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    The Crystal World
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    The Crystal World
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    The Crystal World
    Ebook210 pages3 hours

    The Crystal World

    By J. G. Ballard and Robert Macfarlane

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateJun 28, 2012
    ISBN9780007374892
    Unavailable
    The Crystal World
    Author

    J. G. Ballard

    J. G. Ballard is the author of numerous books, including Empire of the Sun, the underground classic Crash, The Kindness of Women, and Super-Cannes. He is revered as one of the most important writers of fiction to address the consequences of twentieth-century technology. He lives in England.

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    Reviews for The Crystal World

    3.5/5

    126 ratings9 reviews

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    • 3/5
      This review from PeterCrump exactly captures how I feel about this book--and he rated it the same as me. "A novel of imagery and metaphor rather than story or character. Ballard is on top hallucinogenic form, his somewhat passive protagonists adrift in an African jungle crystallizing mysteriously around them. The Ballard leitmotifs of entropy and decay are starkly present, but it's the feverish fecundity of the crystal world that takes centre-stage with its arresting images of psychedelic mineral-animal-human hybrids."
    • 2/5
      boring amd hard to get through.
    • 3/5
      Flawed as this short little novel is, I weep that our ideal time for a cinematic adaptation of it is past, for I can think of no team who could do it justice as Peter Greenaway and Sacha Vierney could have, and they don't work together anymore. But their mastery of light in cinema, especially as demonstrated in Drowning By Numbers and A Zed and Two Noughts, could alone bring Ballard's exquisite vision to the screen.

      And there, I would love to see it. And Greenaway could maybe pep up the story a little.

      I mention this because the play of light on the surfaces of the slowly (and sometimes not-so-slowly) transforming surfaces of the jungles in The Crystal World is very, very important. Very. Description of same makes up the bulk of its verbiage. Ballard, perhaps mesmerized by the very idea of his creation, took great pains to share its every sparkly, shiny, spiny detail. As such, there is some seriously gorgeous prose to be had in this book, and thus much enjoyment, if that is your thing.

      It's possibly the first book ever for which one wishes one had sunglasses for one's mind's eye.

      Dazzling as the book is -- and not just visually; the scientific explanation for how and why this is happening, involving theories about sub-atomic particles and space-time that I do not feel adequate to explaining here, is also quite dazzling -- it's also one of the most melancholy reads I've encountered since, say The Road. For there are some people, including a band of lepers led by the protagonist's ex-lover, want to be crystallized. To be crystallized is to have time, and thus the progress of the disease, stop; to be alive but to cease decaying. The fact that nothing else will ever happen to them again is just by the bye. Like the characters of Ballard's The Drowned World, most of this novel's cast comprises people half in love with death, or at least with the destruction of the human world and the seductive chance it offers them to be something else.

      Combine this with yet another Conradian quest (Ballard must have had an even bigger boner for Conrad than your humble reviewer does), up an African river, seeking a long-lost companion who has gone nuts in the jungle, and you almost have a really great novel. But somehow, perhaps its the extreme disinterest Ballard, and thus this reader, has in the characters peopling his frosty landscapes, perhaps it's just the depressing nature of all of this beauty, paging through this slim little novel felt like more of a chore than a delight. I'd still recommend it to anyone who values imagination and perfect prose, but with the caveat that such joys come with a price, and in this case, it's story. Ah, me.
    • 5/5
      A lyrical, descriptive story about a changed world and the people who are drawn to it. A study of character and thoughtfulness.Probably not recommended to be read in pieces on public transit.
    • 5/5
      Stumbled across this after remembering that I enjoyed the Drowned World many years ago. This is excellent also, Great, flawed characters, vivid setting, excellent writing. Fast, fun, and thought-provoking.
    • 4/5
      Nicely done science fiction disater novel. A mysterious force is causing the world to be covered in crystal. Plants, inanimate objects, animals, men-- all being encased in a crystalline subject. Ballard's prose conveys the beauty of the crystalline world and the horror of the approaching end that it conveys.
    • 2/5
      Not taken with this one. An interesting central idea but for me poorly executed and the characters and their reactions seemed other worldly, not in an interesting way as in High Rise.
    • 3/5
      Weird. Felt like I was watching a movie, great visuals. Not sure I understood the total concept.
    • 3/5
      From mentioning Ballard to a couple of friends, it seems I don't have the same associations with him that many others do. This is the Ballard that I know and love: magic realism, a strong but unspecified religious underpinning, and the story plays out in lush jungle which bulks large in the internal lives of the protagonists.It's not about sex.As a science fiction writer (of a sort), what sets Ballard apart from the golden age giants is his priorities: the science-fictional element (perhaps more appropriately in this case --and despite the pseudoscientific jargon-- the intruding magical element) is put to work as a metaphor for the internal lives of his protagonists. He's a bit heavyhanded about it -- there's a fair bit of tell-not-show contributing to that judgement, and I'd have to reread the novel carefully to be able to see whether I would have drawn the same conclusions if the protagonist hadn't quite explicitly pushed them at me. Still, the otherworldly element is in the service of character, rather than the characters serving to explore and report on the otherworldly element.The novel has a pulpy feel in high contrast to Empire of the Sun. This isn't just the science fictional elements; the chief failings are a terribly wooden characterisation for almost all the supporting characters and a rather hard to swallow protagonist. This is perhaps why I'd characterise this as science fiction instead of magical realism; not that all science fiction has these failings, but I recommend The Crystal World despite its failings, for a very science-fictional reason: the idea is lovely. More, the idea and the way it's described is lovely. If you can make that disconnect between literary content and imaginative content (a juggling act that is sadly often required to enjoy science fiction), you'll find The Crystal World rewarding. If the form matters too much to forgive some lapses of style, you're best avoiding it.