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misssnowspider 's review for:
Concrete Island
by J.G. Ballard
Whilst this is neither properly dystopian or horror, it is a hauntingly disturbing commentary on society. A modern adaptation of Robinson Crusoe set on a forgotten traffic island stuck between highways on the outskirts on London.
My initial gut reaction was that this was a stupid idea; imagine someone becoming so entirely lost in such a publicly observable area! And then you read the news; think about the times you've come across real life stories of people found dead in their city centre flats after three years, or look to the homeless sitting in our affluent city streets and it is suddenly less ludicrous.
Ballard captures the fractures within our modern society well; highlighting the plight of the disenfranchised, the lonely and lost souls of the rich and poor alike. In a way, it's brilliant, but it fell a little flat for me with the introductions of Proctor and Jane Sheppard. Personally I felt that there should have been some dark humour in Proctor's stumbling acrobatics and Jane's misplaced mothering and often cruel outbursts, but it degenerated into a bizarrely awkward social experiment that I failed to get onboard with.
My initial gut reaction was that this was a stupid idea; imagine someone becoming so entirely lost in such a publicly observable area! And then you read the news; think about the times you've come across real life stories of people found dead in their city centre flats after three years, or look to the homeless sitting in our affluent city streets and it is suddenly less ludicrous.
Ballard captures the fractures within our modern society well; highlighting the plight of the disenfranchised, the lonely and lost souls of the rich and poor alike. In a way, it's brilliant, but it fell a little flat for me with the introductions of Proctor and Jane Sheppard. Personally I felt that there should have been some dark humour in Proctor's stumbling acrobatics and Jane's misplaced mothering and often cruel outbursts, but it degenerated into a bizarrely awkward social experiment that I failed to get onboard with.