The Drowned World

This month's read for the Sydney MCA 'Inspired Reading' book club was J G Ballard's first novel from 1962. It was tied to an exhibition by Simryn Gill.

So ... getting the problems out of the way first of all: it's dated; misanthropic; misogynist; has frankly unacceptable portrayals of the one female and all the black characters; its world view is, to say the least, gloomy and its psychology is a bit too Freudian for my tastes. And the story, to be honest, is a bit naff ... almost superfluous (which the author might not see as a huge problem).

Nevertheless, it is quite a compelling read. The imagery is captivating, striking at times. Surrealist painting clearly informs much of the writing and the text, only 175 pages long, is worth dipping into just for that imagery (absurd at times but, you know, it's surrealism ... which I can take or leave in many of its manifestations).

The Drowned World is sort of The Day Of The Triffids meets Heart Of Darkness meets Dante's Inferno meets Max Ernst, Salvador Dali and a Belgian painter, Pierre Delvaux, I've never heard of. I first read it when I was 14 or 15 years old; re-read it for the book club tonight and didn't think I'd wasted my time. I don't share the author's nihilistic world view but I did enjoy the rich texture of his writing. One could almost touch the mad jungle, smell the lagoon and feel the heat of that sun on your skin.

I really enjoyed the evening, joined as I was by Spike. The gallery folk are lovely, full of enthusiasm for their art and literature / cheese and wine evening and very bright.