Pacy but rather implausible
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Quite a tense thriller, though I thought it was obvious from early on that the solution to the whodunnit element was some kind of collective guilt. The underlying psychology behind Crawford's actions was I thought a bit implausible, especially the rapid change in the community in chapter 22, and I just don't think most people would react this way. This is a pacier read than some of his others that I have tried, though.
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Another tired dystopia
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What is it with ageing male writers and 'disturbing' dystopian visions of the fate of humanity? Along with McCarthy's "The Road" or Houellebecq's "Atomised", Ballard spends the whole novel beating us about the head with another tired, gloomy, and inevitably terminal prognosis for the world.
Cocaine Nights, sadly, lacks the poetic prose of "The Road" or the more robust intellectualism of Houellebecq. It revolves around one central premise. We're all heading towards a future of unlimited leisure, and unless we're stimulated out of it by crime, drugs and deviant sex, we're on a collision course with tranquiliser addiction and brain death. What utter rubbish. Not everyone wants to bake their lives away in gated estates in Spain, even assuming we could afford it. And even if we could, most would rather have a nice little cottage in Cornwall or the Charente than a concrete box on the Costa del Sol.
This silly, facile novel reminded me of nothing more than "Eldorado", that terrible soap opera the BBC treated us to a few years back - not that I ever managed to sit through a whole episode. No one has anything approaching a real conversation. There's no attempt at realistic psychology or motivation. Like bad porn, it's all sex and violence held together by the flimsiest of plots. It's all one great yawning ego trip, summed up by that other old literary misanthrope Camus: "Apres moi, le deluge". After all, when you're the centre of your own universe, how can you endure the waning of your own personal power and influence without the comfort of assuming the rest of humanity is going down the drain with you?
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Late Ballard, a bit tired
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This was another book I read upon finishing my English Literature degree, eight years ago, for light relief. The fact that it was modern and that it was set in sunny Spain appealed to me, but the book didn't live up to my expectations. I'd found Empire of the Sun stuffy when I had read it at school, but I had liked Crash very much, thinking it in fact a masterpiece (a pleasant surprise after that dreadful film). But Cocaine Nights seemed a bit tired, without flashes of Ballard brilliance. Solid stuff, all the same, but unless you are an avid Ballard fan, there is better stuff out there worth spending your time on.
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No-brain nights
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After previously reading and being highly impressed by one of Ballad's other novels, 'High Rise', I was expecting great things from 'Cocaine nights'. In some ways this explores similar themes-a sort of barbarism hidden just below the surface of contemporary high-tech life, just waiting for a trigger to reveal itself. The trigger in this case, is an act of arson which ends several lives, and which the main characters brother inexplicably claims responsibility for.
An intriguing premise perhaps, but it is let down by a pedestrian writing style, an uninvolving storyline and two dimensional characters who dont talk like anybody in real life ever does.
One of the things I found most aggravating was the constant use of clumsy similes, often seeming to be placed at every other page, ('white walled retirement complexes marooned like icebergs among the golf courses'...'I waved the smoke aside, a swirling wraith released from his lungs'). Its as if Ballard subbed his writing duties to an earnest sixth former.
The unconvincing dialog might be acceptable if there was some hightened surreal reality being portrayed, as in 'High Rise', but the reality here is dull and predictable.
I struggled to finish it. A real disappointment. Looking at the other reviews, I can see opinion is somewhat polarized, so you may enjoy it. But there are far better books out there, and 'High Rise' is one of them.
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Inaccessably Snobby
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You're on holiday. You've just finished reading 'Invisible Monsters' for the fifth time, and decide you might try something from an author with a completely different prception and style of writing. You choose 'Cocaine Nights', expecting a thrilling, fast-paced literature from one of 'Modern Britain's greatest writers.'
You were wrong.
The first page; boring. You carry on, thinking it's just a bit of a change from ol' Chuck, and that sooner or later, you'll break through the text.
You were wrong.
This book is poor. Not quite awful, just poor. The characters are flat, and make you feel as if Ballard has never actually spoken to anyone outside of his socio-economic class. Everyone appears to be upper-middle class in this book, and this alone makes the novel completely inaccessible to anyone who doesn't live in a 6 bedroom, Georgian-period town house, to anyone who doesn't know how to use a fish fork, to anyone who's ever enjoyed their dinner whilst 'Coronation Street' plays nonchalantly in the background.
The descriptions are agrivatingly pin-pointed, and the entirety of the prose appears to be written by sombody lacking peripheral vision. Imagine reading a 14 year-old's attempt at a story, where nothing really binds and consistency is a mythological creature.
The whole book feels like a long Jonathon Creek episode, where every little mannerism is quintessentialy British, and worthy of a long, painful cringe. How coincidental that J.G. Ballard writes of Gibralta which, much like his writing style, is an embarrasing example of Brits clinging on to what was once so great and powerful.
I'd be thrilled for somebody to dare me to better Ballard.
I have a confident smile on my face when i say the old man could learn a thing or two.
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