The Drowned World (1962)

The Drowned World (1962)

Author: J.G. Ballard | Page Count: 175

'Free of vegetation, apart from a few drifting clumps of Sargasso weed, the streets and shops had been preserved almost intact, like a reflection in a lake that has somehow lost its original.'

Ballard's first novel, expanded from an earlier magazine novella, is rife with symbolism and connectedness. Set in the year 2145, it explores the reactions of a group of research scientists stationed at a lagoon that in the not-too-distant past was a human populated city, before massive global warming caused rising sea levels.

The environmental extreme is due to increased solar radiation, not, as is often the case in post-apocalyptic sci-fi, a consequence of something that mankind did, but the result is much the same, meaning once-habitable locations are now inhospitable to mankind and are instead home to a burgeoning animal population.

The environmental upheaval has had a peculiar effect on certain species of flora and fauna, causing some plants and reptiles to grow larger than normal.

In that setting, we meet Dr Robert Kerans, a gaunt forty-year-old biologist who has never known the world as we know it today, having been born after the Earth's ionosphere began to fail. His time in the flooded city influences his way of thinking, and he begins to question whether or not the 'safer' climes of the northern hemisphere are where his own future lies.

Ballard forms an unusual relationship between climate, adaptation, and human de-evolution. While some lifeforms undergo a metamorphosis in response to the extreme temperature — in effect regressing to an earlier form, like how they might've been during the Triassic period — humans stick to their established norms as closely as possible, fighting against what they see as nature's encroachment, and falling back only when prolonged defiance seems hopeless.

On one hand the jungle environment serves as a colourful backdrop to a journey of self-discovery for Kerans, through unseen but deeply felt channels of encoded history that lure its subject down peculiar dream corridors, offering a deeper connection to self and place. On the other hand it's a catalyst to the kind of all-encompassing change that forces direct action. It's a testament to Ballard's skill as an author that it can be both of those things simultaneously.

It's not one of my favourite Ballard books, but the language is undeniably evocative, it has an inspiring depth of symbolism (the broken compass, the underwater dome, etc), and it contains a number of thought-provoking ideas for an invested reader to ponder. The fact that it provides no clear-cut instruction on how to interpret each character's actions is arguably a good thing, making it a perfect candidate for group discussion, either academic or hobbyist.