Finally, right at the end of his life (he died the year after it was published), Ballard wrote a genuine autobiography which actually sets the record straight. Two of his previous books, Empire of the Sun (1984) and The Kindness of Women (1991), had been marketed as autobiographies but, as time went by, it became […]
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Miracles of Life by J.G. Ballard (2008)
Tagged America, Anthony Powell, art, atom bomb, autobiography, British Empire, C.P. Snow, Cambridge, Canada, China, Christian Bale, Claire Walsh, class system, Concrete Island, Crash, E.J. Carnell, Eduardo Paolozzo, Empire of the Sun, F.R.Leavis, fatherhood, Francis Bacon, Great Depression, H.G. Wells, High Rise, Hiroshima, Hollywood, inner space, Kennedy, Kennedy assassination, Kingsley Amis, love, Lunghua, Lunghua internment camp, Mary Matthews, Michael Moorcock, Miracles of Life, Nagasaki, New Worlds, Pacific War, Pop Art, post-war, poverty, RAF, Richard Hamilton, science fiction, sex, Shanghai, Shepperton Studios, Steven Spielberg, Surrealism, Swimming pools, the Angry Young Men, The Atrocity Exhibition, the Black Country, The Kindness of Women, This is Tomorrow, Vietnam, West Midlands
Posted by Simon on March 14, 2020
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2020/03/14/miracles-of-life-j-g-ballard/
The idea of performance in the later fiction of J.G. Ballard
This essay suggests that a focus on Ballard’s interest in television and the unreal effects which TV or film cameras have on anyone they’re pointed at, obscures the fact that TV and film are only part of a much wider sense, demonstrated throughout Ballard’s work, that we are all self consciously playing roles, most of the time. […]
Posted in Books, Literary criticism
Tagged Ballard, Cocaine Nights, Crash, David Hunter, Dr Robert Vaughan, drama, film, film cameras, High Rise, J.G. Ballard, performance, Play, Richard Sutherland, Richard Wilder, role, roles playing, Rushing to Paradise, scene, script, self consciousness, set, stage, Super-Cannes, television, The Atrocity Exhibition, The Day of Creation, theatre, theatre Running Wild, TV
Posted by Simon on March 13, 2020
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2020/03/13/performance-in-the-fiction-of-j-g-ballard/
Super-Cannes by J.G. Ballard (2000)
‘Madness – that’s all they have, after working sixteen hours a day, seven days a week. Going mad is their only way of staying sane.’ (Frank Halder to Paul Sinclair) You can tell late-period Ballard novels by their sheer size – Super-Cannes is a whopping 392 pages long, in the shiny Flamingo paperback edition I […]
Tagged Adolf Hitler, Alain Delage, Cannes, Cannes Film Festival, Cocaine Night, Dr Greenwood, drugs, Eden-Olympia, fiction, first-person narrator, Frances Baring, Frank Halder, grip, Henry Rider Haggard, Jane Sinclair, Lord of the Flies, murder, Mutant 59: The Plastic Eater, novel, paedophilia, Pascal Zander, Paul Sinclair, Pol Pot, psychopathy, racism, Simone Delage, South of France, Super-Cannes, thriller, Wilder Penrose
Posted by Simon on March 12, 2020
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2020/03/12/super-cannes-j-g-ballard/
Cocaine Nights by J.G. Ballard (1996)
‘Leisure societies lie ahead of us…’ (Irving Sanger, p.180) A poolside thriller Although it’s longer than almost any of Ballard’s other novels, Cocaine Nights feels like a nice easy read, an airport or poolside thriller with an increasingly psychotic edge. I found Day of Creation and Rushing to Paradise a struggle to finish because their […]
Tagged Agatha Christie, Anthony Bevis, Betty Shand, Bibi Jansen, Blanche Keswick, Bobby Crawford, Charles Prentice, Club Nautico, Cocaine Nights, Colin Dewhurst, Costa del Sol, David Hennessy, Dr Paula Hamilton, Elizabeth Shand, Estrella de Mar, ex-pats, fable, fiction, Frank Prentice, Freud, future, Gibraltar, Gunnar Andersson, Inspector Cabrera, Irving Sanger, Irwin Sanger, Kafka, Laurie Fox, Marbella, Marion Keswick, Mediterranean, Murder Mystery, novel, Oscar Wilde, Paula Hamilton, prophecy, psychopath, rape, Rodney Lewis, Roger Sansom, sex, Sonny Gardner, Spain, tennis, text, the Residencia Costasol, thriller
