What do you think?
Rate this book
Vento dal nulla
Nel racconto biblico della creazione per prima cosa è la luce. Questa spettacolare storia di distruzione e di morte dovuta a uno dei massimi autori di FS inglesi, comincia invece così: "per prima venne la polvere". L'azione ha inizio nell'aeroporto londinese di Croydon, dove da ore, inspiegabilmente, sebbene non ci siano nebbia né scioperi nessun aereo arriva più. Per prima, invece, arriva appunto la polvere, e ciò che poi gradualmente si scatena non ha precedenti né nella storia delle catastrofi reali né in quella dei più ingegnosi cataclismi finora immaginati dalla fantascienza.
Copertina di Karel Thole
Copertina di Karel Thole
170 pages, Mass Market Paperback
First published January 1, 1962
21 people are currently reading
1400 people want to read
About the author
J.G. Ballard
469 books4,074 followersJames Graham "J. G." Ballard (15 November 1930 – 19 April 2009) was an English novelist, short story writer, and essayist. Ballard came to be associated with the New Wave of science fiction early in his career with apocalyptic (or post-apocalyptic) novels such as The Drowned World (1962), The Burning World (1964), and The Crystal World (1966). In the late 1960s and early 1970s Ballard focused on an eclectic variety of short stories (or "condensed novels") such as The Atrocity Exhibition (1970), which drew closer comparison with the work of postmodernist writers such as William S. Burroughs. In 1973 the highly controversial novel Crash was published, a story about symphorophilia and car crash fetishism; the protagonist becomes sexually aroused by staging and participating in real car crashes. The story was later adapted into a film of the same name by Canadian director David Cronenberg.
While many of Ballard's stories are thematically and narratively unusual, he is perhaps best known for his relatively conventional war novel, Empire of the Sun (1984), a semi-autobiographical account of a young boy's experiences in Shanghai during the Second Sino-Japanese War as it came to be occupied by the Japanese Imperial Army. Described as "The best British novel about the Second World War" by The Guardian, the story was adapted into a 1987 film by Steven Spielberg.
The literary distinctiveness of Ballard's work has given rise to the adjective "Ballardian", defined by the Collins English Dictionary as "resembling or suggestive of the conditions described in J. G. Ballard's novels and stories, especially dystopian modernity, bleak man-made landscapes and the psychological effects of technological, social or environmental developments." The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry describes Ballard's work as being occupied with "eros, thanatos, mass media and emergent technologies".
While many of Ballard's stories are thematically and narratively unusual, he is perhaps best known for his relatively conventional war novel, Empire of the Sun (1984), a semi-autobiographical account of a young boy's experiences in Shanghai during the Second Sino-Japanese War as it came to be occupied by the Japanese Imperial Army. Described as "The best British novel about the Second World War" by The Guardian, the story was adapted into a 1987 film by Steven Spielberg.
The literary distinctiveness of Ballard's work has given rise to the adjective "Ballardian", defined by the Collins English Dictionary as "resembling or suggestive of the conditions described in J. G. Ballard's novels and stories, especially dystopian modernity, bleak man-made landscapes and the psychological effects of technological, social or environmental developments." The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry describes Ballard's work as being occupied with "eros, thanatos, mass media and emergent technologies".
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 115 reviews
Want to read
September 7, 2019- Give me the latest update on Dorian.
- Yes sir. It's not too bad sir. The Bahamas have been pretty much destroyed. The Carolinas are suffering heavy flooding. But it missed Florida. Mar-a-Lago is completely safe. And Alabama wasn't even touched.
- Please repeat that last part.
- I mean, Alabama suffered only minor damage. We dodged a bullet sir. Thanks to the President's timely warning.
- Be more careful in future.
- Yes sir.
- All the same, we have a lot of Republican voters in the Carolinas. We'd rather this didn't happen again. It's been happening too much recently.
- Yes sir.
- So what can we do about it? Can we use nukes on them?
- Sir, we haven't yet completed our feasibility studies, but preliminary indications are that that might not necessarily be a good idea. Sir.
- Well keep looking at it.
- Yes sir.
- Where do these winds come from, anyway? Why are we getting so many of them?
- Sir, that's a complex question and a lot of factors are involved, but we think the most likely explanation is that the observed increase in frequency is largely due to climate ch--
- WHAT?!!
- They come from nowhere sir. From nowhere.
- That's more like it. Dismissed.
- Yes sir. It's not too bad sir. The Bahamas have been pretty much destroyed. The Carolinas are suffering heavy flooding. But it missed Florida. Mar-a-Lago is completely safe. And Alabama wasn't even touched.
- Please repeat that last part.
- I mean, Alabama suffered only minor damage. We dodged a bullet sir. Thanks to the President's timely warning.
- Be more careful in future.
- Yes sir.
- All the same, we have a lot of Republican voters in the Carolinas. We'd rather this didn't happen again. It's been happening too much recently.
- Yes sir.
- So what can we do about it? Can we use nukes on them?
- Sir, we haven't yet completed our feasibility studies, but preliminary indications are that that might not necessarily be a good idea. Sir.
- Well keep looking at it.
- Yes sir.
- Where do these winds come from, anyway? Why are we getting so many of them?
- Sir, that's a complex question and a lot of factors are involved, but we think the most likely explanation is that the observed increase in frequency is largely due to climate ch--
- WHAT?!!
- They come from nowhere sir. From nowhere.
- That's more like it. Dismissed.
January 17, 2021
This is JG Ballard’s first novel and while it has some of the features of Ballardian fiction it’s a bit of a disappointing read. The author himself dismissed it as “a piece of hack work.” It’s a disaster movie with even a crazy rich megalomaniac. A wind is felt all round the earth in the one direction, slightly stronger at the equator than as you get closer to the poles. A few characters are followed as the disaster increases and they’re ordinary people reacting in ordinary ways to the extreme events happening around them. It was a fast read but I won’t be spending days thinking about it like with so much of his other work.
July 27, 2009
Ballard has disowned this novel, and while I can understand his feelings, he's being too hard on a flawed work with many redeeming qualities. The high concept--that worldwide winds of gradually increasing velocity destroy civilization--is entertaining. The characters are clearly drawn and are somewhat less cliched than is typical in this genre. Finally, the portrayal of government priorities in the face of disaster remains relevant because of Hurricane Katrina and similar incidents.
One caveat, though: This is disaster fiction of the distinctly British variety. Humans neither cause the eponymous wind nor stop it; in the face of catastrophic natural forces, some struggle for survival, some give up, and most ignore the problem until too late. If you're hoping for Will Smith and Bruce Willis to solve the problem by steering some preposterous vehicle full of explosives, then you're reading the wrong book.
One caveat, though: This is disaster fiction of the distinctly British variety. Humans neither cause the eponymous wind nor stop it; in the face of catastrophic natural forces, some struggle for survival, some give up, and most ignore the problem until too late. If you're hoping for Will Smith and Bruce Willis to solve the problem by steering some preposterous vehicle full of explosives, then you're reading the wrong book.
November 27, 2023
This is the start of my project to reread all of Ballard's novels.
I'm glad to read this 1st as it's an outlier, not really "Ballardian" at all. Just a standard old fashioned disaster novel.
So my expectations were much lower and so I thought it was a reasonable potboiler.
Now on to the "proper" stuff....
I'm glad to read this 1st as it's an outlier, not really "Ballardian" at all. Just a standard old fashioned disaster novel.
