The high rise is swiftly transformed into a chaotic, primitive and insular world of armed tenant-clans - marauders perversely stalking one another, 'free to pursue any The tenants the sophisticated gadgetry begins to break down during an electrical failure, an Afghan belonging to one of the top-floor tenants is drowned in a swimming pool a jeweler plunges to his death from the 40th floor argumentsĮscalate and soon turn into skirmishes and physical assaults. After this, the situation rapidly worsens. Robert Laing, who occupies a modest studio apartment on the 25th floor and narrates most of the tale, first notices the decay when a champagne bottle crashes onto his balcony. Is reversed: The building begins to assume an ominous power of its own both the tenants and their idyllic, tinseled haven begin to deteriorate.ĭr. Thermostats and humidity sensors, computerized elevator route switches and overriders' service the dwellers, providing 'a more sophisticated and abstract version of the master-servant relationship.' But soon enough the relationship The luxury apartment building east of London into which 2,000 middle-class and upper-class tenants have moved appears at first to be simply another tribute to architectural banality and conspicuous technological consumption.

In this instance, the result is less than satisfying.

Themes: technology gone awry, and human regression and savagery. Ballard as in his previous novels, 'Crash' and 'Concrete Island,' focuses on two favorite fictional Books: A High Rise as Society's Parable By MEL WATKINS

High rise by jg ballard