Super-Cannes: A Novel
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Manufacturer: Picador
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Paperback
Dewey Decimal Number: 813
EAN: 9780312306090
ISBN: 0312306091
Label: Picador
Manufacturer: Picador
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 400
Publication Date: 2002-10-04
Publisher: Picador
Studio: Picador
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Editorial Reviews:
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Eden-Olympia is more than just a multinational business park, it is a virtual city-state in itself, built for the most elite high-tech industries. Isolated and secure, the residents lack nothing, yet one day, a doctor at the clinic goes on a suicidal shooting spree. Dr. Jane Sinclair is hired as his replacement, and her husband Paul uncovers the dangerous psychological vents that maintain Eden-Olympia’s smoothly-running surface.
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Problem with Kindle version
Comment: The book was pretty good, but I wanted to leave a note about a small problem I had with the Kindle version. If you go to location #956, you'll see there's some text missing. One paragraph ends (..."faint but potent scent."), and the next one begins in the middle of a sentence ("over my wine glass."). Probably not a huge gap, but there is a new character in the scene who wasn't there before, so there must be at least a line or two missing.
I notified Amazon about this, just to be a good citizen. They told me they saw the problem too, opened a trouble ticket and told me they'd write me back when the problem was fixed. (They also gave me a $5 credit for my trouble, which was nice.) A few weeks later I got the e-mail that the text had been corrected, and to please re-download. Which I did, but nothing had been fixed at all; it was exactly the same as it was before. So I told them so, and re-explained the problem. Well, I got another message back from a different support person, saying they were sorry but they didn't understand what the problem could be...? It struck me as a bit lame, but whatever. Maybe I should have written to the publisher instead.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Waste of time...
Comment: I got this book after reading the glowing reviews on the back of the jacket, such as "A magical hybrid that belongs to no known genre, a masterpiece of the surrealist imagination." I envisioned reading a real brain-buster, something that would blow my mind as a masterpiece of modern literature.
That was not what I got.
From the start, the book read like a punchy pulp mystery, with a main character sporting an IQ well below most mystery protagonists. I got very frustrated with his constant approaches to the "elite" of Eden-Olympia - the author made the character seem really quite stupid to persist in trying to reach people that were so obviously not being helpful.
Secondly, the protagonist was a complete wimp - and that spinelessness translated into a dull book - he didn't get heavily involved in the psychotic behavior, but he didn't take a bold stand throughout most of the book either.
The author has a heavy handed approach that makes the book splashy and unrealistic, not in an exciting "wow, I never would have believed something like this!" but in a "you really expect me to believe that people would say this?" kind of way.
And the characters were shallow, and flexible to suit the author's direction - he didn't make them real.
Anyway, I really felt like it was a waste of time. Could have easily been 200 pages shorter if the author wasn't so eager to watch himself write.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Disaster!
Comment: From the beginning of "Cannes", I feel like I am re-reading Cocain Nights. Nothing new! What a bad plot! We have got a hero, whose adventure resembles to the events which happens to the Rare Window's main character. Believe me, you should still read, as having been read 200 hundred pages, someone saying: "Paul! Be careful! Eden-Olympia is a strange or mysterious place etc. etc."
Actually Ballard takes the old idea that, in the contemporary world, our only way for escape from the business world is "sex-sport". Or maybe one must dive or fly or climb etc. etc. Now exaggerate that, here is the Eden-Olympia's lust and murder therapy!
It is just dissapointing for modern novel.
One of the editors describes this book as surreal. If you look for something surreal and really enjoyable, read Aragon's Anicet or Panaroma!
Customer Rating:
Summary: I want to be sedated!
Comment: What a bore! You can find everything that is
wrong with the modern novel in this book.
A thread of a plot, a turgid pace, style
over substance, ... This is the worst
novel I read in years. It could have
been a pleasing short story, but stretched
out into 400 pages, why? It's not a thriller,
way too sedated, not a crime story, not
a social critique, a juvenile poor caricature of
the ruling corporate class. Don't waste
your money, and especially, don't waste your
time on this shallow rag.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Brilliant Slow Burn Ballard
Comment: This book's story is told through the eyes of an english pilot (Paul Sinclair) who is recovering from knee injuries and unable to fly. The book begins with Paul accompanying his young wife Jane to Eden-Olympia - a semmingly utopian business park overlooking Cannes. They arrive to discover that they are taking over the house of Jane's predecessor - Greenwood - an englishman who went on an armed killing rampage through the park before turning his gun on himself. Sinclair detects that something is wrong with the whole Greenwood story and sets out to uncover the truth behind Greenwood's actions. From then on you sense that Ballard has the peices on the board just where he wants them. Truths about the overachieving inhabitants of Eden-Olympia are uncovered piece by piece as Ballard sets about laying down his vision of a possible near future gone wrong. Super Cannes isn't as "in your face" as some of Ballard's other works - this is very much an enjoyable slow burn. There are Ballard's usual themes of casual sex and mob violence - but they are carried out in the comfortingly civilised context of Super-Cannes and therein lies the point. This is a most enjoyable read that will please fans of Ballard's other works. There is a plenty to think about here and this cautionary tale deserves a wide reading.
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