So my expectations were much lower and so I thought it was a reasonable potboiler.
Now on to the "proper" stuff....
November 27, 2023
Classic Sci-Fi End of the World Yarn; J.G. Ballard's Breakout Novel
"The Wind From Nowhere" is a classic, early 60s apocalyptic science fiction novel about a mysterious cyclonic wind that devastates the surface of the earth with an incrementally increasing speed of 5 MPH per day until it peaks out at 550 mph. It was the first of multiple environmental disaster novels by British sci-fi author J.G. Ballard and I believe it is his best. It is certainly his most conventional. It was purposely written as a breakout novel, meant to jump start Ballard's career when he was a struggling new author. And it is written in a style that mirrored popular sci-fi novels of the day in which strong male heroes (Maitland, Lanyon and Matheson), brilliant technocrats (Symington, Marshall), and tough, independent-minded women (Patricia Olsen) battled both the mysterious forces of a malevolent Mother Nature and the evil schemes of a billionaire mad-man and his evil henchmen (Hardoon, Kroll). It's all so well done. I first read this when I was fourteen and reading every end-of-the-world yarn I could find. Recently I went through a "Ballard" period and decided to hunt down an old mass market copy of this book to see if It was as good as I remembered it was. Nope. It was better. J.G. Ballard is such a great writer that you forget this was written to make a quick name and a quick buck for its author. And like some modern artist who's proven his classical bona fides as a young man and then transitions to a career in the abstract, Ballard never wrote so conventionally again. Oh, well. But this is great stuff, needs to be re-released and should have been made into a movie a long time ago. Find a copy, read it and you will agree.
J.G. Ballard was a British "new wave" novelist who wrote mostly sci-fi apocalyptic fiction that was little more than veiled social commentary. However, he was most famous for the semi-autobiographical novel, "Empire of the Sun," and the perversely surrealistic novel, "Crash", both of which were made into popular films. He is considered one of Britain's great 20th century literary lights.
If you like good sci-fi from the golden age of paperback mass publishing, then "The Wind from Nowhere" is highly recommended.
"The Wind From Nowhere" is a classic, early 60s apocalyptic science fiction novel about a mysterious cyclonic wind that devastates the surface of the earth with an incrementally increasing speed of 5 MPH per day until it peaks out at 550 mph. It was the first of multiple environmental disaster novels by British sci-fi author J.G. Ballard and I believe it is his best. It is certainly his most conventional. It was purposely written as a breakout novel, meant to jump start Ballard's career when he was a struggling new author. And it is written in a style that mirrored popular sci-fi novels of the day in which strong male heroes (Maitland, Lanyon and Matheson), brilliant technocrats (Symington, Marshall), and tough, independent-minded women (Patricia Olsen) battled both the mysterious forces of a malevolent Mother Nature and the evil schemes of a billionaire mad-man and his evil henchmen (Hardoon, Kroll). It's all so well done. I first read this when I was fourteen and reading every end-of-the-world yarn I could find. Recently I went through a "Ballard" period and decided to hunt down an old mass market copy of this book to see if It was as good as I remembered it was. Nope. It was better. J.G. Ballard is such a great writer that you forget this was written to make a quick name and a quick buck for its author. And like some modern artist who's proven his classical bona fides as a young man and then transitions to a career in the abstract, Ballard never wrote so conventionally again. Oh, well. But this is great stuff, needs to be re-released and should have been made into a movie a long time ago. Find a copy, read it and you will agree.
J.G. Ballard was a British "new wave" novelist who wrote mostly sci-fi apocalyptic fiction that was little more than veiled social commentary. However, he was most famous for the semi-autobiographical novel, "Empire of the Sun," and the perversely surrealistic novel, "Crash", both of which were made into popular films. He is considered one of Britain's great 20th century literary lights.
If you like good sci-fi from the golden age of paperback mass publishing, then "The Wind from Nowhere" is highly recommended.
March 15, 2011
Ballards first novel is another apocalyptic story, this time about...well..a wind that came out of nowhere.
The premise is that the air around the world started moving as one in a westerly direction, slowly and getting faster and faster each day. At first mankind is merely inconvenienced by things like cancelled flights but gradually they are forced to batton down the hatches more and more as the wind picks up.
No one really knows what started this weather system or when it will stop. It seemed to me that Ballard kept it deliberately vague; at one point someone speculates upon some unlikely scientific explanation but then undermines it by saying it is just as likely to be an act of God to purge the world of our civilization. Indeed, it's nature is kept ambiguous througout leaving the reader wondering whether it's only purpose was to humble mankind, to show us that nature cannot be dominated.
This seemed to me the most conventionally written of his novels that I have read in which he is only beginning to develop the themes that he would explore in more depth later on such as a shift in emphasis from the external events of the apocalypse to the internal, psycological reaction to these events. Early on in the story, one of the protagonists wonders whether this wind might not be a good thing, to breathe a breath of fresh air into our stale world although he ultimately rejects this position as it clears out all the good along with the bad. And at various points, characters seem to become transfixed by the wind, absorbed by it, unable and unwilling to tare themselves away even if it means their death.
This short book had a split narrative, leaving little space in which to develop the characters as much as it should have done to make us care more about them. I was also suprised by the level of apparent sexism which I don't normally associate with Ballard. Apparently he disliked this novel and tried to disown it later but I thought it was worth a read, even though it is not the best of his early apocalyptic novels.
The premise is that the air around the world started moving as one in a westerly direction, slowly and getting faster and faster each day. At first mankind is merely inconvenienced by things like cancelled flights but gradually they are forced to batton down the hatches more and more as the wind picks up.
No one really knows what started this weather system or when it will stop. It seemed to me that Ballard kept it deliberately vague; at one point someone speculates upon some unlikely scientific explanation but then undermines it by saying it is just as likely to be an act of God to purge the world of our civilization. Indeed, it's nature is kept ambiguous througout leaving the reader wondering whether it's only purpose was to humble mankind, to show us that nature cannot be dominated.
This seemed to me the most conventionally written of his novels that I have read in which he is only beginning to develop the themes that he would explore in more depth later on such as a shift in emphasis from the external events of the apocalypse to the internal, psycological reaction to these events. Early on in the story, one of the protagonists wonders whether this wind might not be a good thing, to breathe a breath of fresh air into our stale world although he ultimately rejects this position as it clears out all the good along with the bad. And at various points, characters seem to become transfixed by the wind, absorbed by it, unable and unwilling to tare themselves away even if it means their death.
This short book had a split narrative, leaving little space in which to develop the characters as much as it should have done to make us care more about them. I was also suprised by the level of apparent sexism which I don't normally associate with Ballard. Apparently he disliked this novel and tried to disown it later but I thought it was worth a read, even though it is not the best of his early apocalyptic novels.
February 9, 2018
Oh god, how boring this is!
Wind and the army, soldiers and wind. Oh, and a semi-crazy billionaire in the end. Connections in the plot or between characters are quite loose. It's a pity, because the idea is good and the premises are quite interesting.
Wind and the army, soldiers and wind. Oh, and a semi-crazy billionaire in the end. Connections in the plot or between characters are quite loose. It's a pity, because the idea is good and the premises are quite interesting.
