Subcultural engagement for the 21st Century...
Barbelith is a new kind of community (find out more)...
You can login or register.

Underground > Books, Criticism & Writing >

J.G. Ballard

20:15 / 08.05.06

As far as I can see there's no thread on here to celebrate the ol' fellow- a shame, I say. I'm a recent convert, having picked up on his stuff for a 'literature post 1979' paper I'm doing, partly inspired by his shamanic presence in London Orbital: Indeed, anyone who declares the future "boring" and rightly fears a “subrubanisation of the soul” is alright in my book.

From what I've read, much of his literature relies upon similar models: the intervention of a charismatic stranger into the protagonist’s life, typified by a morally ambiguous nature, the resulting subversion of the norm and often a final revelation and subsumation into a higher plain of being.

This is by no means a bad thing- "Vermillion Sands" relies upon this repetition to instil a necessary dreamlike atmosphere upon its setting.

The 'speculative fiction' tag he often gets dumped with is an obvious misnomer, thrown at him by sci-fi phobic publishers. His work is often science fiction of the highest order and his more avant-garde writing clearly shows he is no Hubbardian hack: as an associate and fan of Burroughs, he knows his stuff.

What I want to know is, how effective do you think this writing is in comparison to his more 'typical' work? Does ‘Atrocity Exhibition’ acieve what it sets out to convey? What were your feelings on reading it? Likewise, how does his work stand up when submitted to filmic adaptation- does Cronenberg's 'Crash' manage to transpose the listlessness and ennui of the novel onto the screen? Most importantly- does he have a moral agenda, or is he a horrible old school nihilist?

15:33 / 09.05.06

Most importantly- does he have a moral agenda, or is he a horrible old school nihilist?

I'd shape my response to that question by going back to his auto-biographical novel, The Empire of the Sun. You can see where a lot of his fascinations (fetishisations?) originated from in this text - empty swimming pools, crashed aircraft, general scenes of desolation. The scene in the big stadium in Shanghai is particularly stunning. I think this had a formative effect on him - he was interned for the years of his early adolescence. I'm unsure whether the account of the character in the novel running wild as a "lost child" in bombed out Shanghai is autobiographical or not. He's said somewhere that this experience (I paraphrase) seeing people "in the raw" - shaped him and gave him a rather - cynical isn't the right word - more disbelieving view of human nature.

Wikipedia helps me out: I don't think you can go through the experience of war without one's perceptions of the world being forever changed. The reassuring stage set that everyday reality in the suburban west presents to us is torn down; you see the ragged scaffolding, and then you see the truth beyond that, and it can be a frightening experience.

So, no, I don't think he has a moral agenda at all - but neither do I see him as a nihlist. Rather, I see him as playing out and exploring key themes and obsessions that were set in his teenage years. I get the impression almost that he doesn't want to explore the personal pain of these experiences - he never gets "into" the tramua suffered by particular characeters - but keeps them at one remove, exploring instead the effect of dissolution and anarchy on our nice and shiny social structures.

03:09 / 05.10.07

I've had Crash sitting on the shelf for months and I finally pulled it down yesterday. I took it to the laundromat and fucked up my wash (put the money in the wrong machine, didn't notice 'til the cycle had run though, bonked myself on the head). It's a bit unsettling but it makes for compulsive reading. The narrator is so obsessive.

How is the film? I recently saw Videodrome for the first time, and I imagine Cronenberg would do a fine job with this novel.

09:55 / 10.12.07

Bumpety, bump ...

J G Ballard
Southbank Centre: Queen Elizabeth Hall
Wednesday 20 February 2008, 7:30 P.M.

A true pioneer in the landscape of post-war fiction, JG Ballard's memoir Miracles of Life is sure to be one of the landmark books of 2008. Opening and closing in Shanghai, where he was interned in a Japanese concentration camp, Ballard charts the course of his remarkable life, from the vibrant surroundings of pre-war Shanghai to his arrival in post-war Britain: a country still physically and mentally scarred by World War Two. He explores the social upheaval of the 1960s and his adjustment to life following the premature death of his wife in 1964.

Ballard's fiction - from The Drowned World to Kingdom Come has cast an unerring, cinematic eye over British life and inspired a generation of writers. He discusses his life and writing.

Linky-pooh here

11:51 / 10.12.07

That seems like a slightly odd of subject for a new novel; he's already covered that period in 'The Kindness Of Women' I'd have thought.

