloody handprints on the hips and chest, his take on a new executioner's uniform, even as Wilder hunts him from below and Laing disappears into the middle floors, Ballard's typical passive spectator saying "Huh, well. How about that?"
And yes, there are elements of Lord of the Flies, too, of course, in the demented, gleeful perversity exhibited by these three and all the other residents of the building, most of whom are only designated by their occupation and floor, e.g. the newspaper columnist from the 37th***, as they explore the "limitless possibilities of the high rise."
Thus, with High Rise, Ballard proves that you don't need an environmental catastrophe to bring out the strangest and worst in people; sometimes you just need an enclosed space with minimal supervision**** and too many resources held in common. Which is to say that Ballard totally outdid himself here.
Frighteningly enough, he also made all of this seem plausible. Very much so.
My friends who are Ballard fans (and really, I seem only to have two kinds of friends, Ballard fans and people who just haven't read him yet) seem mostly to name this as their favorite of his novels, if not their favorite novel ever. Certainly it's my favorite of what I've read so far -- and it's going to be pretty hard for the Master to top himself. But we'll see. I have a few yet to go, after all!
*Interestingly enough, the film director/screenwriter Richard Stanley wrote both the 1996 film adaptation of The Island of Doctor Moreau and the upcoming one of High Rise.
**Even before all the really interesting stuff happens, a new class system has developed in the building, with the residents of the upper floors literally looking down on the middle and lower floors' residents, even though the outside world would homogenize the lot of them as privileged upper class white bastards.
***So we first come to know each other, in this modern civilized world, and so, mostly, we remain. How much do you know about your neighbors? And how much, do you suppose, do you merely think you know? And how much do you care?
****Readers who object to the non-presence of police or emergency services are missing the point. Part of the residents' madness is their commitment to keeping it all "within the family", counting on the awe and envy in which they believe the rest of the world holds them to keep curiosity at bay. From the outside, as Royal notes at one point when every single floor has erupted into furious, angry partying on the balconies, the luxury high rise looks like it's just one swingin' good time that never ends. And everyone keeps showing up for work, more or less decently groomed despite the lack of water and electricity, right up until the very end, to maintain the facade and the fiction that everything's just fine and don't you wish you were as awesome as we are.
Show Less
LibraryThing member jovemako
I read the paperback version a few months before this came out which worked out for me because I tend to get distracted at times listening to audio books (I'm a visual reader). Story wise, this makes me think of Lord of the Flies. Swap out the clan of boys and the island for partying adults and the
Anyway, I also happen to be a fan of Tom Hiddleston's performances and in this case it paired off really well. The British gentleman quality to his voice for the narration fits great for this story since the story is about civilized people who fall into a tribal type mentality. I found myself giggling at times when he would switch to a higher tone to portray any of the women in the story (mainly anytime he portrayed Ann Royal) and thinking what a great Jeremy Irons impersonation he has to portray Anthony Royal. Overall, it painted a vivid picture and was almost like watching a movie unfold in my head. (speaking of, can't wait for the movie to come out later this year!)
I do like this audio version than the previous one. I listened to a few minutes of the earlier version and it just didn't have the same entertainment value to me. the other narrator had a deeper tone that left the words feeling almost gritty.
Show More
building it's extremely similar- in a good way. (I liked Lord of the Flies.)Anyway, I also happen to be a fan of Tom Hiddleston's performances and in this case it paired off really well. The British gentleman quality to his voice for the narration fits great for this story since the story is about civilized people who fall into a tribal type mentality. I found myself giggling at times when he would switch to a higher tone to portray any of the women in the story (mainly anytime he portrayed Ann Royal) and thinking what a great Jeremy Irons impersonation he has to portray Anthony Royal. Overall, it painted a vivid picture and was almost like watching a movie unfold in my head. (speaking of, can't wait for the movie to come out later this year!)
I do like this audio version than the previous one. I listened to a few minutes of the earlier version and it just didn't have the same entertainment value to me. the other narrator had a deeper tone that left the words feeling almost gritty.
Show Less
LibraryThing member TomMcGreevy
A lovely dystopia focussing on a well to do highrise community in Britain... how things fall apart, and what comes out the other side. Well written and prescient enough given that it was written in 1975. Faultlines run deep...
LibraryThing member atreic
Some bit of my brain thinks it’s worthy to read books that you don’t enjoy. I mean, if all you read is page turning YA are you really stretching your brain, or getting other perspectives? And I think you can learn a lot by going back to sci fi that was written a few years ago, to see how things
But what does that say about this book (other than ‘I didn’t really enjoy it’)? Well, I think it’s helped me to pinpoint what I like about dystopias – I like the glimmer of humanity that keeps going, that grows like grass through concrete. I like the fact that people hope, and cope, no matter how much life throws at them.
This book, on the other hand, doesn’t really believe in people. I found out afterwards that the author had spent a chunk of his childhood in a Japanese war camp, which you could use as a trite explanation for why he writes such bleak novels. There isn’t a character in the story that felt more than a superficial pensketch, forced to move through set pieces. The whole book is soaked in a kind of fatalism, ‘he Knows that he must climb the High Rise’ which is quite powerful in a big picture way, but left me as a reader thinking ‘why?’ quite a lot. I mean, the ‘why’ is ‘because social norms are a veneer and as soon as things flicker and crack we all revert to fighting and sex and torture’, which is the story the author clearly wants to tell, but at the level of the individual things never quite held true. And don't get me started on ranting about the portrayal of women in this book.
