J.G. Ballard

[D_Davis]

More so than many authors discussed amongst genrehounds, I think that Ballard demands an open mind and a desire to experience something different and challenging.

 

[D_Davis]

The Crystal World

Overall, it is pretty good, but really, really slow. With a bit of editing, it could be a lot better. There are a few chapters in part 2 that do nothing but set up some action, and since the action and chase sequences don't really add anything to the plot or the characters they wind up being totally superfluous.

However, when Ballard is on, he is on, and The Crystal World contains many passages of beautiful description and enough atmosphere for a dozen similar novels. I cannot recommend this as whole heartedly as The Best Short Stories of..., Running Wild, or War Fever, but it is worth a read if you enjoy the author or like a cool eco-tinted SF story with wonderful prose that outshines most of Ballards contemporaries.

 

[Connavar]

Interesting review.

Keep those coming of the ones you have read.

I think i will choose a book of his depending on the idea of the story. Which idea sounds most interesting to me. Doesn't matter if its SF like or not. Hopefully something shocking,emotional as War Fever and as much what if as Secret History of World War 3. I truly enjoyed that story, almost no dialouges only a character telling what was happening.

 

[D_Davis]

Started reading The Atrocity Exhibition last night. Very unsettling. I feel like I am reading something I am not supposed to, as if its subversive nature might actually be harmful to me.

Like some strange kind of hallucinogenic drug. Taking it might open my mind up to new experiences, but there is a lingering fear that it could really screw me up.

 

[D_Davis]

I love Ballard's fascination with Ronald Reagan and Ralph Nader; the first for being the epitome of the "media politician" (check out the short story The Secret History of World War III), and the later for being involved in automobile safety in the 1960s. In the way that Ballard views automobiles - objects of charged, violent, American sexuality - in The Atrocity Exhibition (and later more fully fleshed out in Crash), one could view Ralph Nader as a proponent for safe sex in a Ballardian world, with this image:

possessing disturbing innuendo.

 

[j d worthington]

Given the intense sexualization of automobiles in advertising -- especially notable at the time Ballard wrote these stories -- I'd say he's right on the money on that one. Yes, The Atrocity Exhibition is one of, if not the, most challenging of his books. Oddly, except for "The Recognition", which I encountered in Dangerous Visions, the stories that make up The Atrocity Exhibition were my first encounter with Ballard's work. I came across a few of them in places such as the Best of New Worlds anthologies Moorcock edited, and Judy Merrill's England Swings SF, and was immediately caught up in what he was doing. As a result, this has remained among my favorite Ballard books, and I'd still say it's one of the most innovative, imaginative, stimulating, and, yes, dangerous things to come out of science fiction in the entire history of the field....

Incidentally, I'm curious: which edition do you have? There was a later edition with some additional stories and annotations by Ballard, as well as some very appropriate -- and therefore disturbing -- illustrations....

Amazon.com: The Atrocity Exhibition: J.G. Ballard: Books

(Warning: graphic illustration at the link)

 

[D_Davis]

I have the annotated, P.S., UK Harper Perennial Edition, now. It includes part of the appendix featured in the RE edition, but does not include The Secret History of World War III.

I used to have that RE/Search version but it got lost.

I was the book sales manager at a Tower Records for a couple of years, and we specialized in those kinds of RE/Search and subversive lit publications. They never sold, but I always made sure to have plenty on the shelves.

 

[D_Davis]

The Consumer Consumed
by J. G. Ballard

Could Ralph Nader, the consumer crusader and scourge of General Motors,
become the first dictator of the United States? The question isn't
entirely frivolous. Now in his sixth year as the most articulate and
determined champion of the ordinary consumer, Nader already reveals an
ominous degree of self-denying fanaticism that links him to the last of
the old-style populist demagogues and may be making him the first of the
new. Given that party and presidential politics in the USA are no longer
flexible enough to admit any true outsider (the next five US presidents
will probably come from a tiny pool of a hundred or so professional
politicians), one would expect any real maverick with a headful of
obsessions to home in on us from an unexpected quarter of the horizon.

J.G. Ballard on Ralph Nader

 

[D_Davis]

Atrocity Exhibition

The final parts of this book are amazing. Why I Want to F*** Ronald Reagan, The Assassination of JFK Considered as a Downhill Motor Race, Princess Margaret's Face Lift, and Mae West's Reduction Mammoplasty are all brilliant works of satire, and deeply scathing of American pop-culture and humanity in general.

The rest of it is good in spurts, but I found the vision to be too singular to warrant the length - and it's not even that long. Throughout these pages it is easy to pick up on themes that Ballard would return to later, or had previously, and had executed them better.

It is interesting, and I recommend it to people who really want a challenge, but I am not as enthused about this as I am Ballard's other fiction.

 

[Fried Egg]

I don't know as I'd call any of Ballard's work "post-apocalyptic" in the strict sense. Even his "ecological disaster" quartet (The Wind from Nowhere, The Drowned World, The Drought, and The Crystal World) aren't truly -- save perhaps for the last -- post-apocalyptic in the usual sense. He takes a single shift in the environment and shows its effect on the human psyche, and it is often those who make the most unconventional adjustment to that change that are the protagonists of his novels.

