The Drowned World
The Drowned World (German translations as Carnival of the Alligators and Paradises of the Sun ) is a science fiction novel by British author JG Ballard published in 1962 .
German translations
- Carnival of the alligators, German by Inge Wiskott, Marion von Schröder, Hamburg, Düsseldorf 1970, ISBN 3-547-71153-3
- Paradiese der Sonne, German by Joachim Körber , Edition Phantasia, Bellheim 2008, ISBN 3-937897-28-3
people
- Dr. Robert Kerans , biologist, head of the biological testing station, unit medical officer, 40 years old, lover of Beatrice Dahl
- Colonel Riggs , Colonel of the Military Escort
- Dr. Alan Bodkin , biologist, Kerans' assistant on the ward, 65 years old
- Sergeant Macready , member of Colonel Riggs' company, Scot
- Beatrice Dahl , granddaughter of a magnate, mistress of Dr Robert Kerans
- Lieutenant Hardman , a member of Colonel Riggs' company, senior helicopter pilot, about 30 years old
- Sergeant Daley , member of Colonel Riggs' company, copilot of the helicopter
- Wilson , member of Colonel Riggs' company
- Caldwell , member of Colonel Riggs' company
- Strangman , privateer, looter, treasure hunter
- Big Caesar , member of Strangman's crew
- the admiral , member of Strangman's crew
action
Chapter 1 “At the Strandhotel Ritz”
In an unspecified future, the earth will be strongly warmed by perennial solar prominences. The Van Allen Belt has grown and the gravity on the outer layers of the ionosphere has decreased. At the equator, 81 ° C is measured, the rain zones reach up to the 20th degree of latitude and in the Arctic Circle it is an annual mean of 28 ° C. The rising sea level leads to large floods. Landscapes like in the Paleozoic , cities overgrown to lagoons, gigantic plants, oversized iguanas and huge insects determine the picture. Only psychopathic, radiation sick and malnourished people live sporadically in the hot areas. Dr. Robert Kerans lives in the former Hotel Ritz, which is up to the sixth floor in the water . He heads the biological test station that migrates north on its way through Europe. He is accompanied by Colonel Riggs' military escort and his company. The rising water level has made the cartography of bays and harbors pointless, so Riggs' company is ordered back to Camp Byrd in Greenland. Riggs picks up Kerans and asks him to convince Beatrice Dahl, who lives in a relatively luxurious private refuge in the area of the station, to travel with him.
Chapter 2 “The iguanas are coming”
Riggs and Kerans arrive at the station. Kerans tries to convince Beatrice Dahl to leave. Ultimately, they toy with the idea of staying both.
Chapter 3 “Building Blocks of the New Psychology”
Kerans is unsure whether he should stay with Beatrice or travel with him, decides for the time being to pretend that they are both coming. Three days of travel preparations are due, during which Kerans plans to replenish supplies and steal equipment from the station's warehouse. For now he steals a brass compass. Kerans and Dr. Bodkin found Lieutenant Hardman, who was suffering from insomnia and strange dreams, in the infirmary. Bodkin has been trying to treat this with various methods for days. Back in the biological test station, the two biologists philosophize about flora and fauna and the future of humanity. Bodkin expresses a theory of a human subconscious traveling back in time, triggered by the regression of geophysical conditions.
Chapter 4 “The Paths of the Sun”
Hardman suddenly disappeared the next day. Kerans estimates how long the fuel will last for the boat and air conditioning and what spare parts and supplies he is missing. The anchors of the test station are lifted and it is towed to the base. Kerans seeks Beatrice, whose generator is defective, it turns out that the timer was running backwards. Beatrice reports of nightmares. Kerans is picked up by the helicopter and a joint search for Lieutenant Hardman is started. Daley is certain that Hardman left prematurely north, towards Camp Byrd. Kerans is convinced that Hardman was going south. You will find an improvised catamaran south of the base and finally Hardman. In a subsequent chase, Wilson is wounded and the helicopter has an accident. Hardman escapes and continues south, unimpressed by the strong midday sun. The group must wait to be picked up by a cutter and defend themselves against iguanas.