February 21, 2024
Well, I just read Ballard's The Drowned World expecting--as I had always heard--that Ballard's early work was pedestrian sci fi compared to his post-breakthrough work beginning with The Atrocity Exhibition and was super pleasantly surprised to find that the dystopic disaster novel actually had some wonderfully suggestive Freudian aspects and was actually far above the sci-fi thriller I had expected. So I picked up this other ancient pocketbook I had laying around of his second novel and, sadly, found that it was everything I had heard about Ballard's early work--a pedestrian thriller about a natural disaster, in this case a high wind that goes very high indeed. The wind aspect was kinda silly, even if Ballard's competent writing allowed me, for the most part, to ignore that and buy in. Still, it was just a thriller and the deus ex machina ending made it mediocre even by thriller standards. Fun, I suppose, but nothing literary here to speak of.
July 4, 2013
Di che parla Vento dal Nulla? Beh, esattamente quello che dice il titolo: un bel giorno inizia a soffiare il vento e non ci sarebbe nulla di strano se: a_ non soffiasse più o meno uniformemente su tutta la terra; b_ non smettesse mai; c_ la sua forza non continuasse ad aumentare.
Scritto nel 1961, questo è un libro che vede la fantascienza nell'ottica del disastro naturale: non ci sono alieni, non c'è tecnologia e non c'è società futuristica.
Noi vediamo la crisi che sconvolge il pianeta quando un fenomeno imprevedibile ed inarrestabile travolge tutti e tutto, letteralmente. Come fai a fermare una massa solida di aria che si muove sull'intera superficie terrestre? All'inizio è fastidio, poi preoccupazione, poi terrore: una storia opprimente in cui non c'è un nemico da combattere, solo il tentativo di restare vivi quanto basta, perchè il vento prima o poi scemerà, no?
Ma non è detto, e insieme alla crescente devastazione c'è anche la crescente fine della speranza, la la perdita di tutto: non solo niente più tecnologia, ma neanche la possibilità di tornare alle origini, di sopravvivere come i nostri antenati: la superficie è invivibile, il sottosuolo anche. Non c'è letteralmente niente, a parte poche scorte che non basteranno per tutti e non basteranno a lungo.
La lotta tra uomo e natura è talmente impari da non essere neanche una lotta quanto un lento massacro di cui non si conosce il motivo: perchè il vento ha iniziato a soffiare, a spostare l'equivalente di un deserto? Si parla di un'anomala attività solare che potrebbe essere alla base, ma i suoi effetti sono più che altro biblici: quando un uomo sfida apertamente la furia della natura ricorda più che altro l'arrogante sfida a Dio che doveva essere la Torre di Babele.
Il libro, in quanto opera prima, ha la sua bella dose di difetti: il primo sono le descrizioni, nebulose e decisamente acerbe, che tendono a ripetersi all'infinito. Poi ci sono i personaggi... o meglio, non ci sono: piatti, di loro non si sa nulla dall'inizio alla fine e sono più che altro tagliati con l'accetta. La cosa crea un contrasto interessante perchè ti ritrovi con un libro di cui vuoi sapere il finale, ma non perchè hai investito emotivamente nei personaggi: è pura e semplice curiosità, perchè Ballard ha creato l'atmosfera. In effetti, i personaggi sembrano più che altro una scomoda necessità: servono gli occhi di qualcuno per vedere Quello che Realmente Importa, ossia quanto sta accadendo alla Terra.
Per ultimo c'è il cattivo, che per me è un'epic fail: per tutta la lettura sembra che lo scritto sia piuttosto anomalo per la mancanza di un nemico che non sia una forza implacabile, contro cui è impossibile ingaggiare un combattimento. A me sinceramente piaceva: non serviva un antagonista umano.
Ma a quanto pare il climax si poteva raggiungere solo con un tizio che spunta dal niente, e inserisce a random la tematica dello scontro tra l'uomo e natura, tra uomo e mistico, tra uomo e i suoi limiti... insomma, lì si sente che è un'opera prima perchè è veramente infilato a forza in modo molto ingenuo, che mal si amalgama con il resto del libro.
Ma in definitiva mi è piaciuto: l'idea è interessante e l'autore riesce a rendere benissimo la crescente angoscia e il panico della sua ambientazione. È stato anche abbastanza bravo da non tirarla per le lunghe: Ballard preferisce usare il tempo necessario piuttosto che allungare il brodo con inutile fuffa.
Non vedo l'ora di leggere qualcos'altro di suo.
Scritto nel 1961, questo è un libro che vede la fantascienza nell'ottica del disastro naturale: non ci sono alieni, non c'è tecnologia e non c'è società futuristica.
Noi vediamo la crisi che sconvolge il pianeta quando un fenomeno imprevedibile ed inarrestabile travolge tutti e tutto, letteralmente. Come fai a fermare una massa solida di aria che si muove sull'intera superficie terrestre? All'inizio è fastidio, poi preoccupazione, poi terrore: una storia opprimente in cui non c'è un nemico da combattere, solo il tentativo di restare vivi quanto basta, perchè il vento prima o poi scemerà, no?
Ma non è detto, e insieme alla crescente devastazione c'è anche la crescente fine della speranza, la la perdita di tutto: non solo niente più tecnologia, ma neanche la possibilità di tornare alle origini, di sopravvivere come i nostri antenati: la superficie è invivibile, il sottosuolo anche. Non c'è letteralmente niente, a parte poche scorte che non basteranno per tutti e non basteranno a lungo.
La lotta tra uomo e natura è talmente impari da non essere neanche una lotta quanto un lento massacro di cui non si conosce il motivo: perchè il vento ha iniziato a soffiare, a spostare l'equivalente di un deserto? Si parla di un'anomala attività solare che potrebbe essere alla base, ma i suoi effetti sono più che altro biblici: quando un uomo sfida apertamente la furia della natura ricorda più che altro l'arrogante sfida a Dio che doveva essere la Torre di Babele.
Il libro, in quanto opera prima, ha la sua bella dose di difetti: il primo sono le descrizioni, nebulose e decisamente acerbe, che tendono a ripetersi all'infinito. Poi ci sono i personaggi... o meglio, non ci sono: piatti, di loro non si sa nulla dall'inizio alla fine e sono più che altro tagliati con l'accetta. La cosa crea un contrasto interessante perchè ti ritrovi con un libro di cui vuoi sapere il finale, ma non perchè hai investito emotivamente nei personaggi: è pura e semplice curiosità, perchè Ballard ha creato l'atmosfera. In effetti, i personaggi sembrano più che altro una scomoda necessità: servono gli occhi di qualcuno per vedere Quello che Realmente Importa, ossia quanto sta accadendo alla Terra.
Per ultimo c'è il cattivo, che per me è un'epic fail: per tutta la lettura sembra che lo scritto sia piuttosto anomalo per la mancanza di un nemico che non sia una forza implacabile, contro cui è impossibile ingaggiare un combattimento. A me sinceramente piaceva: non serviva un antagonista umano.
Ma a quanto pare il climax si poteva raggiungere solo con un tizio che spunta dal niente, e inserisce a random la tematica dello scontro tra l'uomo e natura, tra uomo e mistico, tra uomo e i suoi limiti... insomma, lì si sente che è un'opera prima perchè è veramente infilato a forza in modo molto ingenuo, che mal si amalgama con il resto del libro.
Ma in definitiva mi è piaciuto: l'idea è interessante e l'autore riesce a rendere benissimo la crescente angoscia e il panico della sua ambientazione. È stato anche abbastanza bravo da non tirarla per le lunghe: Ballard preferisce usare il tempo necessario piuttosto che allungare il brodo con inutile fuffa.