14:18 / 10.12.07

Ballard just recently clicked for me.

I've been reading a textbook published in the 80s, I think, called You and Science Fiction: A Humanist Approach to Literature (or similar - that's from memory). It's a collection of stories bookended by introductions talking about social themes and post-reading questions inviting young readers to speculate about what, like, advertising can affect in your life, or how a uranium-eating germ could transform public policy or whatever. As an anthology, it's great - Asimov sits next to Ron Goulart (who's been popping up lately), alongside Vonnegut, DuMaurier, CQ Yarbro & Clifford Simak.

Two of the selections are stories by Ballard: "The Subliminal Man" (a horror story about advertising and production economics) and "Billennium" (about construction in an overpopulated world). I've read a few of his things before, including Atrocity Exhibition, but they never quite made sense before. I mean, I understood what he was doing, it just never quite reached home. Now, suddenly, it seems to have.

I definitely think there's something to this: he was interned for the years of his early adolescence.

Both of those stories have something in common with an internment camp - there's a sense of confinement, ad hoc living arrangements, crowdedness and edicts coming from an irrational, not-entirely-comprehensible authority - a bureaucracy that no one can really affect directly. In those stories, this is a globe-spanning state of affairs. How the system creates the prison in which we live. That's what he's writing.

I'll have to look back at Atrocity Exhibition now. I think one or both of these stories might be parts of it - they definitely seem like they're set in the same world.

22:09 / 10.12.07

'Billenium' appears in The Terminal Beach, an absolutely stellar collection of short stories - among which is my favourite of all his shorts, 'The Reptile Enclosure'. Here, as elsewhere in the book, he skirts the straight sci-fi for fiction which probes at something for more undefinable...you really should dig it up...

09:52 / 19.10.08

New JGB book, titled Conversations with My Physician, coming soon! Which is especially good news since I think most people presumed Miracles of Life would be his last after the recent bad news.

18:17 / 21.10.08

I went to an exhibition about him and his work last month and very good it was too. Not sure if it has been to or is going to the UK but well worth it if you see it. Open until 2nd Nov here if you fancy a little weekend cultural jolly by the seaside.

The show covers his life story and the different stages of his writing. I imagine it is hard to do a show about a writer but there was lots of quite theatrical settings for the bits of text, plus some great multi-screen video stuff covering all of one wall. There was even one room laid out like a hospital ward, where you peered through medical magnifiers to read snippets of the atrocity exhibition.

Lots of photos to show what I mean here.

19:42 / 29.10.08

Ah, sadly I was never able to make it to the Barcelona exhibition, although there were some fascinating reports on the Ballardian website and mailing list. Unfortunately I don't think the exhibition is touring.

11:06 / 07.01.09

I have not read all of Ballard but I have enjoyed what I have read.

The impression I get is that his stories (and I am more familiar with his short stories then his novels) are really post-morality. They seem to be focused more on intellectual speculation and play then on morality or sentiment.

01:29 / 18.01.09

re: Crash
How is the film? I recently saw Videodrome for the first time, and I imagine Cronenberg would do a fine job with this novel.

I liked it, in a sleazy, slimy, fetishy, can't-look-away-even-though-I-needed-to-at-times sort of way. Good performances, nice bodies, erotic, dark. Not quite as dark as the book, but satisfactory.

It's the kind of film I'd love to watch with a select group of friends; so far, the two I've shown it to couldn't handle it. Guess I'll keep cruisin' the bars and rain-washed streets until I find those special someones . . .

17:50 / 19.01.09

The impression I get is that his stories (and I am more familiar with his short stories then his novels) are really post-morality. They seem to be focused more on intellectual speculation and play then on morality or sentiment.

I don't know about that, I think in an odd way he is very pre-occupied with morality, at least in the series of novels I have read (Cocaine Nights, Kingdom Come and Super-Cannes). I saw these novels as an examination of what would happen if traditional morality were entirely discarded, but nevertheless I thought they were strongly focused on morality and the corruption thereof. I think the style of his writing means that a lot of people have trouble discerning his morality because it is so detached and diamond-like. Although he doesn't make any overt judgements it seems clear to me that the situations his protagonists find themselves in (racist gangs, child prostituion rings etc. etc.) are not meant to be read in any sort of positive light. And, therefore, there is a definite thread of morality running through the novels of his that I have read. Though as I understand it his earlier works are a lot more nihilistic and amoral, he does seem to have mellowed over the years!