''The Unlimited Dream Company'' is a novel by British writer

J. G. Ballard James Graham Ballard (15 November 193019 April 2009) was an English novelist, short story writer, satirist, and essayist known for provocative works of fiction which explored the relations between human psychology, technology, sex, and mass medi ...

, first published in 1979. It was nominated for the

John W. Campbell Memorial Award The John W. Campbell Memorial Award for Best Science Fiction Novel, or Campbell Memorial Award, is an annual award presented by the Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas to the author of the best science fiction no ...

in 1980. It won the

British Science Fiction Association Award The BSFA Awards are literary awards presented annually since 1970 by the British Science Fiction Association (BSFA) to honour works in the genre of science fiction. Nominees and winners are chosen based on a vote of BSFA members. More recently, m ...

in the same year.

Plot

In ''The Unlimited Dream Company'', a man named Blake crashes a stolen aircraft into the

River Thames The River Thames ( ), known alternatively in parts as the The Isis, River Isis, is a river that flows through southern England including London. At , it is the longest river entirely in England and the Longest rivers of the United Kingdom, se ...

outside the Surrey suburb of

Shepperton Shepperton is an urban village in the Borough of Spelthorne, Surrey, approximately south west of central London. Shepperton is equidistant between the towns of Chertsey and Sunbury-on-Thames. The village is mentioned in a document of 959 AD ...

. Whether he survives the crash, to become a sort of supernatural messiah for the small town, or if he actually drowns, and dying, imagines the whole thing, is never truly revealed. Contradictory hints are scattered throughout the novel which may support both interpretations. Since the story is told by Blake in the first person, we know what he wants us to know, and we are only told what he chooses to tell us. In the first chapter of the novel, where Blake outlines his life before the air accident, there are elements that may make us suspect that he is insane, so that he is an absolutely

unreliable narrator An unreliable narrator is a narrator whose credibility is compromised. They can be found in fiction and film, and range from children to mature characters. The term was coined in 1961 by Wayne C. Booth in ''The Rhetoric of Fiction''. While unrel ...

. Blake has extraordinary powers: he can fly, heal sick people,

phagocytize Phagocytosis () is the process by which a cell uses its plasma membrane to engulf a large particle (≥ 0.5 μm), giving rise to an internal compartment called the phagosome. It is one type of endocytosis. A cell that performs phagocytosis is ...

other people whenever he likes; but he cannot leave the suburbs, though he repeatedly tries to get away. Moreover, Blake is obsessed by the relic of the small

Cessna Cessna () is an American brand of general aviation aircraft owned by Textron Aviation since 2014, headquartered in Wichita, Kansas. Originally, it was a brand of the Cessna Aircraft Company, an American general aviation aircraft manufacturing c ...

aircraft that he crash-landed on, which has been left submerged in the Thames. This might support the hypothesis that he is dead and is only imagining the strange events of the story. However, there is a crucial moment when Blake, who is about to absorb all the citizens of Shepperton in order to gain energy to escape the suburb, is shot by Stark, another loner who manages a rickety zoo. The wound triggers a deep inner change in the character, who gets rid of his cannibalistic drives and becomes more human and compassionate. He then helps other people to escape Shepperton, and remains there alone, waiting for the return of the woman he loves, Miriam St. Cloud. As well as the protagonist's name, the novel draws on the works of

William Blake William Blake (28 November 1757 – 12 August 1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his life, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual art of the Romantic Age. ...

, particularly his epic work '' Milton: A Poem'' in other ways. The surreal descriptions of Shepperton's transformation are drawn in part from William Blake's psychogeographical descriptions of London, while the final confrontation between Blake and the corpse of the drowned pilot (which he comes to realise is himself) echoes that between Milton and Satan at the end of ''Milton a Poem''.

References

External links

The Terminal Collection: JG Ballard First Editions

Dreams Unlimited - J. G. Ballard and Blake
1979 British novels 1979 fantasy novels Fiction with unreliable narrators Jonathan Cape books Novels about cannibalism Novels by J. G. Ballard Novels set in London Postmodern novels {{postmodern-novel-stub