Tag Archives: jg ballard

Concrete Island – JG Ballard

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Having recently read several books which were by any literary standard successful, Concrete Island has had the singular virtue of leaving no trace of objective/subjective ambivalence. In addition to the very high standard of Ballard’s writing it is the sort of read which you would neither wish to put down nor to finish. Alas, it is barely more than a novella, not a long read. Luckily for me the OH is a big fan: the remainder of the Ballardian oeuvre is within easy reach.

Concrete Island is the second of Ballard’s thematic trilogy of urban disaster, following Crash and preceding High-Rise. I believe I was fortunate to get to this one last. Crash in particular has some baffling moments but, while I don’t aspire to grasp every nuance of Concrete Island, it has a seductively intuitive quality.
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Empire of the Sun – JG Ballard

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empire of the sunApproaching this book in a spirit of naivety I thought I was going to learn about the second world war as it occurred in the Far East.  I wanted to understand how it had been possible for the Japanese to treat prisoners of war and interned Allied nationals as they did.  I do not find myself significantly better informed in either respect, but I have learnt a great deal about survival.

In a brief synopsis, Empire of the Sun opens with eleven year old Jim living in Shanghai on the eve of Pearl Harbour.  A masterful setting of the scene reveals British nationals effectively fiddling as Rome burns, oblivious. Not to mention treating the native Chinese rather badly. (Although this is in no way condemned by our young hero.)

Subsequently, the Japanese act swiftly to round up enemy nationals living in Shanghai, and Jim becomes separated from his parents.  The rest of the story concerns his struggles to survive alone in Shanghai and, later, in the custody of the Japanese.

Unlike some other Ballard, Empire of the Sun is written in a fairly straight forward style, and does not puzzle the reader unduly.  But the style is deceptively simple; there are a couple of small quirks which have a great deal of impact.

The first is in the constant referral by the narrator to “Jim.”  Jim is only described as “boy” when viewed through the eyes of others.  It is as though the narrator is talking of himself in the third person.  The effect is a very immediate story, unfailingly convincing.  Semi-autobiographical struggles to retain the semi, and at the end I had to make a conscious effort to recall that it was fiction.

The second feature is that some parts seemed to be ungrammatical; sentences that didn’t quite make sense, or paragraphs which appeared to be missing some essential information.  It is always possible that this was a simple case of the reader (ie me) being a little slow on the uptake.  Or a deliberate device illustrating the confusion of a small boy lost in a war.

It is well that Jim’s youth is emphasized, because some of his conclusions are difficult to accept; not in keeping with how we are taught to remember.  His observations slip under the radar because the reader does not expect that a young boy would have been able to fully comprehend all the implications of what he witnessed.  There is also a dream-like quality to the narrative; stemming largely from Jim’s often unconcerned and fatalistic approach to his own well-being.

I would question the propriety of using the word “enjoy” in conjunction with this book, but it is a book which I liked very much, and would strongly recommend.  There was one part in particular which will stay with me;

“If Mr Maxted was always accidentally falling into swimming-pools, as indeed he always was, why did he only fall into them when they were filled with water?”

Recognising the presence of water; a valuable ability.

Fresh off the Shelf

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small empire of the sun

Empire of the Sun – JG Ballard

In a terrible breach of reading etiquette, Empire of the Sun, from a position somewhere beyond my reading horizon, has taken up residence in the immediate foreground. Literally, in my face.

Last week we visited the National Memorial Arboretum, at Alrewas, Staffordshire. One of the memorials we saw was a cultural and memorial building commemorating the Far Eastern Prisoners of War. The visit was intended to reinforce in my daughters the importance and significance of remembrance, but I was startled to realise how little I knew about the impact of WWII on the Pacific, and those natives of the Allied nations who lived or were stationed there.

So I hope I may be excused for temporarily overlooking my birthday bounty in this worthy cause.

national memorial arboretum

Crash – JG Ballard

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crashSimply put, JG Ballard’s Crash is an exploration of the link between sex and cars in an increasingly technological world.  First published in 1973 it is in no way dated, and remains remarkably pertinent, which can only serve to generate a huge respect for the author’s vision.  Described as post-modern, and containing some elements of meta-fiction, it did not recall any other book to mind, although there are those who make a comparison with William Burrough’s “Naked Lunch.”

With this, my first Ballard, I took the view that if I only ever read one it would be as well to pick the most extreme example of his work.  One might argue that The Atrocity Exhibition would be better suited to this purpose, but it is fair to say that Crash is certainly in the running.

Crash begins with the ending (this novel is neither plot nor character driven), and then leaps back to the start; a fatal car crash involving the narrator, strangely named James Ballard.  Ballard survives, but begins to perceive possibilities inherent in the linkage of sex, cars and crashes.  Enter Vaughn.

Vaughn is revealed to the reader as a “TV scientist” for whom sexuality only exists within the context of the car, and car-related violence.  Vaughn is also obsessed with the celebrity and the fatal crash; real, imagined, planned.

As Vaughn presides over the anticipated “autogeddon” like a deranged messiah, the imagery of Beelzebub is, at the last, employed to good effect.   This messiah of science is not ushering in a golden age.

From the outset the reader is exposed to a great deal of sex, both direct, and in the imagery used to describe cars and the infra-structures associated with driving. However, the book is completely free of eroticism and I would have to dispute Ballard’s own description of his work as “the first pornographic novel based on technology.”  Sex is described mechanically and analytically. It is unsettling and distasteful, but not pornographic.

Progressing through the book there are several factors to concern the reader:

Initially the descriptions were so repellant that I could only read by means of peering at the page, warily, from behind my hand.  It was perplexing to think that this might also be a valid response to witnessing a real car crash.  Whilst this bizarre behaviour was not conducive to the technicalities of reading it was a consideration that should this cease it might indicate a desensitisation to the content.

A second worrying factor was the ease with which the mindset of the book is adopted.  For example:

“Can we drive a little?” she asked.  “There’s all this traffic – I like to look at it.”

Ordinarily such a remark would not be readily interpretable as provocative.

These concerns were not unfounded.  It was eventually possible to emerge, to look the book in the face, so to speak.  Whilst this suspected desensitisation was not welcome, the ease with which it was achieved is an illustration of Ballard’s superb control of his reader.  The repetitive nature of the prose is not disimilar to the constant bombardment by propoganda and advertising to which we are all subject.   The point is driven home.

This, one of the few quotable passages of the book, appealed for its grace and beauty.

The mannequin, Elvis, lifted himself from his seat, his ungainly body at last blessed by the grace of the slow motion camera.  Like the most brilliant of all stuntmen, he stood on his pedals, legs and arms fully stretched.  His head was raised with its chin forwards in an attitude of almost aristocratic disdain.  The rear wheel of the motor cycle lifted into the air behind him, and seemed about to kick him in the small of the back, but with great finesse the rider detached his feet from the pedals and inclined his floating body in a horizontal posture.

As the mannequin sails through the air the slow motion spectators themselves appear as mannequins…

It is devices such as these; tricks of narrative which reflect, pre-empt and, above all, suggest…  that raise this book out of the voyeuristic hell it might otherwise inhabit.