Posted by Simon on March 11, 2020
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2020/03/11/cocaine-nights-j-g-ballard/
Rushing to Paradise by J.G. Ballard (1994)
‘Is this how new religions begin?’ (Neil to Carline) The problem with Ballard’s later novels Empire of the Sun (1984) and The Kindness of Women (1991) are powerful displays of fictional autobiography, of Ballard taking autobiographical elements from his life and creating highly contrived, posed and arranged scenes and narratives, which both display the autobiographical roots […]
Posted in Environment, Novel
Tagged albatross, Barbara Rafferty, Captain Garfield, Colonel Stamford, David Carline, Dr Barbara Rafferty, euthanasia, Gubby, Hawaii, Heart of Darkness, Honolulu, horror, Irving Boyd, Janet Bracewell, Kimo, Lord of the Flies, Major Anderson, Mark Bracewell, mass media, Monique Didier, Neil Dempsey, novel, nuclear testing, nuclear weapons, Professor Saito, Rushing to Paradise, Saint-Esprit, The Dugong, Vikram Pratap
Posted by Simon on March 10, 2020
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2020/03/10/rushing-to-paradise-j-g-ballard/
The Kindness of Women by J.G. Ballard (1991)
The Kindness of Women was marketed as the ‘sequel’ to Ballard’s bestselling autobiographical memoir, Empire of the Sun, his long and gruelling account of the harrowing years he spent in a Japanese internment camp, having been captured and separated from his parents in war-torn Shanghai, but a careful reading suggests it is anything but an ‘autobiography’ […]
Tagged 1960s, 2001: A Space Odyssey, America, atom bomb, autobiographical memoir, Ballard, bombers, British Empire, Broadcast, Brzail, Cambridge, Canada, Cape Canavarel, car crashes, Chiang Kai-shek, Cleo Churchill, Crash, David Hunter, drugs, Empire of the Sun, film, flying, Fritz Lang, Hiroshima, Hollywood, International Settlement, JFK, JFK assassination, King's College, LSD, Lunghua internment camp, medical training, mental illness, Miriam, Nagasaki, Peggy Gardner, Peter Lykiard, porn, pornography, prostitutes, RAF, Richard Sutherland, River Thames, Sally Mumford, Second World War, Sergeant Nagata, sex, Shanghai, Shepperton, Shepperton Studios, Singapore, Sino-Japanese war, Stanley Kubrick, Star Trek, Sunningdale, television, The Atrocity Exhibition, the Hell-Drivers, The Kindness of Women, The Unlimited Dream Company, USAAF, Vietnam, violence, World War Three, Zapruder film
Posted by Simon on March 9, 2020
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2020/03/09/the-kindness-of-women-j-g-ballard/
War Fever by J.G. Ballard (1990)
This is Ballard’s last collection of short stories, some very short indeed. War Fever The Secret History of World War 3 Dream Cargoes The Object of the Attack Love in a Colder Climate The Largest Theme Park in the World Answers to a Questionnaire The Air Disaster Report on an Unidentified Space Station The Man Who […]
Tagged Acapulco, Adelbert Ames Jr., Adolf Hitler, AIDS, airplanes, Alan Shepley, Alcatraz, America, Ames Room, Answers to a Questionnaire, Apollo, Archbishop of Canterbury, arson, Ballard, Ballard-land, Beirut, Broadmoor, Bronislaw Zielinski, cannibalism, Cape Kennedy, Captain Galloway, Colonel Stamford, Communism, David Bradley, DNA, Dr Chambers, Dr Douglas, Dr Edward Mallory, Dr Edwards, Dr Richard Greville, Dr Robert Loughlin, Dr Who, Dream Cargoes, eternal life, EU, experimental fiction, flying, Geoffrey Ballantyne, Henry Rhodes Hamilton, Hinton, Islam, Leonora Carrington, literary experiment, Love in a Colder Climate, Lucille McCabe, man-powered flight, Matthew Young, Max Ernst, media, Memories of the Space Age, mental collapse, Mexico, Mr Scranton, murder, NASA, Nato, Notes Towards A Mental Breakdown, nuclear weapons, President Reagan, Report on an Unidentified Space Station, Ronald Reagan, satire, science fiction, short stories, space programme, Space Shuttle, space travel, SS Prospero, Star Wars, The Air Disaster, The Enormous Space, The Index, The Largest Theme Park in the World, The Man Who Walked on the Moon, The Object of the Attack, The Secret History of World War 3, Time, United Nations, visionary, war, War Fever, Washington DC, Wembley Stadium, Windsor Castle, world war, Zelig