Non vedo l'ora di leggere qualcos'altro di suo.
Read
February 27, 2023Ballard disavowed this, his first novel, which he claimed to have written in only ten days to pay for a holiday with his wife that they couldn't otherwise afford. Its premise is that a mysterious wind engulfs the entirety of the earth, increasing its velocity by an average of five miles per hour per day until it reaches speeds that no living thing can survive. So, humanity goes into hiding underground.
The resulting novel is a fairly average natural disaster action adventure. Ballard's talents as a prose stylist are on display here - I found it astonishing that he wrote this in only ten days. This alone makes the book interesting to read. There are many moments when Ballard's talent for sublime, darkly strange imagery shines. However, the themes implicit in this imagery aren't developed enough to allow the story to rise above the level of awe-inspiring disaster porn. Further, the characters are incredibly shallow. Essentially, they're placeholders - excuses to stage action set pieces. The climactic conflict between the main characters and Hardoon - a megalomaniacal millionaire who has constructed a gigantic pyramid to prove that he is the Übermensch who can stand up to godlike force of the wind - seems tacked on. Lastly, the story doesn't conclude so much as the novel simply ends, with no resolutions in sight for its character arcs or its themes (such as they are).
The upshot: this is probably only a book for Ballard completists. I'm endeavoring to read through his entire body of work, so it was worth it for me, but I don't think it would have been otherwise. One thing is certain: don't read this as your first foray into Ballard!
The resulting novel is a fairly average natural disaster action adventure. Ballard's talents as a prose stylist are on display here - I found it astonishing that he wrote this in only ten days. This alone makes the book interesting to read. There are many moments when Ballard's talent for sublime, darkly strange imagery shines. However, the themes implicit in this imagery aren't developed enough to allow the story to rise above the level of awe-inspiring disaster porn. Further, the characters are incredibly shallow. Essentially, they're placeholders - excuses to stage action set pieces. The climactic conflict between the main characters and Hardoon - a megalomaniacal millionaire who has constructed a gigantic pyramid to prove that he is the Übermensch who can stand up to godlike force of the wind - seems tacked on. Lastly, the story doesn't conclude so much as the novel simply ends, with no resolutions in sight for its character arcs or its themes (such as they are).
The upshot: this is probably only a book for Ballard completists. I'm endeavoring to read through his entire body of work, so it was worth it for me, but I don't think it would have been otherwise. One thing is certain: don't read this as your first foray into Ballard!
December 31, 2013
Finally got around to snagging a copy of Ballard's first novel. Apparently, he himself disowned it. Indeed, it isn't a very good book. That said, I think it's worth reading for fans of Ballard. It's interesting as a proto-Ballard work. I've mentioned before that I think Ballard wrote the same book, over and over. There's always a male lead that's actually Ballard. Society gets shaken up in some fashion and people form new ways of being, well, a society.
This book shows glimpses of this. There's an ever increasing wind scouring the globe and folks have to deal with it. There's no single character filling in for Ballard himself, but you can see aspects in some of the male leads. Society gets shaken up, but never really forms an alternative.
The ending fizzles, but, again, that's typical for Ballard. His books aren't about the ending; they're about what happens in between. Alas, the Ballardian framework isn't yet in place, so not much of interest happens in between.
One bonus with the copy I have is that it features a Pelham cover. In the 70s, Penguin books reissued four Ballard novels with Pelham covers. They're pretty awesome. When I looked in my bookshelf for my copy of The Drought, I was delighted to realize it was from the same reissue. So, of course, I hit eBay to pick up the other two. Maybe I'll scan them in, print them out big, and hang them on the wall.
This book shows glimpses of this. There's an ever increasing wind scouring the globe and folks have to deal with it. There's no single character filling in for Ballard himself, but you can see aspects in some of the male leads. Society gets shaken up, but never really forms an alternative.
The ending fizzles, but, again, that's typical for Ballard. His books aren't about the ending; they're about what happens in between. Alas, the Ballardian framework isn't yet in place, so not much of interest happens in between.
One bonus with the copy I have is that it features a Pelham cover. In the 70s, Penguin books reissued four Ballard novels with Pelham covers. They're pretty awesome. When I looked in my bookshelf for my copy of The Drought, I was delighted to realize it was from the same reissue. So, of course, I hit eBay to pick up the other two. Maybe I'll scan them in, print them out big, and hang them on the wall.
November 20, 2017
This short book about a "wind that came from nowhere" (stop eating all that garlic, then!), causing worldwide destruction, is typical JGB fare.
In this early stirring of his obsession with dystopia, we see all the hallmarks of JGB, like the deserted and abandoned airfields/cities/towns etc., his typical middle-class professional characters (isn't there a Maitland character in "Concrete Island" as well?) with their warped outlook and disturbed relationships (although the characters are more "normal" in this book than in later novels like Crash). Where the book is a let down is in the confusing descriptions of the disaster.
I read somewhere that he disowned this book, which was his first. I wouldn't have gone that far. It's a lot weaker than his later novels but still written (mostly) in his famously robust style, which makes it readable.
In this early stirring of his obsession with dystopia, we see all the hallmarks of JGB, like the deserted and abandoned airfields/cities/towns etc., his typical middle-class professional characters (isn't there a Maitland character in "Concrete Island" as well?) with their warped outlook and disturbed relationships (although the characters are more "normal" in this book than in later novels like Crash). Where the book is a let down is in the confusing descriptions of the disaster.
I read somewhere that he disowned this book, which was his first. I wouldn't have gone that far. It's a lot weaker than his later novels but still written (mostly) in his famously robust style, which makes it readable.
March 5, 2019
I read an interview with Ballard where he stated this book was out-of-print for a reason. He basically said it was a cash cow thriller he wrote on contract early in his career and it wasn’t his best. Agreed. It’s just sort of a nonsensical action vignette based around the Earth’s wind steadily increasing. And that’s it. Nothing is explained. There’s very little resolution and it lacks the usual underlying intellect which is a hallmark of Ballard’s work.
March 28, 2021
Мали, каква мъка за четене беше тази кратка книжка, не е истина. Знам, че е първи опит на Балард в дългата проза, ама направо даже нямаше загатване за огромния потенциал, който развива в следващите си произведения. Имаше 1-2 проблясъка от по две-три изречения, които ми се усладиха, но имам чувството, че съм изчел "Война и мир" за слепи, толкова ме напрегна.
Светът е изправен пред катаклизъм. Навсякъде започва да духа вятър, който постоянно увеличава скоростта си и човечеството е обречено. Докато необяснимата стихия достига библейски пропорции и скорости, шепа герои оцеляват минута за минута и т'ва е, да не издавам финала.
Мъкааа, мъка, мъка.
Светът е изправен пред катаклизъм. Навсякъде започва да духа вятър, който постоянно увеличава скоростта си и човечеството е обречено. Докато необяснимата стихия достига библейски пропорции и скорости, шепа герои оцеляват минута за минута и т'ва е, да не издавам финала.
Мъкааа, мъка, мъка.
November 4, 2021
Libro de ficción sobre un aumento progresivo, constante y diario de la velocidad del viento en nuestro planeta.
Creo que es de lo peor que leí en la vida. No tiene gracia, ni suspense, no engancha, sus personajes no dicen nada. Nunca había pensao esto de un libro; pero es tan malo, que podía haberlo escrito hasta yo.
