Running Wild

By: J. G. Ballard

Narrated by: Ric Jerrom

Length: 2 hrs and 32 mins

Publisher's summary

Yet again J. G. Ballard’s inimitable clairvoyance is on display in this timely, powerful story of a community shattered by a massive act of violence.

A massacre rocks a suburban utopia - 32 adults murdered, and their children missing - in Running Wild, one of Ballard’s most dazzlingly subversive works of fiction.

©1989 J. G. Ballard (P)2018 Audible, Inc.

Critic reviews

“To Ballard, lack of choice... is a dangerous state of being. In Running Wild, it’s not the children who are doing the running; it is the society that raised them.” (San Francisco Chronicle)

Fiendish Humor Flavors Ballard Appetizer

The joke is obvious probably before you even begin reading, or listening, to the book; but the satire is less generalized and much more amusing than in the great JGB novel High-Rise, and the author provides a winter's store of bitter-flavored food for thought about the limitations of humanity despite all its modernity, genteelness, technology, ambition and hypocrisy. These parents should have sent their sociopathic kids to public schools and let them prey on kids from households with lower incomes than theirs. Ballard had little faith in his species, and this sparked a dark creativity as stylized as Lovecraft's.

Classic Ballard, Great Performance

I have read most of Ballard's books and even assigned Running Wild, Crash, and some of the short stories in my English Literature classes back in the 90s. I knew this book was good before I downloaded it, but I had no idea that the performance would be pitch perfect.

Ballard had a penchant for procedural narratives that could at times veer into technical / medical observations that read like the notes of a researcher gone over the edge. See, for example, The Atrocity Exhibition, and particularly "Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan," a short text which was reportedly taken by Republican Convention attendees during Reagan's Presidential campaign to be the work of some unknown think tank.

Running Wild has similar elements, albeit much more restrained, which proves to be extremely effective. The narrator is a doctor ( not Ballard's first doctor narrator ) who has somewhat implausibly been asked to investigate the scene of a mass murder after the bodies have all been removed and give his assessment even though the police are highly skeptical when he does tell them what he thinks has occurred--an odd situation that Ballard doesn't really need to explain.

The brilliance of this novella is its procedural structure combined with various technological clues that the doctor uses to solidify his theory about what transpired on the morning of the mass murder of more than 30 adults in what appeared to be a utopia. The doctor's dry comments, such as his observation that even a leaf blowing in the wind looks too free in this wealthy enclave, provoke a shock of recognition that has only become more relevant since the novella was published.

Careful With That Axe, Eugene

“In a totally sane society, madness is the only freedom.”
- J.G. Ballard, Running Wild

OK Boomer! A Ballard novella that is one part Sherlock Holmes, one part Lord of the Flies, with a dash of Esmie Tseng thrown into the soup. It was simple and a bit predictable and not nearly as transgressive or innovative as his best fiction, but it is always fun jumping into a J.G. Ballard novel and seeing where his themes will transport you. I liked it, but probably 3rd-shelf Ballard. It is short, but probably not the best example to read as an introduction to one of the great writers of the 20th century.

The best part of this novel is the subtle way he gives you one theme (which I won't tell you because it will spoil the plot), but buries what I believe are his bigger themes underneath the veil of the obvious. The sub-themes of control, perfection, comfort, conformity, and early social networks are fascinating if VERY abridged.

Like Philip K Dick, it is always interesting in Ballard to find aspects of his fiction that seem to be relevant 30-years in the future. Hello Alexa? Play "Pink Floyd's, “Careful With That Axe, Eugene”.