Why is J. G. Ballard unpopular?
Mark Dillon
On the few occasions when I've had the opportunity to meet
with other sf readers, I was always surprised to learn that
they rarely read J. G. Ballard--if at all. They either ignored
his work or despised it.
This left me puzzled.
For the past twenty-five years, Ballard has been at the
top of my list of favourites. When I think of science fiction,
Ballard's is the first name that comes to mind. I admire
his ability to convey the alien quality of a landscape, no
matter how familiar it might seem at first--a freeway
cloverleaf, perhaps, or a deserted nuclear testing site.
He makes the latter half of the 20th century seem as
odd as anything we might find beyond the solar system.
I've always considered this feeling of otherness--this
sense of wonder and strangeness--central to sf.
Other people must admire his work as much as I do: all
of his books are print, and he has a large following in
Europe, the U. K. and Japan. Yet science fiction readers
have little to do with him.
Why?
Whenever I've asked this question, I've always received
three basic replies.
1) He is not a science fiction writer.
Yet in interviews he has always maintained that he is,
and that he considers science fiction the most important
literature of our time.
2) He is too experimental.
Yet although, on first reading, the "condensed novels" of
THE ATROCITY EXHIBITION might seem opaque, the rest
of his work is no more experimental than, say, the novels
of Conrad, Greene or Durrell. Right from the start of his
career, Ballard was attracted to science fiction by its
emphasis on strong story values. He had no interest in
writing a fiction of nuance; he wanted to reach a popular
audience. Judging by sales alone, he has done fairly well,
but not, apparently, with science fiction readers.
3) He is too obsessive: he returns to the same themes
and preoccupations over and over again.
This is undeniable, yet at the same time, part of the
fascination of his work lies in his ability to cast a new
light on an idea he has developed before. He has a rich
imagination, and his stories are full of inventive details
and wit. The themes may reappear, but the props and
scenery are varied and fascinating. And in science
fiction, obsessiveness is hardly a liability, or else
Heinlein, Asimov and Herbert would be just as unpopular.
So why, then, has a science fiction writer like Ballard never
found the audience within the field that he has beyond
it? This question has perplexed me for decades; any
ideas and comments would be more than welcome.
With thanks for your time,
Mark Dillon
Loznik
Traditional (pure?) SF often seems to rely for its appeal upon the
mechanics and consequences of futuristic or alternative technologies
and (less purely perhaps) upon situations arising from alternative
sociological settings.
Writers like Ballard (and to a lesser extent, Banks) rely more upon
stylistic and literary considerations then your "bog-standard" SF
writer. The fact that the story is *SF* is not integral to the telling
of it.
People who like SF are just as likely as any other type of reader to
prefer stories that are told in a straightforward, "this is what
happened" kind of way, as opposed to a more convoluted (or even
idiosyncratic) fashion.
Hardly worth two cents, but there's my opinion anyway.
Loznik {:-)>
(Due for a break from posting soon, I would think)
On 11 Apr 1999 21:23:23 GMT, dq...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Mark Dillon)
suggested:
Loznik
suggested:
>I have read very little Ballard, so I may be well off base here.
>
>Traditional (pure?) SF often seems to rely for its appeal upon the
>mechanics and consequences of futuristic or alternative technologies
>and (less purely perhaps) upon situations arising from alternative
>sociological settings.
>
>Writers like Ballard (and to a lesser extent, Banks) rely more upon
For "Banks", read Iain M Banks. Oops.
>stylistic and literary considerations then your "bog-standard" SF
>writer. The fact that the story is *SF* is not integral to the telling
>of it.
[snip]
Loznik {:-)>
"It's a blimp, Frank, it's a blimp, Frank!"
John Boston
says...
>
>
>On the few occasions when I've had the opportunity to meet
>with other sf readers, I was always surprised to learn that
>they rarely read J. G. Ballard--if at all. They either ignored
>his work or despised it.
>
>This left me puzzled.
[snip]
I agree with your assessment of Ballard. I think the main
reason he is not too popular among SF fans is that he has never
bought into the can-do attitude that has dominated SF, a genre
whose readers routinely divide books into optimistic vs. pessimistic
and treat the latter as a pejorative term. Ballard's characters are
almost always more interested in exploring their inner landscapes (a
term I'm sure Ballard has used) than in wrestling the external landscape
into submission. From the standpoint of the main current of the SF
genre (botched metaphor there, your feet would get wet, but let it go),
this is letting down the side. To compound these crimes, Ballard has
sometimes written disdainfully about traditional genre SF, and was
the poster child, or maybe I mean the hood ornament, of the "new wave"
in SF about 30 years ago. Such treason is not forgiven lightly.