Posted by Simon on March 8, 2020
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2020/03/08/war-fever-j-g-ballard/
Running Wild by J.G. Ballard (1988)
‘Well done, Jeremy!’ This is a very short book, a macabre and gruesome little shocker which is barely a novella, really just a long short story, just about stretching to 106 pages in the big-print Flamingo paperback version. It took me just an hour and a half to read it. It’s a first-person narrative told […]
Tagged 1988, 9/11, Amanda Lymington, Arthur Conan Doyle, Baader-Meinhof Gang, Charles Manson, Dr Richard Greville, ETA, Hungerford massacre, IRA, Islamist terrorism, Ivanka Trump, Jasper Ogilvy, Jeremy Maxted, Jonathan Coe, Lee Harvey Oswald, Marion Miller, Mark Chapman, massacre, Michael Ryan, Mrs Thatcher, murder, Murder Mystery, Nazis, Novella, Pangbourne Village, Psychology, Reading, Sergeant Payne, Sherlock Holmes, The Angry Brigade, the Baader-Meinhof gang, The Pangbourne Pang, the Red Brigade, World Trade Centre
Posted by Simon on March 7, 2020
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2020/03/07/running-wild-j-g-ballard/
Memories of the Space Age by J.G. Ballard (1988)
‘To get out of time we first need to learn to fly’ (Hinton in Memories of the Space Age) Eight short stories spanning the 20 most productive years of Ballard’s career, presented in simple chronological order and linked by the theme of space travel and astronauts. Six of them had been published in earlier collections and […]
Posted in Science Fiction, Short stories
Tagged A Question of Re-entry, Alcatraz, America, Anne Godwin, astronaut, B-17, Cape Canaveral, Cape Kennedy, Captain Francis Spender, Captain Pereira, Cessna, Cocoa Beach, Dr Edward Mallory, Dr Laing, Dr Martensen, Dr Rachel Vaisey, Dr Robert Franklin, Dr Valentina Gabor, Echo satellite, Florida, flying, fugue, glider, Goliath 7, Helen Winthrop, Hinton, Lieutenant Connolly, light aircraft, Louise Davidson, Mars, Melville, Memories of the Space Age, mental breakdown, Messerchmitt, My Dream of Flying To Wake Island, Myths of the Near Future, Nambikwara, NASA, News From The Sun, Nightingale Shepley, Paolo Soleri, Paul Bridgman, Paul Delvaux, Philip Martensen, radiation, River Amazon, Robert Hamilton, Ryker, Sam Quinton, science fiction, short stories, Slade, Soleri II, space programme, Space Shuttle, space travel, swimming pool, The Cage of Sand, The Dead Astronaut, The Man Who Walked on the Moon, the Space Age, Time, Travis, Trippett, United Nations, Ursula Trippett, Wake Island
Posted by Simon on March 6, 2020
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2020/03/06/memories-of-the-space-age-j-g-ballard/
The Day of Creation by J.G. Ballard (1987)
The sutures of my skull were opening, letting the cool wind into the chambers of my brain. I stared up at the cloudless, cyanide sky, like the domed roof of some deep psychosis. (p.275) This is a poor book. It is long, packed with detail, has an exotic setting, a reliably demented protagonist on a […]
Tagged adventure, Africa, Ballard, Captain Kagwa, Dr John Mallory, Estragon, fiction, General Harare, Heart of Darkness, John Mallory, Joseph Conrad, Lake Kotto, Miss Matsuoka, Mr Pal, neo-colonialism, Noon, Nora Wallender, Nora Warrender, novel, Port-la-Nouvelle, Professor Sangar, satire, television, The Day of Creation, TV, Vladimir, Waiting For Godot, WHO
Posted by Simon on March 5, 2020
https://astrofella.wordpress.com/2020/03/05/the-day-of-creation-j-g-ballard/
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