High-Rise - Softcover

Ballard, J. G.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0008134898 ISBN 13: 9780008134891

Publisher: Fourth Estate, 2015

Synopsis

Now a major film: J. G. Ballard’s compelling and unnerving tale of what happens when life in a luxury apartment building descends into chaos.

‘Later, as he sat on his balcony eating the dog, Dr Robert Laing reflected on the unusual events that had taken place within this huge apartment building during the previous three months.’

Within the walls of an elegant forty-storey high-rise, the affluent tenants are hell-bent on an orgy of destruction. Cocktail parties degenerate into marauding attacks on ‘enemy’ floors, and the once-luxurious amenities become an arena for mayhem.

In this visionary novel, the veneer of civilised society is stripped away as the inhabitants of the high-rise, driven by primal urges, create a dystopian world ruled by intimidation and violence. And no one wants it to stop ...

About this title

About the Author:

J. G. Ballard was born in 1930 in Shanghai. After internment in a civilian prison camp, his family returned to England in 1946. His 1984 bestseller ‘Empire of the Sun’ won the Guardian Fiction Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize. His controversial novel ‘Crash’ was made into a film by David Cronenberg. His autobiography ‘Miracles of Life’ was published in 2008, and a collection of interviews with the author, ‘Extreme Metaphors’, was published in 2012. J. G. Ballard passed away in 2009.

Language Notes:

British actor Tom Hiddleston, well-known for portraying the supervillain Loki (The Avengers, Thor: The Dark World) and the writer F. Scott Fitzgerald (Midnight in Paris), brings his acting versatility and smooth voice to this visionary tale by acclaimed author J.G. Ballard (Empire of the Sun). When a class war erupts inside a luxurious apartment block, modern elevators become violent battlegrounds, and cocktail parties degenerate into marauding attacks on "enemy" floors. Human society slips into violent reverse as once-peaceful residents, driven by primal urges, re-create a world ruled by the laws of the jungle.

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About this edition

• Publisher: Fourth Estate
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 0008134898
• ISBN 13: 9780008134891
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 272