In his aching head the concrete overpass and the system of motorways in which he was marooned had begun to assume an ever more threatening size. The illustrated route indicators rotated above his head, marked with meaningless destinations. Instead of rubbing sticks together, he uses his car’s cigarette lighter. He is thirsty, so instead of breaking open a coconut he drains the car’s windscreen washer reservoir. He needs a crutch, so instead of breaking a branch he pulls his car exhaust apart. His ordeal is presented is predictable stages in that he arrives, he fails to escape, then he explores and salvages what he can from his car. Then, he accepts that he might be around for a while, shortly after which his new surroundings become his home. So far, nothing here is especially interesting. There is only so much one can write about gray walls and the noise of traffic beyond them, but this does not stop Ballard trying. The general result is evidence of the limited scope for such a novel, hence repetition is necessary to pad it all out a bit. The rest of the novel is split between his forlorn attempts to escape and his efforts to dominate the island. In Robinson Crusoe fashion, Maitland needs fire.
Whilst driving west on what is not named but is clearly the hideous A4, which carries one from central London towards Heathrow Airport and the West, 35-year-old architect Robert Maitland loses control of his Jaguar, crashes through a barrier, and rolls down a 200-foot embankment. He drags himself back onto the edge of the road to seek help but is ignored by passing motorists for a few hours before a trestle he kicks into the road in frustration is knocked towards him by a passing car, causing an injury which forces him back down into the concrete island, surrounded on three sides by 200-foot high gray walls. And that, really, is pretty well it. It was announced five years ago that the screen version of Concrete Island should be along one of these days too. Quite what it will include is not so clear, because despite various attributes it is rather a slight novel in terms of characterization, ambition, and scope. Nevertheless, what works best is that the world the novel inhabits exists today in countries that should know better. The standard description of this novel as something like “urban science fiction” is inadequate because its setting, if anything, is too realistic. Ballard in the 1970s. The first, Crash, was made into a film which kicked up a stink due its depiction of people with fetishes for car accident victims. The third, High Rise, is soon to be adapted by Ben Wheatley and details a civil war between residents of a block of luxury flats.
Concrete Island was the middle of three “steel and concrete” short novels written by J.G.
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