The novel “The Drowned World” by J.G. Ballard was published for the first time in 1962, the expansion of a novella published in a magazine.

Dr. Robert Kerans is a biologist who is part of an expedition sent to explore the area that used to be London decades ago. The former British capital has been partially submerged for a long time, transformed into a tropical lagoon by climate change. The expedition members start having strange dreams.

Going to the arctic regions, the only ones left where humans can live in conditions suitable for them, is the only possibility for anyone who lives between new seas and new tropical forests full of large reptiles and insects. Despite this, someone decides to go south. Robert Kerans is among the very few who decide to stay in London, but their tranquility is disturbed by a group of men who are looking for the old treasures of the city.

Compared to “Heart of Darkness”, “The Drowned World” is the second of the catastrophic novels by J.G. Ballard. It’s set in 2145, decades after a severe global warming. It’s an idea the author had before this topic became common following research on the influence of human activities. For this reason, he attributes it to changes that have natural causes. The world has been profoundly transformed into what is a kind of regression to a past era with jungles reminiscent of those of the Triassic period. That’s a sort of revenge of nature on human beings, whose influence is almost completely canceled.

Human civilization has collapsed, leaving room for flora and fauna, which took over the world again. For humans, large areas of the Earth have become too hot and humid to survive. The polar areas, after the complete melting of the caps, have become the only habitat suitable for human life. This post-apocalyptic world is at the same time depressing for the destruction of human civilization and exciting for the renewed vitality of flora and fauna.

The consequences of these climate changes are profound also for the human mind, one of the main themes of “The Drowned World.” The external environment and the human psyche are deeply intertwined. The tropical London where the old buildings’ upper floors emerge from the waters influences the characters’ thoughts generating an atmosphere that is often dreamlike, and not just for their dreams.

“The Drowned World” is a short novel by today’s standards, yet J.G. Ballard describes different nuances of thoughts, emotions, and motivations of the protagonists. Like the environment, the human mind can have a sort of regression that leads some characters to act following their own unconscious. One consequence is that someone can embrace this new world instead of trying to fight it.

These elements make “The Drowned World” a novel built between rawness and subtlety with many shades in between. All in all, the plot is sometimes an excuse to tell the relationship between characters and between them and the environment. For this reason, read superficially it’s very simple and essential but the details reveal the complexity of the profound themes developed by J.G. Ballard.

Over the years, “The Drowned World” has become a classic known beyond genre boundaries and among the most popular post-apocalyptic novels. Decades later, a remarkable journey remains that is above all an inner one, and for this reason, I recommend reading it.