THE WIND FROM NOWHERE - Book review

J G Ballard’s debut novel The Wind from Nowhere was first published in the USA in 1962; my copy was published in 1974. Apparently he later disowned it as ‘hack work’ to make a ‘fast buck’, written in ten days. He was about thirty-two when he wrote it. Yet it prepared the ground, so to speak, for his subsequent eco-disaster novels.

It begins in a rather pedestrian manner, with Dr Donald Maitland being stranded in London because high winds have grounded flights. We enter Soap territory as he breaks up with his wife Susan, and then it turns bizarre as the strength of the worldwide wind increases, with tragic consequences for her. Maitland seeks sanctuary with a War Office pal Symington and his PA, Deborah Mason. These latter two are attached to the Central Operations Executive, which was set up by Simon Marshall, its intelligence chief.

Between each early chapter we see a great deal of industrious building underway; we don’t know what this means, however.

Next we meet US submarine Commander Steve Lanyon who is tasked with making his way from Genoa to pick up an injured General there. Despite the severe winds... As things get dicey on the way Lanyon is joined by a reporter, Patricia Olsen.

Marshall and Symington realised that the hubris of humans was proving dangerous. ‘On the whole, people had shown less resourcefulness and flexibility, less foresight than a wild bird or animal would. ‘Now they were paying the price for this, in truth reaping the whirlwind!’ (p120).

Much of Ballard’s description is what we later came to expect: ‘The streets outside thudded with the sounds of falling masonry, the eerie piercing scream of tinplate and galvanised iron being stripped from rooftops, the explosive shatter of snapping glass’ (p43).

‘Civilization was hiding. The earth itself was being stripped to its seams, almost literally – six feet of topsoil were now travelling through the air’ (pp117-118).

To write more would involve spoilers. Perhaps the bottom line is that humanity didn’t cause the wind from nowhere and did nothing to stop it. Blame Nature.

The book has received mixed reviews over the years. Certainly, I can see why Ballard was not happy with the finished product (see the Editorial Comment below); and yet the concept and some characterisation works, almost.

Worth a fast read and certainly should be in any Ballard completist’s library.

Editorial comment for the guidance of writers:

(Moral – take a bit longer than nineteen days to write your novel)

‘He pulled a heavy trench coat off the door, climbed into it...’ (p58). He might shrug into the coat, but climb into it? Might climb into a set of overalls.

‘The mortars were War Department issues’ (p70). The War Office didn’t change to the Ministry of Defence until 1964. War Department smacks of US terminology.

‘the three armed services, national guard, civil defence and police’ (p78). The UK has never had any ‘national guard’ – that’s for the US.

‘... vapour lowered the ceiling to little more than two or three hundred yards, and visibility to half a mile’ And ‘Three miles away the coastline and the sea were a blur...’ (p92). Contradiction about distance of visibility here!

‘... for some while’ Lanyon commented to Patricia’ (p98). There are only the two of them in the scene. Who else could Lanyon be commented to?

‘Dazzled for a moment by the light, Lanyon’s eyes raced around the room’ (p100). Surreal imagery, traduced by pedantic critics...

‘... body of the gunman lying on the floor in a widening pool of blood’ (p102). As the body is dead, the blood shouldn’t be widening as the heart has stopped pumping.

‘Symington shifted a stack of teletype memos, spread them out on his desk, anchoring them from the draught with a stack of pennies’ (p119). Whether these are British pennies or the American version, you’d need a lot to weigh down the paper...

‘... and wondered to himself...’ (p165). One of my bugbears: who else can he wonder to? ‘Wondered’ would suffice.