J. G. BallardHigh-Rise: A Novel

I purchased this book after seeing it in my recommended picks on Amazon. I also remembered reading somewhere that they are making a movie based on this book.I am so glad I read this book. There is no doubt in my mind that I will read this book again. I absolutely could not put it down! Without giving anything away, High-Rise is an apocalypse tale of people living in a pre-apocalyptic world. As a reader, you become involved "watching" the residents of a brand new, upscale apartment High-Rise make an absolute descent into madness...This book is exquisitely written, fully describing the atmosphere that the residents are living in and the changes they aren't even aware they are making.I am very hard to please when reading. If a book does not grab my attention within the first few pages, I cannot finish it...on the first page of the first chapter, the main character is sitting on his balcony...eating a dog. How do you stop reading that? You kind of have to find out what brought him to that point, right?Anyway, try the free sample, if you can't stop reading at that point, buy it...simple.

The fact that this was written back in the 1970's was astonishing to me. There really was no way to tell exactly when this was to have taken place, and I think it works very well for this story.The characters are very well thought out. It's fascinating to me to see civilized human beings slowly crumble to the level of savagery, and yet no one does anything to stop it. No spoilers but let me warn you. There are some extremely disturbing scenes that are very well written, and the horror that you may feel doesn't stop you from continuing on. If anything, at least in my case, it made me keep turning the pages to see what would happen next.Don't recommend it for everyone. If you like Brave New World, 1984, Animal Farm and Lord of the Flies, you'll have no problem with this. For those not so sure, I'd say check it out of your local library first. And like I said, while it's not for everyone, it is a very compelling story. (Special note to all the Tom Hiddleston fans: he's scheduled to play Laing, who is also a very complex character. Just to ease your minds, and this IS a spoiler alert, he never succumbs to the craziness going on all around him. But there will be some scenes you may not be comfortable with him portraying.)

I read High-Rise after a friend mentioned it in a conversation about the movie Snowpiercer, suggesting similarities. (There were some!)I hadn't read Ballard in years. I remembered loving Concrete Island and Crash. Running Wild, I did not like so much and High-Rise reminded me more of Running Wild. They're both stories where upper class Western humans are driven to extreme violence by their over-planned, over-coddling environments.In both books we are expected to accept that these environments would cause this behavior, but without a lot of convincing proof. In High-Rise we must suspend disbelief that feuding neighbors would devolve into warring tribes. And, because the residents could leave the High-Rise at anytime, we must also suspend disbelief that they would choose this dangerous fight for survival over the comforts of their previous bourgeois lives.For the first 50 pages or so Ballard mostly just alludes to events in the building that might cause this dystopian state. We have to guess at the specifics and I was left wondering if he was unable to come up with anything convincing and if this book was just a sketch of an idea, not yet filled in. Eventually he does deliver with specifics including disputes over the elevators and swimming pool and only then did the book pull me in.High-Rise and Running Wild are both very short books and we don't have time to get to know the characters very deeply but that doesn't really matter because Ballard's fantasy is that everyone in these scenarios would react this way regardless of their particular emotional situations. One of the ideas in High-Rise seems to be that humans miss the thrill of survival, necessity, violence, impulse- that our modern comforts have stripped us of something still intrinsic, and once rediscovered, humans can't get enough of it. Within a few months the residents have devolved to an animal state. The men are proud of their own smells and plumage and the women are almost indifferent to rape.The book is well-written and did keep my interest but I found myself getting annoyed at how often Ballard resorts to phrases like "In a strange way", "In some obscure way", "he half expected", "he half suspected." I couldn't tell if these phrases were lazy or their repetition was meant to allude to this primal undercurrent emerging from the subconscious, of which the characters are only "half-aware". I was much more satisfied with the vivid descriptions of the layout of the building and the accumulating trash than the characters' motivation and emotional states. This book posits an interesting dystopian scenario, but that's about all it does.

J.G. Ballard is always a thrill to read. Not only can he write, and well at that, he has a very easy-going way of writing that most people could read without strain. High-Rise is an elevated-Dystopia novel. And the turn at the end is subtle, but also realized (somewhere in the back of the mind) just beforehand. The three main characters all have striking personalities; Royal, Wilder and Liang all live on different levels (bottom, top, middle). The best thing about this novel is not the action (Ballard hardly describes violence except to portray certain critical points in the High-Rise's degeneration), but the thoughts and the primordial feelings slowly coming to surface as the situation worsens, or gets better as some residences think. Although Ballard is prone to use the occasional "big-word" is does not get in the way of the reading. And as you go further in, you are move and more likely to become entangled (late-nights reader's prepare!). A very quick thoughtful, exciting read.

Livro em bom estado

Libro in inglese, consigliato anche a chi sta imparando la lingua. Spedizione velocissima.Un elegante condominio di 40 piani in una zona residenziale, costruito secondo le più avanzate tecnologie, è in grado di garantire l’isolamento ai suoi residenti ma si dimostrerà incapace di difenderli. Il grattacielo londinese di vetro e cemento, alto quaranta piani e dotato di mille appartamenti, è il teatro della generale ricaduta nella barbarie di un’intera classe sociale emergente. Viene a mancare l’elettricità ed è la fine della civiltà, la metamorfosi da paradiso a inferno

Great product, came as described in proper packaging.

Tom Hiddlestonの声、読み方(用語は知らない:イントネーション、クリアーな発音、テンポ等)、脚本の英語のレベル等、全てにおいて聞きやすい。内容は、ひとの好き好きなので割愛。+α:人により異なるし、何が作用しているか分からないが、聞いていると頭がスッキリする。

Human beings, under the veneer of civilization, have primordial urges that only wait for a favorable occasion to explode: this is the core of “High-Rise”, the famous novel by J.G. Ballard that portrays eerie atmospheres, savagery, paranoia and chaos.The action is set in London in the 70s. At the beginning the luxury high-rise, provided with all sorts of comfort, is a kind of “happy island” and its inhabitants nearly don’t feel any desire to go out. Power failures and services malfunctioning uncover the weakness of the building, whose structure is too complex. Before the blackout a number of tensions were already evident, but civil cohabitation rules and savoir-faire were able to hold all this animosity. Disruptions unleash class conflicts between lower floors and upper floors, tribal fights to conquer elevators and stairways and physical clashes and barricades on the landings.Inhabitants neither escape nor search for a helping hand, but they are spellbound by this looming behemoth. Therefore, they don’t leave the building and plunge into an abyss of brutality. Two characters particularly symbolize the class conflict: Richard Wilder, the rough documentary director who lives at the second floor and yearns for the penthouse, and Anthony Royal, the high-rise architect, a kind of demiurge. The main character is Robert Laing, a young doctor who has chosen to live in the building searching for anonymity and then involved in the reigning chaos. Laing’s sanity will crumble along with the high-rise.A well-written book, with a fluid prose, and a very engaging plot. A must read.