A better reason not to like Ballard is that his recent work
has been mostly repetitive of his earlier work, and not nearly as good.
I am thinking particularly of RUSHING TO PARADISE, a novel I found
very disappointing. But his earlier work still captivates me.
John Boston
P Nielsen Hayden
<7erro7$2e6$1...@camel19.mindspring.com>:
>To compound these crimes, Ballard has
>sometimes written disdainfully about traditional genre SF
Although, as I recently mentioned in another online forum, Ballard is on
record as admiring Asimov extravagantly. For, I am not making this up, the
brilliance of his prose style.
--
Patrick Nielsen Hayden : p...@panix.com : http://www.panix.com/~pnh
Mark Dillon
Loznick (loz...@garbage.bigfoot.com) wrote:
>Writers like Ballard (and to a lesser extent, Banks) rely more upon
>stylistic and literary considerations than your "bog-standard" SF
>writer. The fact that the story is *SF* is not integral to the telling
>of it.
>
>People who like SF are just as likely as any other type of reader to
>prefer stories that are told in a straightforward, "this is what
>happened" kind of way, as opposed to a more convoluted (or even
>idiosyncratic) fashion.
This is certainly true. Ballard's prose is densely-textured, highly
metaphorical and relentlessly physical; everything is shown with
an almost hallucinatory vividness. It's not a transparent prose like
Asimov's or Pohl's--or Disch's, for that matter.
Many non-sf readers--perhaps the majority--prefer transparent prose,
yet non-sf readers also make up the bulk of Ballard's audience.
They represent a wide spectrum of tastes, from "straightforward"
at one end to "idiosyncratic" at the other.
My question is: where are the sf readers with a taste for idiosyncratic,
non transparent prose?
You know... they just might be a minority. Otherwise, books by
Avram Davidson or M. John Harrison would have been more lucrative.
William Burroughs would have won the Hugo award, and R. A. Lafferty
would be as popular as Heinlein.
Are they truly a minority? Any comments?
Mark Dillon
William Clifford
>John Boston <jbo...@mindspring.com> wrote in
><7erro7$2e6$1...@camel19.mindspring.com>:
>
>>To compound these crimes, Ballard has
>>sometimes written disdainfully about traditional genre SF
>
>Although, as I recently mentioned in another online forum, Ballard is on
>record as admiring Asimov extravagantly. For, I am not making this up, the
>brilliance of his prose style.
Well, in fairness, when it came to non-fiction Asimov's prose was
pretty brilliant. When applied to fiction it was quite serviceable too
and probably still brilliant if judged by the same criteria we judge
non-fiction.
Of course Ballard may just have been sucking up or otherwise being
facetious. Context would be good here.
-William Clifford
Know your fields before replying by mail
James Nicoll
P Nielsen Hayden <p...@panix.com> wrote:
>John Boston <jbo...@mindspring.com> wrote in
><7erro7$2e6$1...@camel19.mindspring.com>:
>
>>To compound these crimes, Ballard has
>>sometimes written disdainfully about traditional genre SF
>
>Although, as I recently mentioned in another online forum, Ballard is on
>record as admiring Asimov extravagantly. For, I am not making this up, the
>brilliance of his prose style.
I don't suppose he ever expanded on that?
I am quite fond[1] of _Empire of the Sun_ and [I want a real
memory] the one after that, about traveling up a new river in Africa.
I can't imagine why I haven't picked up much else by him.
James Nicoll
1: Fond may not be the right word. It reliably makes me feel ill to read
it in a 'I've just had a stroke in the middle of Marrakesh' way. Not
a physical bad feeling, a mental one.
--
"The initial over-all composition, purporting to traverse the
nation, deliberately overlooked a large piece of the nation--Chicago
to Cheyenne. [...] For more than a billion years, little to nothing
had happened there." _Annals of the Former World_, John McPhee
Mike Schilling
>
> John Boston <jbo...@mindspring.com> wrote in
> <7erro7$2e6$1...@camel19.mindspring.com>:
>
> >To compound these crimes, Ballard has
> >sometimes written disdainfully about traditional genre SF
>
> Although, as I recently mentioned in another online forum, Ballard is on
> record as admiring Asimov extravagantly. For, I am not making this up, the
> brilliance of his prose style.
I wouldn't suspect you of making it up. If you discount his earlier,
pulpish stories, the only criticism you can make of Asimov's prose is
that it isn't conspicuously stylish.
