But it was plain to me that Warren was trying to be friendly. For me, being treated with anything other than annoyance or indifference was strange indeed. I did not know how to react.
“You feel...different...don’t you. Not like...other people.”
I shrugged. It wasn’t that I was shy, nor that I was being unfriendly. It was just that Warren kept asking me things that I did not know the answer to. I had no idea how other people felt, so I didn’t know the answer to that either.
“You feel...well...not the same.”
I shrugged. Again I didn’t know the answer, but then I could not have, could I, since it was the same question that I previously did not know the answer to.
“I often feel...different...too.”
J. G. Ballard’s The Drowned World was serialised in The Herald and I thought I would love it. One H-bomb test too many has caused the earth to change orbit, the ice caps have melted, the poles are the only habitable part of the planet and the rest of which has reverted to the environment of the last period of great heat, Triassic. An expedition embarks from Greenland by submarine to explore the state of the world to the south. I read hoping for dinosaurs but there were only iguanas and alligators inhabiting flooded cities overgrown by the jungle. It ends in a gunfight between two forms of devolved humanity. Always be wary when someone likens a writer’s descriptive powers to that of Conrad—it means you’ll spend a lot of time admiring damp scenery.
