A review by rosekk
The Drowned World by J.G. Ballard
3.0
This edition is beautiful. I love the illustrations, and I think it genuinely made a difference to how much I enjoyed the story.
The tale itself I am less sold on. I love the setting, and the general premise. There's a little too much time spent explaining psuedo-science for my tastes. I'm totally willing to invest my attention in impossible things, but I don't really want the mechanics of them explained in such a way as to highlight how impossible it all is.
Then there's a definite air of sexism about the one and only female character. She's meant to be part of this exploratory team, but all she seems to do is laze around, reading old vogue magazines. She doesn't really do anything in the whole story - she's just sort of acted around. There's a touch of racism as well, but it's concentrated in such a way as to make me wonder if the writer didn't deliberately make certain bits conform to certain stereo types to make certain other characters look deliberately icky in a sort of evil-colonial-master sort of way. It's unclear.
The tale itself I am less sold on. I love the setting, and the general premise. There's a little too much time spent explaining psuedo-science for my tastes. I'm totally willing to invest my attention in impossible things, but I don't really want the mechanics of them explained in such a way as to highlight how impossible it all is.
Then there's a definite air of sexism about the one and only female character. She's meant to be part of this exploratory team, but all she seems to do is laze around, reading old vogue magazines. She doesn't really do anything in the whole story - she's just sort of acted around. There's a touch of racism as well, but it's concentrated in such a way as to make me wonder if the writer didn't deliberately make certain bits conform to certain stereo types to make certain other characters look deliberately icky in a sort of evil-colonial-master sort of way. It's unclear.