August 12, 2018
Tal vez lo mas flojo que leí de Ballard. El final me sorprendió algo. Se nota que es de sus comienzos.
June 3, 2024
Dies war Ballards erster Roman und er gefiel ihm (wie man lesen kann) später selber nicht mehr.
Zur Handlung. Der weltweit wirkende "Sturm aus dem Nichts" geht halt irgendwann ohne erkennbaren Grund los und wird dann über Wochen langsam immer schlimmer. Immer mehr Zeug geht kaputt, immer mehr Menschen sterben.
Es gibt wie bei Katastrophen-Geschichten üblich ein paar einzelne Menschen, deren Schicksal man verfolgt. Sonderlich nahe kommt man ihnen nicht, deswegen hält sich das Mitfiebern in Grenzen.
Ziemlich spät kommt dann ein neues, draufgepappt wirkendes Element, nämlich ein größenwahnsinniger Superschurke ala James Bond. Das trägt nicht zur Qualitätssteigerung bei.
Als positiver Punkt sei der schon recht geschliffene Stil erwähnt. 2.5/5
Zur Handlung. Der weltweit wirkende "Sturm aus dem Nichts" geht halt irgendwann ohne erkennbaren Grund los und wird dann über Wochen langsam immer schlimmer. Immer mehr Zeug geht kaputt, immer mehr Menschen sterben.
Es gibt wie bei Katastrophen-Geschichten üblich ein paar einzelne Menschen, deren Schicksal man verfolgt. Sonderlich nahe kommt man ihnen nicht, deswegen hält sich das Mitfiebern in Grenzen.
Ziemlich spät kommt dann ein neues, draufgepappt wirkendes Element, nämlich ein größenwahnsinniger Superschurke ala James Bond. Das trägt nicht zur Qualitätssteigerung bei.
Als positiver Punkt sei der schon recht geschliffene Stil erwähnt. 2.5/5
January 20, 2008
Ballard tends to write several bks on variations of the same theme. This is the 1st(?) of his mono-ecological-disaster novels - by wch I mean that one ecological phenomenon reaches disastrous proportions & only a small part of the human (& animal & plant-life, etc) population survives. In this case, a wind whips around the earth faster & faster - gradually flattening all but the sturdiest objects. Ballard has usually managed to stay at the forefront of science fiction that addresses problems of human urban living. I like more or less everything that I've read by him - even when I think the ideas & writing are a bit thin, I still appreciate the bks' realtionship to his overall ouvre.
May 17, 2021
Ballard disowned this, his first novel, and yeah--it's pretty bad. But then again, just five years later with The Crystal World, Ballard was writing like an sf Joseph Conrad, and a year after that he was writing like no one ever had before, with The Atrocity Exhibition. We can give him a mulligan.
December 6, 2012
Were I a little better at anthropomorphizing, if I could bring myself to impart sentience and a unified will to planet Earth and its ecosphere without giggling, I would say that sometime in the mid to late 20th century, Gaia decided that, once and for all, She needed to get rid of this bad case of humans she's got and started working on a plan. And that furthermore she convinced J.G. Ballard to allow her to use his fiction as the laboratory in which various schemes were tested out. Ballard would perform Her thought experiments so She could pick the best way to bring the human world to ruin, or at least chase us off this planet, without unnecessarily expending all the energy and endangering all of the other life forms She wanted to keep.
Hey, you've got to admit it's as good a characterization as any for this cycle of "elemental apocalypse" novels. J.G. Ballard has drowned the world, crystallized the world, dried up and burned the world, and, in The Wind From Nowhere, blown the world to dusty pieces with hurricane-force winds.
But hey, as well I've come to know, even if his world is just one posh apartment building, J.G. Ballard enjoys destroying with gleeful abandon. Or rather, enjoys letting a single force (usually one that humanity has unleashed upon itself in one way or another) have its wild and wicked way with the world, to the world's greatest possible cost. It's not Ballard's fault everything gets trashed; it's ours. Or, very occasionally, that of the odd freak cosmic accident.
Unlike Hollywood, though, which is addicted to focusing on heroic efforts to fight disaster -- fire a missile to destroy the comet that's going to hit the Earth! Infect the invading alien ship with a computer virus! Sic the army on the giant ants! -- Ballard is more interested in watching ordinary, passive, bemused observer-refugees, whose lives usually were already pretty much trashed due to these same faults long before the natural disaster du novel hit, watch the disaster. And occasionally make a token effort to survive it, but, you know, nothing too strenuous.
I'm amused with myself to only now be reading this one, which is not only the first of Ballard's elemental apocalypses, but Ballard's first published novel of any kind (though Ballard dismissed it as "hackwork" and tended to refer to The Drowned World as his first novel). I tend to be fiercely chronological when I take up a new-to-me writer, but I also take advice from friends seriously, and the many passionate Ballardians I'm blessed with in my life, concerned that The Wind From Nowhere might sour me on the author, all told me to start with The Drowned World or Hello, America.* So I did.
And yeah, my friends were right. Had I started with this novel, I might not have gone on to read others, might not have become a Ballard fangirl, because while The Wind From Nowhere features a lot of the things I've come to love or at least find interesting about Ballard, they're buried in a conventional fight/rescue narrative that is weirdly dull compared to the passive/observing motif of the rest of the elemental apocalypse, and flat out boring compared to the disintegration and madness of High Rise.
That being said, this is still not truly a bad book. There are loads of hints of future greatness to be had here, most notably in the small but vivid storyline of Susan Maitland, estranged wife of one of the sort-of protagonists**, who elects to stay in her posh London apartment when everyone else is evacuated to the building's foundations or other underground locations. She wants to watch the houses fall down, she tells the porter, thus presaging so many Ballardian observers, and she and the state of her surroundings prefigure many of the delights of High Rise and other of Ballard's bravura descriptions of destruction and swift decay.
And, of course, speaking of destruction and decay, there's plenty of that to be had, too, for Ballard was obviously a master of depicting that from the get-go. As almost the entire planet (save the extreme northern and southern latitudes) becomes a giant dustbowl and some of the characters begin speculating about most of the formerly human-dominated planet turning into a band of permanent storm a la Saturn, the reader feels every sandblasting whipcrack of the mighty winds that have leveled everything in their path across the earth. One can almost imagine this being apocalypse of which Cormac McCarthy's The Road is post-.
Although I'm not sure that road, to say nothing of its surrounding trees and whatnot, would have survived The Wind From Nowhere.
*Hello, America is still on my to-be-read list. I've actually started it a few times, but only get a few chapters in before I get the screaming willies over how much it reminds me of the later stages of Greg Bear's Blood Music, which is my #1 freak-out novel of all time.
**A big flaw in this book, for me, was the surfeit of characters, none of them in the spotlight for long enough to become anything more than stick figures blowing in or hiding from the wind. A few figures eventually emerge as important to what actual narrative there is here, but they're little more than cameramen, roving around London or the central Mediterranean to show us the awesome destruction.
Hey, you've got to admit it's as good a characterization as any for this cycle of "elemental apocalypse" novels. J.G. Ballard has drowned the world, crystallized the world, dried up and burned the world, and, in The Wind From Nowhere, blown the world to dusty pieces with hurricane-force winds.
But hey, as well I've come to know, even if his world is just one posh apartment building, J.G. Ballard enjoys destroying with gleeful abandon. Or rather, enjoys letting a single force (usually one that humanity has unleashed upon itself in one way or another) have its wild and wicked way with the world, to the world's greatest possible cost. It's not Ballard's fault everything gets trashed; it's ours. Or, very occasionally, that of the odd freak cosmic accident.
