Many
may not realize it at first, but J.G. Ballard's High-Rise
is
actually
a
very
funny
novel.
Much
of
its
humor
is
derived
from
a
rather
odd
place,
namely
the
bizarre and
unorthodox
behaviors
of
the
tenants
of
the
high
rise,
which
makes
the
reader
uneasy.
We
are
not
sure
whether
this
is
supposed
to
be
funny,
or
if
our
laughs
serve
primarily
to
protect
us
from
the
danger
and
the
forbidden.
This
type
of
gallows
humor
is
a
fairly
common
staple
of
postmodernism,
and
High-Rise,
along
with
the
films
Fight Club and
Cosmopolis,
execute
this
humor
extraordinarily
well.
The
struggles
and
violence
that
erupt
from
Laing,
Wilder,
and
the
rest
of
the
tower
block
are
not
out
of
political
strife
(at
least
not
explicitly),
starvation,
war
or
some
other
“just”
cause;
they
come
out
of
boredom
and
complacency.
Everyone
living
in
the
tower
block
is
fairly
well-to-do:
they
make
good
money
at
steady
jobs,
they
having
loving
families,
and they
have
all
their
basic
needs
met.
To
a
commoner
or
lower-class
person,
it
would
seem
none
of
these
people
have
a
need
for
the
type
of
rebellion
and
savagery
that
we
encounter
in
High-Rise.
Yet they rebel nonetheless; in fact, it seems they rebel not despite
the lack of a need but because of that lack of need and purpose.
They're
rebelling
because
they're
bored
and
because
they
can.
This
hyperbolic sense of oppression creates a very funny sarcasm in the
book.
Some examples of this are the arbitrary class lines drawn between
floors of the tower. In a real high rise, there are no class
distinctions drawn between one floor of the building and another. The
tenants create this distinction as a way of dividing themselves for
the purpose of pointless battle. These exaggerated, imagined
struggles paint a dim picture of our species as one incapable of
being happy, but because it's so unexpected it becomes darkly funny.
This also leads to a bizarre desire for the undesirable: “Our
neighbours had happy childhoods to a man and still feel angry.
Perhaps they resent never having a chance to become perverse...”
(Ballard, 133). This desire to throw away what seems to be the more
safe and civilized society and replace it with the more dangerous,
primitive society is a very dark and sarcastically funny staple of
postmodernism.
Random
acts
of
rebellion
without
a
cause
that
drive
this
inverted
view
of
society
occur
through-out
the
book,
with
the
bags
of
rubbish,
broken
beer
bottles
and
graffiti
strewn
about
for
no
apparent
reason.
This
goes
so
far
that
the
riots
within
the
tower
are
often
describes
as
a
“game.”
Even
Royal,
the
developer
of
the
high
rise,
is
guilty
of
this
pension
for
mindless
violence;
“To
date
he
had
been
a
moderating
influence,
restraining
his
neighbours
from
any
unnecessary
retaliatory
action.
Now
he
wanted
trouble
at
any
price”
(Ballard,
104).
Several
other
characters
also
profess
that
mere
confrontation
is
enough
to
excite
them,
even
if
there
is
no
real
purpose
for
it.
Wilder
partook
in
random,
pointless
misdemeanors
like
“pushing
around
a
terrified
woman
who
had
remonstrated
with
him
for
relieving
himself
on
her
bathroom
floor”
(145).
Because
these
moments
of
violence
aren't
coming
from
events
one
would
normally
find
worthy
of
violence,
this
catches
the
reader
off
guard,
and
laughs
due
to
the
awkwardness,
and
also
for
protection
from
plunging
head
first
into
the
same
senseless
abyss
that
the
characters
are.
The
third
and
more
overtly
funny
way
that
Ballard
makes
his
readers
laugh
is
through
spurts
of
unexpected,
awkward
sexuality
in
the
book.
The
hyperbolic
distress
and
backwards
view
of
society
set
the
sarcastic
tone
for
the
book,
and
these
bizarre
sexual
moments
provide
the
punchlines.
Like
the
continuity
girl
for
porn
films,
who
Wilder
worried
was
“memorizing
every
embrace
and
copulatory
posture
in
case
she
was
suddenly
called
away”
(58),
or
Laing's
sudden
desire
for
his
sister,
wanting
“to
touch
her
hips,
place
his
hand
over
her
breast”
(120),
and
her
somewhat
psychic
acceptance
of
those desires of incest. Perhaps
the
most
overtly
funny
moment
is
when
Wilder
is
ransacking
a
random
apartment.