I've read "Crystal World", "Drowned World" and "The Drought" (I have "Wind from Nowehere" lined up to read) and I would definitely describe them as post-apocalyptic in setting. Each features an environmental catastrophe that has a huge disrupting effect on society. What's different is Ballard's focus on the effects of the change on the psyche rather than society in general.

Anyway, I'm looking forward to moving away from these early novels and exploring his later stuff. I have "Hello America", "Unlimited Dream Company" and "Millennium People" lined up to read after I've read "Wind from Nowhere".

 

[D_Davis]

Hello America, by J.G. Ballard

Somewhat slight and uninteresting; it was especially disappointing after Kingdom Come. Hello America almost reads as if it were a YA story. That is, it really lacks Ballard's edge and style. Maybe I was simply hoping for something more, something more scathing, or derogatory towards the fantasy of the American Dream; what Ballard delivered was more like a road trip/adventure story across a desolate and barren North America.

There are some good moments, though. I enjoyed how those left behind in the devastated America grouped together in tribes with names like the Executives, the Divorcees, and the Politicians, each chasing the ghost of a dream of the legends they mimic. I also liked how one of the tribes named all of their women Xerox, because "they make good copies." And the novel does pick up some steam towards the end when the expedition finally makes it to Las Vegas.

However, the biggest flaw is the voice of the main character - Wayne. Wayne is supposed to be young, he struggles with being called a child. But then there are chapters that are supposed to be taken from his diary, and he writes with the prose, insight, and clarity of an adult. There is no change in the voice Ballard uses between the diary and non-diary parts of the book. Also, the diary parts are to fleshed out. Wayne remembers exact lines of dialog in conversations. While I appreciate changing POV, it has to be done in a natural manner.

Hello America is definitely lower tier Ballard. And that's OK. Ballard wrote a lot of stuff, and a lot of that stuff is very, very good, some of it excellent. So he has a clunker or two, or even three. Just shows that the man was human after all.

 

[D_Davis]

Kingdom Come, by J.G. Ballard

J.G. Ballard once again focuses his lens on modern living in this absurdly hilarious and damningly scathing examination of consumerism taken to the extreme. In the suburbs outside of London, a giant shopping mall - The Metro-Centre - stands as a consumer cathedral, looming over the motorway cities. Inside, gods and shrines to washing machines, toasters, and microwave ovens are erected, as shoppers - respecting the merchandise more than themselves or others - live their empty lives mindlessly marching from one sale to another. Outside of the Metro-Centre, the sporting arenas create an atmosphere of jingoism and cultural-imperialism as violent spectators take to the streets to bash in the heads of immigrants and anyone who doesn't belong - THE ENEMY.

I've said it before, but it's worth repeating: there is not an author alive nor dead who understood modern society better than J.G. Ballard. We are living in his world, now. His fiction - often set "five minutes into the future" - is a body of work consisting of myths of the near future. To read Ballard is to gather a glimpse into the very heart, mind, and soul of our modern world. He didn't create the satire, he simply exposed it all for the sham that it is.

 

[RJM Corbet]

I'm sorry I haven't read through this whole thread.
'Crash' is well known, because of the (cult?) movie, but the only book I've read is 'Drought' -- years ago -- and its one of those books that made a permanent dent on my psyche. Not easy reading -- not at all -- but, as someone, somewhere said: you've got to read the hard stuff too, because that's the best stuff.
JG is brave, unconventional, and is not afraid to disturb the reader -- in fact at least in 'Drought' -- that seemed to be his intention and his aim.
This thread has reminded me, and I will be looking out for his stuff in 2nd hand bookshops from now on. You know how, when you walk into a bookshop or library, you suddenly forget what you're looking for? Thanks. JG Ballard. Yah!

 

[D_Davis]

I've found that J.G. Ballard is surprisingly well stocked at the local (Seattle) used book stores.

You're right - he is a brave author. Which is why I was ultimately disappointed with Hello America; it is too safe.

 

[D_Davis]

In many ways, Ballard reminds me a lot of David Cronenberg. They've both made undeniable masterpieces of genre; they both have unique voices that transcend genre; they've both dabbled in the mainstream while maintaining their unique voice; and they've both pushed the boundaries of their medium further than many of their contemporaries.

Cronenberg doesn't make SF films - he makes Cronenberg films.

Ballard didn't write SF - he wrote Ballardian fiction.

And I'd say it's pretty safe to assume that Ballard was an influence on Cronenberg, especially in the way they examine the sexual nature of humanity.

 

[Philosopher]

Of his works I have only read Crash. Probably not the best one to be introduced to at the face value of the reading, due to its extremely gruesome theme. I can see he was trying to put across a particular point, and what better way to stimulate debate than shock people so in that sense I admire the novel.

Which work of his should I read next?

 

[D_Davis]

I always recommend The Best Short Stories of J.G. Ballard.

 

[Philosopher]

Thanks, I will start there then!

 

[Diggler]

I quite liked The Drought. Though it definitely fits into the weird category.

 

[RJM Corbet]

I read an interview with JG shortly after the 'Crash' movie came out. There was much tut-tutting about it -- more so than one would normally expect -- considering.

JG said in the interview that he was exploring in 'Crash' the weird 'deviant' association of sex and cars combined -- which comes out, but much less obviously, even in movies like, for instance 'Grease'. It's not there with motorcycles, for example.

JG just recognised it, and bought it to the fore, so to speak. And he was quite chuffed at the hoo-ha around the movie because it just proved to him that he was right ...