The Drowned World - post I

One of the great joys of this year has been discovering JG Ballard. Following on from Millennium People the Drowned World shows him flexing his imagination even more with London flooded and inhabited by giant mosquitoes and lizards.

For those of us used to the idea of global warming this is of course a nightmare prophecy that might well come true. But the skill in the writing is that after just a few pages an environment of waterways, lagoons of abandoned office blocks and giant reptiles has become clear in the reader’s mind.

This is not done in a way that might put you off with too much description and explanation. If anything the real horror of the situation is the casualness with which Ballard describes how the world has heated up and how the human race is slowly dying out.

More tomorrow…