High-Rise
High-Rise By JG Ballard
High-Rise has been a personal favourite for a long time, but it’s not a book i’ve ever written much about, so it’s nice finally get to review JG Ballard’s dystopian masterpiece.
The story follows a newly fully occupied High Rise designed to house the wealthy with all the amenities and advantages affluence can bring, but quickly the state-of-the-art High Rise begins to break down and a new social divide is formed. Even when everyone is rich, someone still has to have less than others––in this case it’s all about location, location, location.
I fell in love with this book from my first read. Witnessing the minor gripes grow, the floors dividing into different classes, clans, and tribes. The all-night parties, and the debauchery which evolved from them. Staircases full of garbage, smashed cars, and tins of eaten pet food all over the place. The whole book descends into a nightmarish form of hell, and the residents of the high-rise seem along for the ride down.
The book follows three main characters. Dr. Laing, who’s as curious about the High Rise falling apart as I am. Wilder, who embraces the depravity and social breakdown of the building and its occupants with open arms and a cine cam. And then Royal, the architect of the High Rise. The books alternatives between two chapters each from these characters as we witness the decay from the lower (Wilder), middle (Laing) and upper (Royal) floors.
The violence in the book surprised me on my initial read. At first the book takes a philosophical and sociological view, and while that remains through-out, the violence becomes much more pronounced than I expected––outside of extreme horror i’ve never read so many animal deaths. By the end of the book, you have to wonder just how many people are left in the crumbling building.
High-Rise is part character study, and part societal, but it never gets to bogged down or preachy. It has plenty to say, and does sometimes spell it out, but it’s in an almost charming way that has you nodding along. I loved hearing the different characters thoughts or rants. Witnessing their minds deteriorating as they embraced the madness around them and try to justify their ever increasing degenerate actions.
The book just feels unsettling. You could wonder whether the author has rushed the descent as the story quickly forms, or whether things really can fall apart that abruptly. Having witnessed what I have in life, unfortunately I think the latter is true. A utopia can easily turn to dystopia, especially if human beings and their need for there to always be some sort of problem are at the centre of it.