“He
was
about
to
break
the
glass,
but
the
sight
of
his
penis
calmed
him,
a
white
club
hanging
in
the
darkness.
He
would
have
liked
to
dress
it
in
some
way,
perhaps
with
a
hair-ribbon
tied
in
a
floral
bow”
(154).
These
awkward,
sudden
and
mostly
facetious
moments
of
sexual
blunders
and
depravity
complete
Ballard
picture
of
dark
humor
in
High-Rise.
In
terms
of
its
tone
and
themes,
Fight Club varies
quite
a
bit
from
High-Rise.
Fight Club is
more
clearly
sarcastic,
and
physical
violence
and
class
struggles
don't
play
as
integral
a
role
as
they
do
in
High-Rise.
However,
the
styles
of
humor
displayed
in
both
works
is
actually
rather
similar.
Both
works
display
a
hyperbolic
sense
of
injustice
in
society,
senseless
and
causeless
acts
of
rebellion,
and
moments
of
awkward
sexual
tension
to
complete
the
overarching
black
humor.
In
High-Rise the
tenants
were
rebelling
against
the
“evils”
of
close
living
quarters.
In
Fight Club it's
consumerism.
Life
for
Tyler
Durden
is
so
safe
and
easy,
and
therefore
boring,
that
he
needs
to
invent
an
angry
alter
ego
with
a
warped
sense
of
priorities.
“Murder,
crime,
poverty,
these
things
don't
concern
me.
What
concerns
me
are
celebrity
magazines,
television
with
500
channels,
and
some
guy's
name
on
my
underwear.”
Another
example,
as
the
Brad
Pitt
persona
seeps
into
Edward
Norton's,
we
see
Norton
point
to
a
bus
ad
with
a
male
model
and
ask,
“Is
that
what
a
real
man
is
supposed
to
look
like?”
(Fincher).
This inverted sense of social injustice is played out through the
acts of vandalism and shady deals Durden and his followers devise.
The ideas of “selling rich women their own fat asses back to them,”
the replacement of normal airplane safety guides with more
frightening ones, and the slicing of pornographic images into family
films. These ironic, cheeky pranks, like ones your high school class
clown might have pulled off, are both intrinsically funny and fit the
theme of undue social frustration. This acting out is only the
precursor, though, with the final goal being Tyler's vision:
In the world I see, you are stalking elk through the damp canyon
forests around the ruins of Rockefeller Center. You'll wear leather
clothes that will last you the rest of your life. You'll climb the
wrist-thick kudzu vines that wrap the Sears Tower. And when you look
down, you'll see tiny figures pounding corn, laying strips of venison
on the empty car pool lane of some abandoned superhighway. (Fincher)
Here
we
see
the
same
desired
descent
into
barbarism
that
we
see
in
High-Rise,
with
the
primordial
dangers
of
human
existence
being
rewarded
and
praised
over
the
conveniences
of
modern
living.
Also
like
in
High-Rise,
bizarre
sexual
tension
provides
the
punchlines,
and
those
punchlines
are
funny
but
made
dark
and
uncomfortable
by
the
tone
of
deep
sarcasm
throughout
the
film.
Moments
like
Chloe's
dying
plea
to
“get
laid
for
the
last
time.
I
have
pornographic
movies
in
my
apartment,
and
lubricants,
and
amyl
nitrate....”
The
concept
of
a
woman
dying
of
cancer
being
more
concerned
with
her
sex
life
than
her
cancer
is
really
funny,
mostly
because
it's
so
unexpected,
like
the
themes
of
the
rest
of
the
work.
Along
the
same
lines
are
other
great
one
liners:
“Strangers
with
this
kind
of
honesty
make
me
go
a
big
rubbery
one,”
and,
for
those
with
a
really
twisted
sense
of
humor,
“I
haven't
been
fucked
like
that
since
grade
school”
(Fincher).
The
mood
of
heavy
sarcasm
and
satire,
punctuated
by
uncomfortable
sexual
remarks
and
innuendos,
provide
the
bleak
but
steady
comedy
in
Fight Club.
Cosmopolis is
a
horse
of
a
completely
different
color
than
the
previous
two
works
discussed,
but
still
follows
the
same
pattern,
and
still
fits
within
the
postmodernist
structure.
