| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Did you know you can trade in your old books for an Amazon.co.uk Gift Card to spend on the things you want? Plus, get an extra £5 Gift Certificate when you trade in books worth £10 or more before June 30, 2012. Visit the Books Trade-In Store for more details. |
Frequently Bought Together
Product details
|
More About the Author
Product Description
Review
‘Ballard is a magician of the contemporary scene and a literary saboteur. Rushing to Paradise is a Wellsian drama of extremity and isolation…No one else writes with such enchanted clarity or strange power’ Guardian
‘Pure Ballard. I read it with rapt fascination…Wonderful’ William Boyd
‘Robinson Crusoe in reverse. Teasing and sardonic…Ballard at his best’ Independent on Sunday
Product Description
J.G. Ballard – author of Crash and Empire of the Sun – explores the extremes of ecology and feminism in this highly acclaimed modern fable.
Dr Barbara Rafferty is a fearless conservationist, determined to save a rare albatross from extinction. Her crusade gains widespread coverage when earnest young environmentalist Neil Dempsey is shot during an ill-fated attempt to rescue the bird from its Pacific island habitat, Saint-Esprit.
Support for the conservationists grows and well-wishers flock to the island, bringing with them specimens of other endangered creatures to be protected by Dr Barbara and her crew. The island seems a new Eden.
But is the intense Dr Barbara as altruistic as she appears? Why are the islanders committing acts of self-sabotage? And what’s keeping Neil alive while the other men sicken?
A classic exploration of the extremes of human behaviour from J.G Ballard, this is a brilliantly unsettling novel in which all preconceptions are overthrown.
Suggested Tags from Similar Products(What's this?)Be the first one to add a relevant tag (keyword that's strongly related to this product)
|
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
What Other Items Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?
Customer Reviews
Heavily indebted to 'Lord of the Flies', Ballard's novel is a haunting portrayal of a society pushed over the edge by a charismatic but insane personality, with the isolated setting pushing the characters against their own limitations and each other. The novel takes a little while to build up it's narrative drive, but the final third as the true nightmare of the island becomes apparrent makes for a shocking conclusion. Brilliant stuff.
The story concerns the attempts of a radical animal rights protestor, Barbara Rafferty, to establish a sanctuary for endangered albatross on a Pacific island that is being used by the French military. Rafferty is a typical Ballard character: a doctor with a shady past and a set of ambiguous values. Throughout the story, Ballard drives home the point that Dr Rafferty, despite her posturing over the albatross, actually has no real respect for life.
Ballard goes on to use Rafferty and a set of other slightly grotesque characters to illustrate points about animal rights protestors and the struggle for survival between men and women. As usual, his cold, ironic authorial gaze observes his characters from a distance, like a scientist observing the behaviour of animals.
The conclusion about human nature Ballard appears to reach in this book is, perhaps predictably, overwhelmingly pessimistic. There's less action here than in Ballard's other books, the plot is quite weak, and the characters are nothing more than a bunch of stereotypes. He labours over the whole book to make quite an obvious point about the hypocrisy of violent extremists; Bill Hicks managed the same thing with just one joke. It's one of his weakest books, but there's still probably just enough here to keep fans of the old master happy.
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
Listmania!
Look for similar items by category
Look for similar items by subject
Feedback
- Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
- I am the Author, and I want to comment on my book.
- I am the Publisher, and I want to comment on this book.
|