Chapter 5 “Descent into the time”
Kerans has his first strange dream, it resembles Beatrice's. Bodkin states that half of the team have had this dream for a long time, with the exception of Riggs. Bodkin thinks the dream is an organic memory that goes back millions of years. On the last day before departure, Kerans tells Bodkin that he is unsure about coming. Bodkin tells of his life in former London.
Chapter 6 “The Sunken Ark”
Bodkin and Kerans unmoor the test station at night and sink it in a nearby bay. They block the helicopter landing pad on Beatrice Dahl's penthouse with kerosene barrels. Riggs tries in vain to get the test station afloat again and then sets off as planned for Camp Byrd without her. Beatrice, Kerans, and Bodkin stay behind in Beatrice's penthouse, counting the months that hold supplies and fuel. Kerans suspects how he and Beatrice will move apart.
Chapter 7 "Alligator Carnival"
Six weeks have passed since Riggs and his company left. Beatrice Dahl, Dr. Alan Bodkin and Dr. Robert Kerans visit each other occasionally, but are otherwise busy with their own descent through total time. One morning a seaplane appears, makes two laps, fires flares and flies on. Kerans thinks it's a scout. Kerans later watches boats accompanied by an estimated 2,000 alligators gather in the lagoon. Keran's catamaran is destroyed, he narrowly escapes the alligators and reaches the frightened Beatrice. A three-decker paddle steamer arrives, Bodkin makes contact, Beatrice and Kerans join them.
Chapter 8 "The Man with the White Smile"
The steamer belongs to Strangman, a mysterious person who seems to be completely devoid of pigments. Strangman seems to be hoarding machines, cultural assets and art on his ship. He shows Beatrice, Bodkin and Kerans his collection, and together they agree that the world is headed for a hot Mesozoic . Bodkin says they are going back there as humans too.
Chapter 9 “The Pool of Thanatos”
Strangman and his crew searched the buildings in the three surrounding lagoons. Strangman invites Beatrice, Bodkin and Kerans to parties and appears to be interested in Beatrice. Kerans are noted for a wide variety of animals with albinism . Strangman suspects that Bodkin is hiding something at the bottom of a lagoon. Kerans assures him that he is only looking for memories on boat tours over the former planetarium . Strangman organized a dive anyway. Kerans eventually goes to the sunken planetarium. Kerans is fascinated by what appears to be a constellation of stars created by cracks in the roof. Kerans nearly drowns as he intentionally tied his air tube. Later he is unsure whether he actually wanted to kill himself or not.
Chapter 10 "Surprise Party"
Kerans keeps falling asleep suddenly. Strangman invites you to a big party and promises a huge surprise. After a sumptuous meal with elaborate decorations, everyone realizes how the water level is gradually falling. Strangman has closed a tributary that keeps mushroom-streaked mud around the lagoon tight so that the water can be pumped out. The city is slowly becoming visible again. Bodkin is fascinated by Leicester Square . Beatrice becomes unwell, she immediately misses the lagoon.
Chapter 11 “The Ballad of Mistah Bones”
Thirty minutes later, the three protagonists wander through the streets, they are drawn back to the planetarium, here and there they see groups from Strangman's team plundering. Bodkin advises Kerans to go away with Beatrice and retires to the exposed test station. Kerans roams the city. Strangman begins with a systematic pillage, at night he throws parties in which Beatrice absent-mindedly takes part. Bodkin suddenly disappeared and is later seen trying to blow up the dam. After a short pursuit, he is shot. Kerans is overwhelmed by Strangman's crew.