Unlike Hollywood, though, which is addicted to focusing on heroic efforts to fight disaster -- fire a missile to destroy the comet that's going to hit the Earth! Infect the invading alien ship with a computer virus! Sic the army on the giant ants! -- Ballard is more interested in watching ordinary, passive, bemused observer-refugees, whose lives usually were already pretty much trashed due to these same faults long before the natural disaster du novel hit, watch the disaster. And occasionally make a token effort to survive it, but, you know, nothing too strenuous.
I'm amused with myself to only now be reading this one, which is not only the first of Ballard's elemental apocalypses, but Ballard's first published novel of any kind (though Ballard dismissed it as "hackwork" and tended to refer to The Drowned World as his first novel). I tend to be fiercely chronological when I take up a new-to-me writer, but I also take advice from friends seriously, and the many passionate Ballardians I'm blessed with in my life, concerned that The Wind From Nowhere might sour me on the author, all told me to start with The Drowned World or Hello, America.* So I did.
And yeah, my friends were right. Had I started with this novel, I might not have gone on to read others, might not have become a Ballard fangirl, because while The Wind From Nowhere features a lot of the things I've come to love or at least find interesting about Ballard, they're buried in a conventional fight/rescue narrative that is weirdly dull compared to the passive/observing motif of the rest of the elemental apocalypse, and flat out boring compared to the disintegration and madness of High Rise.
That being said, this is still not truly a bad book. There are loads of hints of future greatness to be had here, most notably in the small but vivid storyline of Susan Maitland, estranged wife of one of the sort-of protagonists**, who elects to stay in her posh London apartment when everyone else is evacuated to the building's foundations or other underground locations. She wants to watch the houses fall down, she tells the porter, thus presaging so many Ballardian observers, and she and the state of her surroundings prefigure many of the delights of High Rise and other of Ballard's bravura descriptions of destruction and swift decay.
And, of course, speaking of destruction and decay, there's plenty of that to be had, too, for Ballard was obviously a master of depicting that from the get-go. As almost the entire planet (save the extreme northern and southern latitudes) becomes a giant dustbowl and some of the characters begin speculating about most of the formerly human-dominated planet turning into a band of permanent storm a la Saturn, the reader feels every sandblasting whipcrack of the mighty winds that have leveled everything in their path across the earth. One can almost imagine this being apocalypse of which Cormac McCarthy's The Road is post-.
Although I'm not sure that road, to say nothing of its surrounding trees and whatnot, would have survived The Wind From Nowhere.
*Hello, America is still on my to-be-read list. I've actually started it a few times, but only get a few chapters in before I get the screaming willies over how much it reminds me of the later stages of Greg Bear's Blood Music, which is my #1 freak-out novel of all time.
**A big flaw in this book, for me, was the surfeit of characters, none of them in the spotlight for long enough to become anything more than stick figures blowing in or hiding from the wind. A few figures eventually emerge as important to what actual narrative there is here, but they're little more than cameramen, roving around London or the central Mediterranean to show us the awesome destruction.
December 2, 2017
Biblical-scale hurricane sweeps humanity off the surface of the earth. Kind of compelling, kind of blows.
November 5, 2025
Ballard disowned his first novel as "hack work" but I feel, whilst far from his best it is still a worthwhile work containing many of his future themes. Read in a beautiful Penguin sci-fi edition with an Alan Aldridge cover.
July 7, 2020
This book sure gives you wind!
Yes, yes, I read this book just to be able to crack this joke.
Yes, yes, I read this book just to be able to crack this joke.
July 16, 2025
2.5
On the whole, people had shown less resourcefulness and flexibility, less foresight, than a wild bird or animal would. Their basic survival instincts had been so dulled, so overlaid by mechanisms designed to serve secondary appetites, that they were totally unable to protect them-selves. As Symington had implied, they were the helpless victims of a deep-rooted optimism about their right to survival, their dominance of the natural order which would guarantee them against everything but their own folly, that they had made gross assumptions about their own superiority. Now they were paying the price for this, in truth reaping the whirlwind!
On the whole, people had shown less resourcefulness and flexibility, less foresight, than a wild bird or animal would. Their basic survival instincts had been so dulled, so overlaid by mechanisms designed to serve secondary appetites, that they were totally unable to protect them-selves. As Symington had implied, they were the helpless victims of a deep-rooted optimism about their right to survival, their dominance of the natural order which would guarantee them against everything but their own folly, that they had made gross assumptions about their own superiority. Now they were paying the price for this, in truth reaping the whirlwind!
January 24, 2024
Despite my slowly coming around to British New Wave science fiction, I still can't call myself a J. G. Ballard fan. Granted, I've only read one previous book by him (*The Four-Dimensional Nightmare*, variant title of a collection of short stories from the 60s), but I don't love how his other works are usually described. Still, I'm an SF completionist and am therefore bound to read more by him... when I found a Berkley Medallion paperback of his debut novel (and the first book in his disaster quartet) at an antique mall, I had to pick it up and see what all the rather negative fuss was about. I'm actually kind of surprised that *The Wind From Nowhere* gets as bad of a rap as it does; I saw it as good ol', slightly elevated fun that warmed the cockles of my heart.
The book kicks off with a chapter about Donald Maitland, a doctor from London running away from wife to take up tenure in Canada. His overseas flight is grounded due to strangely strong winds and he's forced to take shelter in an apartment under both his and his wife's names. He runs into her and a young lover there, which drives him to visit an old friend (Andrew Symington) and his wife while the winds gradually increase at a rate of five miles(or is it kilometers?) per-hour each day. Chapter Two shifts to Captain Lanyon, an American militaryman who's called away from his submarine, which is sheltered in an Italian pem, to collect an admiral from inland who's reported to be alive. On the way he helps out a couple natives out from under the rubble of a windswept church and saves a couple of American filmmakers. One of them, Patricia Olsen, is the only .
If we go back to Chapter Four we return to ...
That was a rather involved plot summary for a 160-paged book, but I think it was worth it since the plot is a bit of a mosaic which cleverly converges narrative around that gives this book a bit more of contemporary flavor. It must also be noted that all of the characters' motives and roles in the plot make sense and remain consistent across the whole book, a feat that's not extremely common in 60s science fiction. I probably wasn't paying as much attention to this book as I could've while reading it, but its gradual narrative wasn't lost on me.
The prose is also a bit ahead of its time. It's not groundbreaking or anything too beautiful for its time, but it is very solid and contains some cool turn of phrase and "elevates" (there's that word again) the book beyond the level of many of its post-apocalyptic contemporaries. There's just something about it that engaged me. That being said, there's also a more distinct something about the prose that disengaged me: the physical framing. Maybe it's because the story was centered around places which my 21st-century life doesn't run into often such as Lanyon's "submarine pens," but I didn't find the settings (both in and out of the world-changing winds) very well explained. I think that Ballard has the ability to richly fill out his writings' physical scenes, but... he doesn't. I usually wouldn't care if an author did this instead of being upset about it, but here the wonkiness of how the action sequences played in my head did disrupt my reading experience. The balance of action-sequence to discussion or exposition was rather good and I never felt like I was reading "just a dumb action thriller," but I do wish it had confused my sense of space a bit less.