It's
different
because
the
film
is
deliberately
not
as
straight
forward
as
High-Rise or
Fight Club. The
actors'
dead
pan-style
performances
do
a
lot
more
to
provide
the
layers
of
sarcasm
than
in
Fight Club, and
unlike
both
High-Rise and
Fight Club,
those
instigating
the
rebellion
are
really
the
background
people
surrounding
our
main
characters.
Despite
the
differences
in
approach
and
delivery,
the
same
themes
and
types
of
humor
come
across
just
as
effectively.
We
again
see
the
exaggerated
problems
within
the
well-functioning
society.
In
Cosmopolis especially
this
sense
of
injustice
comes
from
a
desire
for
perfection
in
every
way,
and
the
failure
to
achieve
that
perfection
leads
to
the
rejection
of
modern
society.
Eric
Packer's,
our
main
character's,
fall
comes
after
his
failure
to
predict
currency
markets,
leading
to
the
loss
of
several
million
dollars.
He's
a
multi-billionaire,
so
he
knows
he
will
recover
the
losses,
but
he's
devastated
all
the
same.
He
stresses
over
other
equally
unimportant
details,
like
that
his
“prostate
is
asymmetrical”
(Cronenberg),
or
that
his
new
wife
won't
have
sex
with
him,
despite
the
fact
that
he
sleeping
with
every
other
woman
he
knows.
Even
the
basic
plot
of
the
film,
his
traveling
across
Manhattan
while
the
President
is
visiting
to
get
a
haircut
that
he
doesn't
really
need
from
his
childhood
barber,
reflects
his
obsession
with
perfection,
even
at
the
cost
of
time,
money,
safety
and
convenience.
The disappointment of failing to achieve the unachievable leads to
his rebellion in unorthodox ways, in an attempt to bring society back
to primitivism. His interest in the idea that “the rat became the
unit of currency,” and then the images of rats during the
anti-capitalist riots, serve as a metaphor of money, an extension of
modern living, as a carrier of disease. “The future becomes
insistent, and this is why something will happen soon, maybe today,
to correct the acceleration of time and bring nature back to normal.”
This leads to him seeking his own destruction: begging one of his
girlfriends to taze him, shooting his own bodyguard, entering the
home of his would-be assassin and shooting himself in the hand.
There, the assassin tells it to Eric rather bluntly, “Your whole
waking life is a self-contradiction. That's why you're engineering
your own downfall” (Cronenberg). Again we see the conscious
attempted self destruction and social regression played out, creating
the thick air of satire.
This
established
air
of
satire
is
used
to
backdrop
brief
awkward
moments
of
sexual
humor,
like
in
High-Rise and
Fight Club.
Moments
like
Eric's
wife
telling
him
over
lunch
“You
reek
of
sexual
discharge,”
or
the
assassin
admitting
“I
have
severe
anxieties
that
my
sex
organ
is
receding
into
my
body”
(Cronenberg).
Random,
sarcastic
one-liners
like
these
are
made
to
seem
even
more
sarcastic
when
put
against
the
backdrop
of
sarcasm
that
drives
the
work,
creating
the
same
dark,
ugly
humor
that
exists
in
High-Rise and
Fight Club.
This
humor
is
not
for
everyone,
and
by
definition
it
cannot
be.
The
humor
arises
from
unorthodoxy,
from
the
rejection
of
our
common,
safe
society
and
the
adoption
of
something
like
John
Locke's
“state
of
nature,”
something
clearly
more
dangerous
and
chaotic,
but
somehow
more
philosophically
rewarding.
This
humor
works
on
the
backwards
nature
of
this
philosophy,
and
therefore
cannot
be
widespread
accepted
by
mainstream
society.
But,
for
those
rare
few
who
take
a
fantastical
pleasure
in
wishing
to
see
society
crumble,
class
status
erased
and
a
retreat
to
a
“simpler”
time,
these
works
strike
a
nerve,
not
just
in
the
mind
and
the
heart,
but
the
funny
bone
as
well.
Works Cited
Ballard,
J.G.
High-Rise.
New
York:
Liveright,
1975.
Cosmopolis.
Dir.
David
Cronenberg.
Perf.
Robert
Pattinson.
Entertainment
One,
2012.
Fight
Club.
Dir.
David
Fincher.
Perf.
Brad
Pitt
and
Edward
Norton.
Regency,
1999.