Chapter 12 “The Festival of the Skulls”
Kerans is tied to a throne and given an alligator mask. The throne is on a cart. A festival with torches, fireworks, drums and dancers is held for several nights, with Strangman himself playing on bones. Strangman is amazed at how long Kerans survived. During a shot, the buggy crashed and Kerans was able to free himself. He escapes from Strangman and Big Caesar in a former office building and initially spends a day there undiscovered. He takes an improvised raft to Beatrice's penthouse and finds it devastated and with the safe broken into. A second, real safe is still locked, Kerans takes a revolver and ammunition from it. He also finds his compass again. At night he sneaks on Strangman's steamer, he thinks the men are looting and only Strangman and the admiral on board. He finds Beatrice amidst loads of jewelry in Strangman's suite. Big Caesar appears surprisingly and wounds Kerans, who then shoots Big Caesar. When Kerans tries to escape, Strangman threatens to harm Beatrice. Shortly before the machete-armed crew reaches Kerans, Rigg's men unexpectedly appear and rescue Kerans.
Chapter 13 "Too Early, Too Late"
The next morning, Riggs took control of the situation and disarmed and captured Strangman's men. Riggs had advanced in a patrol cruiser on the pretext of wanting to salvage the test station. Some crew members have been changed, especially those who had experienced the dreams particularly strongly. Beatrice and Kerans spent the night in the infirmary. Strangman is not to be prosecuted legally. Riggs advocates pumping out the lagoon for land reclamation, while Kerans advocates flooding.
Chapter 14 "The Big Bang"
Riggs and Strangman have reached an agreement. A farewell party is held before Riggs leaves. The sun relentlessly draws Kerans south. Kerans blows up the dam, patrolling Sergeant Macready, shoots Kerans and wounds him in the ankle. Macready dies in the explosion. When the water floods the lagoon, Beatrice and Riggs get out of the helicopter again. Beatrice meets Kerans, he tells her that he will always think of her, but that he is drawn to the south. She warns him about Riggs who wants to kill him. Riggs chases Kerans, who escapes. On a raft, Kerans reaches an inland sea that leads him further south. He bandages up his injury and falls asleep under morphine tablets. The following day the helicopter kept reappearing and covering it with machine gun fire, but in the end the attacks did not materialize. In the afternoon he continues to row weakly with one arm at 65 ° C.
Chapter 15 “The Paradises of the Sun”
The next day, storm clouds gather and the onset of rain brings some cooling. Kerans drives away the last of the fuel, sinks the engine and rows south until he reaches land, where he falls asleep from exhaustion. The next morning he dismantled the boat and towed it over the muddy hills, but eventually left it behind and went with only a few supplies into a vast jungle in the distance. Despite swollen ankles, he goes on for three days and nights without sleep and keeps the iguanas at bay with shots. He finds shelter in the ruins of a supposed temple. He hears a faint human scream and becomes aware of a thin figure in an officer's uniform, it is Hardman. Hardman's eyes are both blinded by corneal cancer; he doesn't recognize Kerans. He stays with Hardmann for three days, feeds him and treats his eyes with penicillin, builds him a bed and a rain cover for both of them. Hardmann does not remember and only calls Kerans “soldier”. Hardmann's condition improves and one morning he suddenly disappeared. Kerans waits two more days and then sets off further south himself. He is certain that Hardman will die soon and that he himself will probably not survive long in the dense jungle of the south. In a former apartment block he ponders the past few years, leaves a message on a wall that he is fine and continues south and sets off.
Classification in the work of the author
In his first four novels The storm out of nowhere (The Wind from Nowhere), paradises of the sun ( The Drowned World ) world in flames , as the drought (The Burning World) , and Crystal World (The Crystal World) themed Ballard four various dystopias based on the four elements air, water, fire and earth.
Emergence
"On reflection it seems to me that the image of an immense half-submerged city overgrown by tropical vegetation, which forms the centrepiece of The Drowned World , is in some way a fusion of my childhood memories of Shanghai and those of my last ten years in London.
