Define Books In Pursuance Of Concrete Island
| Original Title: | Concrete Island |
| ISBN: | 031242034X (ISBN13: 9780312420345) |
| Edition Language: | English |
| Characters: | Robert Maitland |
| Setting: | London, England |
J.G. Ballard
Paperback | Pages: 176 pages Rating: 3.59 | 7590 Users | 429 Reviews
Relation Concering Books Concrete Island
On a day in April, just after three o'clock in the afternoon, Robert Maitland's car crashes over the concrete parapet of a high-speed highway onto the island below, where he is injured and, finally, trapped. What begins as an almost ludicrous predicament in Concrete Island soon turns into horror as Maitland - a wickedly modern Robinson Crusoe - realizes that, despite evidence of other inhabitants, this doomed terrain has become a mirror of his own mind. Seeking the dark outer rim of the everyday, Ballard weaves private catastrophe into an intensely specular allegory.
Present Of Books Concrete Island
| Title | : | Concrete Island |
| Author | : | J.G. Ballard |
| Book Format | : | Paperback |
| Book Edition | : | Special Edition |
| Pages | : | Pages: 176 pages |
| Published | : | October 5th 2001 by Picador (first published April 1974) |
| Categories | : | Fiction. Science Fiction. Thriller. Drama. Suspense. Novels. Mystery |
Rating Of Books Concrete Island
Ratings: 3.59 From 7590 Users | 429 ReviewsRate Of Books Concrete Island
I have been putting off reading my first Ballard for just too long to feel genuinely disappointed. It's just that I have grown used to thinking of Ballard as potentially my favourite author, one whose brutalist anti-fantasies would forever define my personal ideal for architectural aesthetics conveyed in writing. Now that I'm somewhat underwhelemed by his heavy-handed post-existentialist allegorism (did i rly just type that) and poor handling of anything involving more than one character (or oneA haunting tale, throbbing in its urban insecurity, matters of quotidian angst reach crisis. Each daytrader becomes a Crusoe. It is imperative that the reader control its breathing. Once the cast expanded, about half way through, the tension dropped considerably and a different game was unleashed, different and not near as compelling. This becomes a dialogue about conformity, productivity. Matters become controlled when steered by a bank account. I still enjoyed Concrete Island immensely.
The first book I read by Ballard was The Drowned World. What I liked most about it was the imagery. The story itself, especially once the action truly began, seemed much less important than the mood Ballard established at the beginning with his lush descriptive writing. However, with Concrete Island, I was immediately captivated by the story.This is the story of one man, Robert Maitland, and for almost half the book he is the only character. I like that. I like stories that focus on a single
This was the second Ballard novel that I read and it isn't as good as The Drowned World, but I preferred it to The Atrocity Exhibition, that I think was more collected pieces than an actual novel of any sorts. This one is about an architect on his way home, crashing and landing in an urban wasteland, right in the middle of a load of intersecting motorways which pass overhead, supported by huge concrete pillars and surrounding his perimeters on all sides. He is trapped on a man made island, as
Concrete Island: Stranded in modernity like a latter-day CrusoeOriginally posted at Fantasy LiteratureIn the early 1970s, J.G. Ballard was busily creating modern fables of mankinds increasingly urban environment and the alienating effect on the human psyche. Far from humans yearning to return to their agrarian and hunter-gatherer roots, Ballard posited that modern man would begin to adapt to his newly-created environment, but at what price? Ballards protagonists in Crash (1973), Concrete Island
Even if no man is an island, in the modern world any man could be found living in a total psychological isolation like on a desert island. And anyone can feel lonely in a crowdIn fact, the whole city was now asleep, part of an immense unconscious Europe, while he himself crawled about on a forgotten traffic island like the nightmare of this slumbering continent.So Concrete Island can be read as a parable of alienation of an individual in the vast urbanized world.He realized, above all, that the
Ballard in the Seventies was a true artist. I love how obsessive these novels are, each one picking apart the cold voidyness of cars, concrete, high-rises but also maybe saying these things are just reflections of our own unnatural selves (in a Ballardian twist my copy has the wrong blurb on the back so the fact that nothing happened as described just confused my dough-brain even more than usual).
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