Images from the Disaster Area: An Apocalyptic Reading of Urban Landscapes in Ballard's "The Drowned World" and "Hello America"

A recurring image in J.G. Ballard's fiction is the Dead City. The deluged London of "The Drowned World" (1962), the anonymous metropolis in "The Ultimate City" (1976), and the desertified New York City and the tropical Las Vegas of "Hello America" (1981) represent...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Science-fiction studies 1994-03, Vol.21 (1), p.81-97
Main Author: Rossi, Umberto
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Ballard, J G (1930-2009)
Cities
Irony
Jungles
Lagoons
Literary criticism
Metropolitan areas
Novels
Science fiction
Science fiction & fantasy
Statues
Time zones
United States history
Urban landscape
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Summary:A recurring image in J.G. Ballard's fiction is the Dead City. The deluged London of "The Drowned World" (1962), the anonymous metropolis in "The Ultimate City" (1976), and the desertified New York City and the tropical Las Vegas of "Hello America" (1981) represent four speciments of this apocalyptic symbol. A "stratigraphic"-i.e., comparative-analysis of these urban landscapes reveals a profound change in Ballard's attitude. The first two works mentioned draw their deep structures from an archetypal and anthopological reading of the English literary tradition (T.S. Eliot, Joyce, and Shakespeare). "Hello America", by contrast, offers a visionary paraphrase of American history and pop mythology. That novel distinguishes itself from the earlier two titles in transcending the historical horizon, but not in a sense that would make "transcendence" synonomous with "obliteration."
ISSN:0091-7729
2327-6207