In retrospect, it seems to me that the image of a huge, semi-flooded city overgrown by tropical vegetation - which is the centerpiece of The Drowned World - is in some ways a link between my childhood memories from Shanghai and the memories of the last ten years from London. "
Ballard spent the first years of his childhood in Shanghai, where his father ran the branch of a British textile company. His earliest childhood memories are of the city standing two to three feet in muddy water in hot sunlight from annual summer floods. Later, in early 1943, Ballard's family was detained at Lunghua Civil Detention Center. He witnessed how his parents were deprived of any resistance and often humiliated and frightened by losing courage. In retrospect, he saw this as a unique, terrifying internal view of what can determine human behavior. His entire work was shaped by these disillusioning impressions during his childhood, as he repeatedly stated in interviews and writings.
Reviews
“ Paradises of the Sun is reminiscent of the scientifically founded fantasy that flooded into the German market in the 1970s, particularly from Eastern Europe. It is a bizarre image that has already become concrete in the climatic disasters of modern times, such as the flooding of New Orleans. It is particularly exciting that Ballard is concerned with the shifts in the social structure that are associated with the changed circumstances, and ultimately with each individual. Thematically the work is great, linguistically it unfortunately seems colorless and already quite antiquated. "
“ Paradises of the sun are difficult to categorize and even more difficult to judge fairly. J G. Ballard has written a novel that you have to like in terms of style and content. Anyone who likes descriptions of landscapes, loves descriptions of rotting ruins, and who can appreciate the characters' slow everyday grind, can give in to the longing for the Paleozoic. The novel is a pull, but a very special one. 3.5 of 5 points "
"This science fiction novel may be over fifty years old but it retains its neurotic potency even today with the descent into archeo-psychic madness of its few protagonists during fateful months in the Triassic neo-world of a submerged London. 9.5 / 10.0
This science fiction novel may be over fifty years old, but with the descent into the archaeo-psychic madness of its few protagonists during fateful months in the triad-like world of flooded London, it still retains its neurotic effectiveness today. 9.5 / 10.0 "
Adaptations
Performance / theater
A 45-minute performance inspired by The Drowned World took place at the Riverside Leisure Center in Chelmsford in March 2020 as part of the Essex Book Festival . The audience took part swimming and underwater sound effects were used.
radio play
Alligators Carnival. Editing / direction: Oliver Sturm , speaker: Rolf Becker , Christian Redl , Katja Brügger , Ulrich Gebauer , Jürgen Thormann , Stephan Schad , Martin Engler , Samuel Weiss , Hans-Peter Hallwachs , among others, 78 min., NDR 2008.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b James Graham Ballard: paradise of sun . tape 1010 . Phantasia Paperback, Bellheim 2008, ISBN 978-3-937897-28-8 .
- ↑ Toby Litt: 1000 novels everyone must read: Science Fiction & Fantasy: Toby Litt on the best of JG Ballard . In: The Guardian . January 22, 2009, ISSN 0261-3077 ( theguardian.com [accessed May 18, 2020]).
- ↑ Will Self: Will Self on JG Ballard's 'The Drowned World' . August 31, 2013, ISSN 0307-1235 ( telegraph.co.uk [accessed May 18, 2020]).
- ↑ Will Self: Will Self on JG Ballard's 'The Drowned World' . August 31, 2013, ISSN 0307-1235 ( telegraph.co.uk [accessed May 18, 2020]).
- ↑ Paradises of the sun. In: Literaturzeitschrift.de. Retrieved on May 18, 2020 (German).
- ↑ Review: Paradises of the Sun (JG Ballard). Retrieved May 18, 2020 .
- ↑ The Drowned World by JG Ballard book review - Fantasy Book Review. Retrieved May 18, 2020 .
- ↑ Stuart Jeffries: Come on in, the water's dystopian! JG Ballard's Drowned World hits at Essex pool . In: The Guardian . March 10, 2020, ISSN 0261-3077 ( theguardian.com [accessed May 18, 2020]).