This book's glints of philosophy - especially towards the end when takes center stage - gives the book another "elevated" edge. This book isn't as densely symbolic as other Ballard books by any means - in comparison, it's probably quite thin - but you can tell that Ballard is thinking of this as more than just a disaster sequence, and he can spit on this book all he wants to, but that doesn't change the fact that even his paycheck-work was imbued with the deeper thoughts that always seemed to run through Ballard's head.
Still, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that my opinion's a bit unpopular. A lot of folks believe that *The Wind From Nowhere* is a lesser work, and I can't exactly say why. Its conventionality should speak for it in the common eye, not against it! And I even dare to say that it's not *that* conventional because its apocalyptic novum is something special; it's not about a big earthquake or nuclear warfare or rising oceans or any of that, but 250 MPH winds! I've never read that setup before! Not to mention that the ramifications of such a disaster are good and well-thought; also, reading this book right after a blizzard that shut my town down gave it an extra level of familiarity and impact. The heroes are a bit more American-esque than Ballard's usual cast but it's nice to have people to root for. I declare, for whatever my word is worth, that this is a good book.
It also fills out the pantheon of the "British catastrophe," a semi-obscure science fictional archetype spearheaded by Ballard and Wyndham with help from authors like John Christopher, Keith Roberts, Fred Hoyle. There's a certain cozy atmosphere to them with a different kind of perspective character that sets them apart from their American counterparts with a greater divide than most modes of fiction. Honestly, I prefer the British way, and *The Wind From Nowhere* probably makes it into my upper echelon of these books. Admittedly, it helps the book's case that I haven't read all that many...
While you might think I'm going to give this book a 9/10 or something glowing like that because I've been saying so many nice things about it, think again; I'm sure that part of the reason why I "gushed" over it is because everyone else debunks its worth. Still, I found it a solid work that grew with a little bit of separation despite its disengaging physical framing, so it gets a 7.5/10. I hope to read more Ballard, and I might just try to read his other three disaster novels in publication order; we'll see... either way, I'll continue by New Wave journey from the comfort of my basement, porch, and Goodreads profile, and you can follow it along here @ Darnoc Leadburger. Consider it; it'll even give you something to take your mind off the howling gusts outside...
The book kicks off with a chapter about Donald Maitland, a doctor from London running away from wife to take up tenure in Canada. His overseas flight is grounded due to strangely strong winds and he's forced to take shelter in an apartment under both his and his wife's names. He runs into her and a young lover there, which drives him to visit an old friend (Andrew Symington) and his wife while the winds gradually increase at a rate of five miles(or is it kilometers?) per-hour each day. Chapter Two shifts to Captain Lanyon, an American militaryman who's called away from his submarine, which is sheltered in an Italian pem, to collect an admiral from inland who's reported to be alive. On the way he helps out a couple natives out from under the rubble of a windswept church and saves a couple of American filmmakers. One of them, Patricia Olsen, is the only .
If we go back to Chapter Four we return to ...
That was a rather involved plot summary for a 160-paged book, but I think it was worth it since the plot is a bit of a mosaic which cleverly converges narrative around that gives this book a bit more of contemporary flavor. It must also be noted that all of the characters' motives and roles in the plot make sense and remain consistent across the whole book, a feat that's not extremely common in 60s science fiction. I probably wasn't paying as much attention to this book as I could've while reading it, but its gradual narrative wasn't lost on me.
The prose is also a bit ahead of its time. It's not groundbreaking or anything too beautiful for its time, but it is very solid and contains some cool turn of phrase and "elevates" (there's that word again) the book beyond the level of many of its post-apocalyptic contemporaries. There's just something about it that engaged me. That being said, there's also a more distinct something about the prose that disengaged me: the physical framing. Maybe it's because the story was centered around places which my 21st-century life doesn't run into often such as Lanyon's "submarine pens," but I didn't find the settings (both in and out of the world-changing winds) very well explained. I think that Ballard has the ability to richly fill out his writings' physical scenes, but... he doesn't. I usually wouldn't care if an author did this instead of being upset about it, but here the wonkiness of how the action sequences played in my head did disrupt my reading experience. The balance of action-sequence to discussion or exposition was rather good and I never felt like I was reading "just a dumb action thriller," but I do wish it had confused my sense of space a bit less.
This book's glints of philosophy - especially towards the end when takes center stage - gives the book another "elevated" edge. This book isn't as densely symbolic as other Ballard books by any means - in comparison, it's probably quite thin - but you can tell that Ballard is thinking of this as more than just a disaster sequence, and he can spit on this book all he wants to, but that doesn't change the fact that even his paycheck-work was imbued with the deeper thoughts that always seemed to run through Ballard's head.
Still, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention that my opinion's a bit unpopular. A lot of folks believe that *The Wind From Nowhere* is a lesser work, and I can't exactly say why. Its conventionality should speak for it in the common eye, not against it! And I even dare to say that it's not *that* conventional because its apocalyptic novum is something special; it's not about a big earthquake or nuclear warfare or rising oceans or any of that, but 250 MPH winds! I've never read that setup before! Not to mention that the ramifications of such a disaster are good and well-thought; also, reading this book right after a blizzard that shut my town down gave it an extra level of familiarity and impact. The heroes are a bit more American-esque than Ballard's usual cast but it's nice to have people to root for. I declare, for whatever my word is worth, that this is a good book.
It also fills out the pantheon of the "British catastrophe," a semi-obscure science fictional archetype spearheaded by Ballard and Wyndham with help from authors like John Christopher, Keith Roberts, Fred Hoyle. There's a certain cozy atmosphere to them with a different kind of perspective character that sets them apart from their American counterparts with a greater divide than most modes of fiction. Honestly, I prefer the British way, and *The Wind From Nowhere* probably makes it into my upper echelon of these books. Admittedly, it helps the book's case that I haven't read all that many...
While you might think I'm going to give this book a 9/10 or something glowing like that because I've been saying so many nice things about it, think again; I'm sure that part of the reason why I "gushed" over it is because everyone else debunks its worth. Still, I found it a solid work that grew with a little bit of separation despite its disengaging physical framing, so it gets a 7.5/10. I hope to read more Ballard, and I might just try to read his other three disaster novels in publication order; we'll see... either way, I'll continue by New Wave journey from the comfort of my basement, porch, and Goodreads profile, and you can follow it along here @ Darnoc Leadburger. Consider it; it'll even give you something to take your mind off the howling gusts outside...
June 21, 2019
Ésta fue la primera novela de ciencia ficción que leí. Tendría yo 13 años y la descubrí en la biblioteca de mi padre. A él la ciencia ficción no le interesaba lo más mínimo, y seguramente lo compró por error ya que formaba parte de una colección de libros de bolsillo que adquiría religiosamente.
Sin guía alguna en mis lecturas, comencé a leerla simplemente porque el título me atrajo como un imán. Se llamaba "El viento de la nada". Con posterioridad, he hallado traducciones con los nombres de "El viento de ninguna parte" y de "Huracán cósmico". Supongo que el segundo título es el más apropiado pues se llama originalmente "The wind from nowhere".
Sin ninguna referencia previa, la historia me fascinó cuando la leí a los 12 años. Recuerdo estar sentado con las piernas cruzadas en el suelo de la biblioteca mientras por la ventana el sol subía, brillaba, iba apagándose y, finalmente, se ocultaba tras las nubes. En una curiosa simetría que me sobresaltó ya desde entonces, comenzó a llover. Yo avanzaba por las páginas mientras fuera soplaba el viento, comenzaba a llover y sonaban los truenos. Como las hojas de las ventanas no ajustaban bien, el viento silbaba de vez en cuando y se colaba el olor a humedad mientras en la novela la Tierra era azotada por aquel huracán inexplicable.
