The Drought (J.G Ballard)

I've always had an interest in dystopian fiction, ever since my teenage experiences with 'Animal Farm', 'Lord of the Flies', 'Nineteen Eighty Four' and 'The Handmaid's Tale', an interest that grew to the extent that my undergraduate dissertation was written on the concept. J.G Ballard wrote several novels that are best categorised as environmental dystopia, a hot topic in these times of global warming and natural disasters. I suppose that readers often judge dystopian writers on the accuracy of their prophecy, and Ballard's 'The Drought' is uncanny.

The novel begins as a massive, unprecedented drought has the world in its grasp. A film of pollution on the seas prevents the evaporation that causes cloud formation and the resulting effects are profound, with agricultural areas turned into enormous dust bowls, rivers drying up, and the fabric of society beginning to unravel. In the lakeside town of Hamilton, Dr Charles Ransom spends one last summer on the rapidly drying lake, gathering his thoughts. The town is now almost deserted, with the people of the interior heading for the coast, where massive efforts to desalinate the seawater are apparently ongoing. Part 1 of the novel sees Ransom interact with those still by the lake, the Prospero-esque tycoon Richard Lomax, his grotesque servant Quilter, the innocent teenager Philip Jordan, zookeper Catherine Austen and the militant reverend Howard Johnstone. As the town burns and the fishermen of the lake go feral, Ransom finally departs for the coast. It is only then that the true dystopian horror begins.

My only criticism of this novel is that it is extraordinarily slow to get going, especially considering the fact that it begins in medias res. I almost gave up after the first five chapters, which seemed to consist of little except Ransom's rum conversations with fellow lake dwellers. He certainly is not a hero you warm to in any way, a man almosy indifferent to the chaos that surrounds him, and not somebody who appears to have any kind of sympathy for his fellow man. However, my reservations were kept at bay by the concept, which I loved- world dries up, everything goes to hell in a hand cart- and I'm glad I perservered, because around sixty pages in, business picks up with a horrific description of Mount  Royal zoo, with the images of dead fish floating like "putrid jewels" in the water particularly and memorably grotesque, and from then on, the novel is compelling. The flight to the sea, when it takes place, is realistic and heartstopping. The chaos at the beach, the abandoned cars, the violence of panic, all are convincingly realised.

Part 2 of 'The Drought' begins ten years after events at the beach, with humanity clinging on in grim, survivalist fashion. Anyone who has read Cormac McCarthy's 'The Road' will find a lot of similar ideas and motifs here, though Ballard deliberately injects hope absent from the later text in having Ransom make the journey back to Hamilton in search of  a forgotten water supply inland. Any further plot details would spoil your enjoyment of the novel, so I'll leave it there, but suffice to say that the circularity of the narrative and the black humour of the ending are extremely satisfying.

J.G Ballard is undoubtedly deserving of his place in the canon of dystopian writers. When one considers that this novel was published in 1966, it is astonishing how much of what Ballard writes about has come true. Famine in Africa, the Sahara desert growing with each passing year, the world's temperature creeping up, the selfishness of Capitalist interests. I could go on. This is a fascinating dystopic piece based alarmingly in fact and yet more evidence that man is forever his own destroyer.