The Day of Creation
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
 Cover of first edition (hardcover) |
|
| Author | J. G. Ballard |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre(s) | Novel |
| Publisher | Victor Gollancz Ltd |
| Released | 1987 |
| Media type | Print (Hardcover & Paperback) |
| Pages | 254 pp |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-575-04152-8 |
The Day of Creation is a 1987 novel by J. G. Ballard.
[edit] Plot summary
The main character of the novel is the World Health Organization doctor John Mallory who, six months after his arrival in Central Africa, finds that intense guerilla activity has left him without patients. He devotes himself, instead, to the task of bringing water to the region, with dreams of setting the Sahara in flower. When he accidentally manages to achieve his task by creating a river, he becomes prey of an increasingly delirious spiral of fantasies, starting to identify himself with the new river that he has dubbed "Mallory". Obsessed, he decides to go up the river in order to "kill" its source, together with a teenaged African girl, whom he considers a sort of spirit of the waters, and other characters including a half-blind British documentary film-maker and two ruthless local chieftains trying to take advantage of the new prosperity brought by the water.
In the conclusion of this feverish odyssey, compared by many to Joseph Conrad's Heart of Darkness, Mallory discovers that "his" river was merely temporary, and that the desert will regain possession of the land.
