The modern psychoplay that Ballard orchestrates impresively is what makes this one a notch above "High-Rise"; portrait of a decomposing soul via modern Everyman. What it means to be alienated from civilization either by accident or choice is explored throughout the novel as both a physical reality and a reflection of the protagonist's mind. When he comes round from his daze, Maitland staggers up the loose earth of the embankment, which has recently been covered with fresh soil and hasn’t grown firm with grass yet, to the verge of the motorway and the hard shoulder where he weaves in a daze shouting and waving his arms at passing cars, and nearly hit by several of them.

All of which leads to the conclude that Ballard’s ‘concrete island’ is very much an island of the mind.Next time you pass a freeway island you’ll wonder, imagine yourself erecting a lean-to on the side of the road. A few months later I read Concrete Island and I was intrigued by the imagery that cropped up in both novels, as I mention in this review. I understand that Ballard had designs at one point on adapting this into a children's book entitled "Robert Maitland and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day.

I like stories that focus on a single individual and especially on the inner workings of that individual’s mind. I only read High-Rise because of Tom Hiddleston, but Ballard’s bizarre story obliterated that gorgeous man’s face/voice/everything from my brain by the story’s close (which is a testament to its strength). The man was about fifty years old, plainly a mental defective of some kind, his low forehead blunted by a lifetime of uncertainty. Ballard is capable of thinking things nobody else had ever thought, and often framing it in wonderfully bizarre and inventive purple prose. Although no more than a hundred yards away, this freshly grassed slope seemed hidden behind the overheated light of the island, by the wild grass, abandoned cars and builder’s equipment.As things are looking worse for Maitland, he is picked up by two denizens of the island, Proctor and Jane Sheppard. After the protagonist crashes his car and becomes trapped on a concrete island in the middle of a highway, he becomes a modern day Robinson Crusoe. It is as if through suffering and struggle he sheds all imperfection, and transcends all his past memories, unburdening them onto the island; the island of the subliminal which he has not experienced since childhood. And by the 1980s it had become a really hackneyed cliché, the subject of bloated, boring mainstream fiction [see Stanley and the Women or The Russian Girl by Kingsley Amis]. They're not made to be moved in without a car or train, so how easy would it be for the uninitiated to get out?

But when conditions change, their primitive urges and psychopathologies emerge to horrifying effect. Because you know you just wanna read a book that contains a passage of a cripple whipping out his schlong and pissing all over the face and body of a seated homeless, ex-acrobat halfwit dressed in a shiny dinner jacket and leotard who may or may not open his mouth. After a few days we realise she is a hooker and puts on shiny clothes and stilletos to go get business. After suffering an injury to his leg he cannot climb the steep slopes hemming him in and finds himself trapped (interestingly King's story sees his protagonist hobbled too, with a shattered ankle, although his injury leads him in a very different direction to Maitland). In the middle are a number of bomb shelters with steps down into them hidden by nettles and long grass.

Everyone must familiarize themselves with this oracle, well, at least if you consider literature a serious Art. The story itself, especially once the action truly began, seemed much less important than the mood Ballard established at the beginning with his lush descriptive writing.

In this twisted version of Robinson Crusoe, our hero must learn to survive - using only what he can find in his crashed car. soo, it's a 'let's be friends' for now, even though I do wish it could have been something more than that. As he recuperates, his initial urgency to get back to his easy but empty existence with his wife, child, and mistress lessens, as he starts to find a strange comfort in leaving behind all the everyday stresses of modern life.It is unthinkable, and yet Maitland sustains several injuries with little show of concern before being finally hurled back down into the pit. Robert Maitland, a 35 year-old architect, is driving home from his London offices when a blow-out sends his speeding Jaguar hurtling out of control.