Still, if you want a bleak dystopia threaded with themes of class and the isolation of modern life with no sympathetic characters and just a slow descent into misery this might be for you.
Show More
have changed. But what does that say about this book (other than ‘I didn’t really enjoy it’)? Well, I think it’s helped me to pinpoint what I like about dystopias – I like the glimmer of humanity that keeps going, that grows like grass through concrete. I like the fact that people hope, and cope, no matter how much life throws at them.
This book, on the other hand, doesn’t really believe in people. I found out afterwards that the author had spent a chunk of his childhood in a Japanese war camp, which you could use as a trite explanation for why he writes such bleak novels. There isn’t a character in the story that felt more than a superficial pensketch, forced to move through set pieces. The whole book is soaked in a kind of fatalism, ‘he Knows that he must climb the High Rise’ which is quite powerful in a big picture way, but left me as a reader thinking ‘why?’ quite a lot. I mean, the ‘why’ is ‘because social norms are a veneer and as soon as things flicker and crack we all revert to fighting and sex and torture’, which is the story the author clearly wants to tell, but at the level of the individual things never quite held true. And don't get me started on ranting about the portrayal of women in this book.
Still, if you want a bleak dystopia threaded with themes of class and the isolation of modern life with no sympathetic characters and just a slow descent into misery this might be for you.
Show Less
LibraryThing member jonfaith
A new social type was being created by the apartment building, a cool, unemotional personality impervious to the psychological pressures of high-rise life, with minimal needs for privacy, who thrived like an advanced species of machine in the neutral atmosphere.
High-Rise is both bleak and
High-Rise is both bleak and
Show More
prescient, there's no doubt in that. What Ballard didn't anticipate was how one could make such distinctions, incorporate such new traits and attitudes, how such evolution could be made portable with an Apple Watch or a stroll through Whole Foods. There are certainly limitations to the tome. While we rotate between three protagonists, we simply accumulate anthems, tacit shifts to the primitive and ever more description to garbage and human waste. Not much time is wasted on character outside of an establishment of type. I didn't like the book, but that's Ballard's point. Difficult to fathom how this was filmed unless one consider the mess that was Blindness (2008 Dir. Meirelles). I thought Concrete Island was better equipped to address alienation but I do applaud the variations on a theme. Show Less
LibraryThing member fernbrodie
I enjoyed this novel immensely, as Ballard is adept at balancing tense, suspenseful action with a humourous, underlying sense of irony. It is a brilliantly written and provocative story that provides us with an all-too-real glimpse into our own future.
LibraryThing member Steph1203
I don't always enjoy books assigned for school but I liked this one, I wanted to know how everything turned out in the end; but man, some parts of this book were messed up.
LibraryThing member DinadansFriend
Inside a modern high rise building, cut off from their larger society and services, the population reverts to the level of hunter-gatherers. Bloody and fun.
LibraryThing member jovemako
a good read. I kind of compare it to a Lord of the Flies type story. so if you like that sort of thing, I definitely recommend this one. (note: it's also being produced as a UK film that's being released in 2015. it should be a good movie if they stuck to the text.)
LibraryThing member stillbeing
After one false start I finally got through it, and, no it isn't my favourite Ballard book so far, which isn't to say it doesn't have its good points. Freakish, creepy and obsessive, the story tracks the disintegration of a newly-built highrise from the pinnacle of modern convenience to a twisted
Personally, I think this could be done really well as a film (providing one wasn't too concerned about censorship) and there are plenty of such complexes being built around Melbourne these days - it could be set so perfectly in the new Docklands complex.
Show More
and perverse enclosed world of primitive survival.Personally, I think this could be done really well as a film (providing one wasn't too concerned about censorship) and there are plenty of such complexes being built around Melbourne these days - it could be set so perfectly in the new Docklands complex.
Show Less
LibraryThing member electrascaife
Ooof. Tense. And outright weird. But cool. V. cool. Narration by Mr. Hiddleston didn't hurt it none, either.
LibraryThing member themulhern
Absurd and pointlessly depressing.
LibraryThing member dimwizard
could not get engaged with the characters, setting or theme of the book.
Awards
Language
Original language
English
Original publication date
1975
Physical description
200 p.; 20 cm
ISBN
8741853849 / 9788741853840
Local notes
Omslag: Kjeld Brandt
Omslagsillustration: Dan Frøjlund
Omslaget viser et højhus
Indskannet omslag - N650U - 150 dpi
Oversat fra engelsk "High-Rise" af Claus Bech
Omslagsillustration: Dan Frøjlund
Omslaget viser et højhus
Indskannet omslag - N650U - 150 dpi
Oversat fra engelsk "High-Rise" af Claus Bech
Similar in this library
Is by Anna Kavan
Pages
200
DDC/MDS
| 813 |