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A review by jeannamarie
High-Rise by J.G. Ballard
1.0
A cross between Lord of the Flies and Snowpiercer. To be honest, I truly disliked this book. I understand the almost societal experiment of the life within the high-rise, but this book was fairly grotesque. I think eating the dog really was the nail in the coffin for me.
As a designer in architecture, I semi feel bad for the architect of the high-rise lifestyle. He was trying to solve the world’s problems through design, a new way to live and unfortunately the first rule they ingrain into our brains in architecture school is you cannot solve all of the world’s problems through architecture. The other fact is a designer will never truly know the effects of post-occupancy until the structure is occupied for years. Unfortunately, the architect had this exact problem and assumed his project would be revolutionary and life changing.
This story was chaos, utter chaos and disarray. I kept asking myself as things got really out of hand:
Why don’t these people leave the high-rise? Sure they all want to get to the higher levels (aka the higher class levels), but is it absolutely so horrible “on the streets” that this high-rise life is actually better? & are they like frogs in a boiling pot? Have they been desensitized to the coming horror?
Anyway, this story was too much. Raised a lot of good questions about too many rats in a cage with a limited amount of resources.
If you feel like torturing yourself. Go ahead and read this. Also, do yourself a favor and if you do read it, listen to Tom Hiddleston narrate for the audiobook. The book was slightly more enjoyable, but barely. Lastly, the movie is stylish and gruesome. Honestly, the visual of it all, I still can’t decide if it makes the story better or worse.
As a designer in architecture, I semi feel bad for the architect of the high-rise lifestyle. He was trying to solve the world’s problems through design, a new way to live and unfortunately the first rule they ingrain into our brains in architecture school is you cannot solve all of the world’s problems through architecture. The other fact is a designer will never truly know the effects of post-occupancy until the structure is occupied for years. Unfortunately, the architect had this exact problem and assumed his project would be revolutionary and life changing.
This story was chaos, utter chaos and disarray. I kept asking myself as things got really out of hand:
Why don’t these people leave the high-rise? Sure they all want to get to the higher levels (aka the higher class levels), but is it absolutely so horrible “on the streets” that this high-rise life is actually better? & are they like frogs in a boiling pot? Have they been desensitized to the coming horror?
Anyway, this story was too much. Raised a lot of good questions about too many rats in a cage with a limited amount of resources.
If you feel like torturing yourself. Go ahead and read this. Also, do yourself a favor and if you do read it, listen to Tom Hiddleston narrate for the audiobook. The book was slightly more enjoyable, but barely. Lastly, the movie is stylish and gruesome. Honestly, the visual of it all, I still can’t decide if it makes the story better or worse.