'I wanted to rub the human race in its own vomit, and force it to look in the mirror'

The Crystal World Paperback

The Crystal World

J. G. Ballard

Through a ‘leaking’ of time, the West African jungle starts to crystallize. Trees are metamorphosed into enormous jewels. Crocodiles encased in second glittering skins lurch down the river. Pythons with huge blind gemstone eyes rear in heraldic poses. Fearing this transformation as a herald of the apocalypse, most flee the area in terror, afraid to face a catastrophe they cannot understand. But some, dazzled and strangely entranced, remain to drift through this dreamworld forest. Travelling through this gilded land, a doctor tries to resist its strange allure in pursuit of his ex-mistress, while a tribe of lepers search for Paradise… In this tour de force of the imagination, Ballard transports the reader into one of his most unforgettable landscapes.

Reviews of The Crystal World

  • ‘Beautifully rendered…Ballard the poet in full ecstatic blast’
    Anthony Burgess

    ‘Of all the unknown regions Ballard’s imagination has opened up, this crystalline forest is the most haunting, with its golden orioles frozen in a lattice of jewels and men like conquistadores embalmed in diamond armour. The creation of the crystal world is something magical and not to be missed’
    Guardian

    ‘Brilliantly imagined, dark, brooding, convincing and powerful’
    New Statesman

    ‘By far his strongest and most individual novel’ Brian Aldiss

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