Una lectura frenética, lo recuerdo muy bien. Terminé la novela aquella misma noche y me fui a dormir, la mente poblada de imágenes de un planeta estremecido por el meteoro, de una humanidad puesta a prueba, de edificios volando como si no pesaran nada.
La relectura no ha sido muy favorable para la novela. El ritmo es irregular y, siendo un buen tema, está notablemente desaprovechado. El típico catastrofismo de Ballard aunado a su sinforofilia hacen de ésta una novela extraña. ¿Perturbadora? Difícilmente, a menos que tengas 13 años y sea tu iniciación a este mundo abrumador. A veces, corroboro, la mejor forma de aproximarse a una lectura es mediante un acto consciente de amnesia literaria, de ingenuidad profesional. Leer como cuando teníamos 13 y el mundo se despedazaba a nuestro alrededor, giraba y saltaba a trozos pero nada tenía el poder de separar los ojos de la página y el universo se reducía a esa conexión palpitante entre la letra y la mente.
Sin guía alguna en mis lecturas, comencé a leerla simplemente porque el título me atrajo como un imán. Se llamaba "El viento de la nada". Con posterioridad, he hallado traducciones con los nombres de "El viento de ninguna parte" y de "Huracán cósmico". Supongo que el segundo título es el más apropiado pues se llama originalmente "The wind from nowhere".
Sin ninguna referencia previa, la historia me fascinó cuando la leí a los 12 años. Recuerdo estar sentado con las piernas cruzadas en el suelo de la biblioteca mientras por la ventana el sol subía, brillaba, iba apagándose y, finalmente, se ocultaba tras las nubes. En una curiosa simetría que me sobresaltó ya desde entonces, comenzó a llover. Yo avanzaba por las páginas mientras fuera soplaba el viento, comenzaba a llover y sonaban los truenos. Como las hojas de las ventanas no ajustaban bien, el viento silbaba de vez en cuando y se colaba el olor a humedad mientras en la novela la Tierra era azotada por aquel huracán inexplicable.
Una lectura frenética, lo recuerdo muy bien. Terminé la novela aquella misma noche y me fui a dormir, la mente poblada de imágenes de un planeta estremecido por el meteoro, de una humanidad puesta a prueba, de edificios volando como si no pesaran nada.
La relectura no ha sido muy favorable para la novela. El ritmo es irregular y, siendo un buen tema, está notablemente desaprovechado. El típico catastrofismo de Ballard aunado a su sinforofilia hacen de ésta una novela extraña. ¿Perturbadora? Difícilmente, a menos que tengas 13 años y sea tu iniciación a este mundo abrumador. A veces, corroboro, la mejor forma de aproximarse a una lectura es mediante un acto consciente de amnesia literaria, de ingenuidad profesional. Leer como cuando teníamos 13 y el mundo se despedazaba a nuestro alrededor, giraba y saltaba a trozos pero nada tenía el poder de separar los ojos de la página y el universo se reducía a esa conexión palpitante entre la letra y la mente.
August 28, 2014
My copy of the Wind from Nowhere, a sharp Penguin paperback from '76, has been sitting on my bookshelf for a number of years now. I recently had the pleasure of reading Ballard's superb High Rise and decided to chase that with the writer's first novel.
I was not expecting a mature work, and coming into it with very realistic expectations, was wonderfully surprised. The plotting is workmanlike and a tad rote, but it's serviceable. In fact, I found some of the plot twists rousing and was turning the pages with great excitement. The conceit of the novel is what propels it along. The pluck of the protagonists are a bit disorienting for the seasoned Ballard reader, with only Maitland's wife Susan and the millionaire Hardoon even approaching the doomed visionary malaise one usually finds in Ballard's books. The book also, strangely enough, ends on an optimistic note!
I would not recommend this book to a reader unfamiliar with Ballard. The book is fine entertainment, but I'm afraid it would misrepresent Ballard to the unconverted. The Wind from Nowhere is a fascinating pleasure for the diehard Ballard fan, who will enjoy a peak into his nascent style and the formative stirrings of his dominant themes.
I was not expecting a mature work, and coming into it with very realistic expectations, was wonderfully surprised. The plotting is workmanlike and a tad rote, but it's serviceable. In fact, I found some of the plot twists rousing and was turning the pages with great excitement. The conceit of the novel is what propels it along. The pluck of the protagonists are a bit disorienting for the seasoned Ballard reader, with only Maitland's wife Susan and the millionaire Hardoon even approaching the doomed visionary malaise one usually finds in Ballard's books. The book also, strangely enough, ends on an optimistic note!
I would not recommend this book to a reader unfamiliar with Ballard. The book is fine entertainment, but I'm afraid it would misrepresent Ballard to the unconverted. The Wind from Nowhere is a fascinating pleasure for the diehard Ballard fan, who will enjoy a peak into his nascent style and the formative stirrings of his dominant themes.
July 8, 2016
Una novela entretenida en la que se va narrando como las corrientes de viento van aumentando poco a poco hasta ir destruyendo todo lo que se encuentra a su paso y lo que hace la gente para sobrevivir.
Lo curioso de esta novela en comparación a otras que he leído de Ballard es que cuenta con 3 protagonistas o al menos 3 arcos que se unen hacia el final de la historia. El final fue posiblemente lo que menos me gusto, mas que nada porque fue muy "conveniente" todo lo que sucedió.
En general una novela entretenida que para pasar el rato no esta nada mal.
Lo curioso de esta novela en comparación a otras que he leído de Ballard es que cuenta con 3 protagonistas o al menos 3 arcos que se unen hacia el final de la historia. El final fue posiblemente lo que menos me gusto, mas que nada porque fue muy "conveniente" todo lo que sucedió.
En general una novela entretenida que para pasar el rato no esta nada mal.
October 17, 2020
Full review: https://sciencefictionruminations.com...
"In J. G. Ballard’s The Wind From Nowhere (1962), cosmic radiation creates an immense natural disaster. Ever-increasing winds threaten to tear buildings out by their foundations and force the survivors into subterranean caverns. With the winds comes dust, a manifestation of erasure, that lacerates skin and engulfs all.
John Carnell serialized Ballard’s first novel in New Worlds in 1961 (issues 110 and 111). The novel reads as a sounding board [...]"
"In J. G. Ballard’s The Wind From Nowhere (1962), cosmic radiation creates an immense natural disaster. Ever-increasing winds threaten to tear buildings out by their foundations and force the survivors into subterranean caverns. With the winds comes dust, a manifestation of erasure, that lacerates skin and engulfs all.
John Carnell serialized Ballard’s first novel in New Worlds in 1961 (issues 110 and 111). The novel reads as a sounding board [...]"
December 20, 2013
The Wind from Nowhere was J.G.Ballard's first novel, and he quickly disavowed it as hackwork, preferring to identify The Drowned World as his first work. While this has lots of gripping scenes of destruction and death under an every increasing world-wide wind, I'm just not sure what the point of it all is, other than that the hubris of man cannot go unpunished. The ending is especially and unnaturally abrupt. Ballard was right, this isn't much of a novel.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 115 reviews