Candy Christian
wrote:
It certainly isn't conspicuously stylish but most of those who write
Harliquin romances, genre mystery, genre horror, etc. aren't conspicuously
stylish either. Style-wise, Asimov was writing uninspired genre-style
prose. So why isn't it suprising that Ballard would consider a typical
genre prose style brilliant? Sounds a little goofy to me. OTOH, Ballard
isn't the greatest stylistic genius of the 20th century either.
ralphus
---------------------------------------
my anti-spam e-mail -> barne...@osu.edu
GSV Larger than Life
asserted
>
>On the few occasions when I've had the opportunity to meet
>with other sf readers, I was always surprised to learn that
>they rarely read J. G. Ballard--if at all. They either ignored
>his work or despised it.
>
>This left me puzzled.
>
>top of my list of favourites.
My problem with Ballard (apart from the fact that LOTS of his stuff is
permanently out of print) is that once you have read one (well, Ok,
maybe 3) you have sort of read them all.
The science is generally soft &/or lacking, but he majors on the
interpersonal (and intra-personal) stuff instead. It may be great
literature, but sometimes it is less than fun to read (along with, imho,
some of PK Dick, all of Herman Hesse, Mervyn Peake, and other SF/Fantasy
'marginals'). Some of it is damn depressing .. well, actually most of it
is.
Not to say that I don't sometimes enjoy his short stories (The Garden of
Time, the Voices of Time) or even the odd novel (The Crystal World being
my favourite), but a new book by Ballard is not a 'must read', and never
has been.
GSV Larger than Life
(ROU 'Back to the Front' is currently Engaged, iykwim)
Loznik
suggested:
[snippage]
>
>Many non-sf readers--perhaps the majority--prefer transparent prose,
>yet non-sf readers also make up the bulk of Ballard's audience.
>They represent a wide spectrum of tastes, from "straightforward"
>at one end to "idiosyncratic" at the other.
>
>My question is: where are the sf readers with a taste for idiosyncratic,
>non transparent prose?
>
>You know... they just might be a minority. Otherwise, books by
>Avram Davidson or M. John Harrison would have been more lucrative.
>William Burroughs would have won the Hugo award, and R. A. Lafferty
>would be as popular as Heinlein.
>
>Are they truly a minority? Any comments?
I am fond of both styles of writing, so I put my hand up (if we are
taking a census).
This leads me to ask, does HP Lovecraft come under the "transparent"
or "idiosyncratic" heading? My opinion would be, "Both", as he his
style was that of a fairly straightforward story-teller, even if his
vocabulary was, shall we say, eccentric.
Loznik {:-)>
(who thinks *everyone* should be in the minority ...)
Mark Dillon
jam...@ece.uwaterloo.ca (James Nicoll) wrote:
>I am quite fond[1] of _Empire of the Sun_ and [I want a real
>memory] the one after that, about traveling up a new river in Africa.
That would be DAY OF CREATION.
>1: Fond may not be the right word. It reliably makes me feel ill to read
>it in a 'I've just had a stroke in the middle of Marrakesh' way. Not
>a physical bad feeling, a mental one.
Try EMPIRE'S sequel, THE KINDNESS OF WOMEN. There are scenes in that
book I wish I could forget, but I never will... I never will... I never will....
And then, of course, there's CRASH.
Mark Dillon
Joe Bernstein
Mark Dillon <dq...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA> wrote:
> My question is: where are the sf readers with a taste for idiosyncratic,
> non transparent prose?
>
> You know... they just might be a minority. Otherwise, books by
> Avram Davidson or M. John Harrison would have been more lucrative.
> William Burroughs would have won the Hugo award, and R. A. Lafferty
> would be as popular as Heinlein.
>
> Are they truly a minority? Any comments?
Um, first, a comment to the effect of thank-you for your initial post,
which very effectively conveyed your love for Ballards work. (Please
excuse weird punctuation- Im posting from a public machine with a
Catalan-or-some-such keyboard, and I dont know where all the marks are.)
As for minorities ? Um?
Well, yes, of *course* we are a minority (to the extent that I belong
to that category *myself*). Why else would Bantam be moving John
Crowley out of the genre market? Why else would there be ongoing
defenses of the "transparent style" thirty years after the New Wave?
The transparent style *can* in fact be used brilliantly. Two writers
who do this and come to mind immediately are Connie Willis and Patricia
McKillip (who is also, by the way, somewhat obsessive in her themes,
for what its worth). This can result in great praise, as those two
writers have in fact received. And there is a place for more opaque
writers too, as witness Gene Wolfe. But I think it would be fair to
say that the hierarchy of opaqueness here, Willis-McKillip-Wolfe, is
also the hierarchy of sales.
One reason a writer can do better in the so-called "mainstream" than
in the genre markets, if that writer is an acquired taste, is that the
"mainstream" is a lot *bigger* than the genre markets. To us here on
rec.arts.sf.written, the "mainstream" is all those folks who read
romance novels or mysteries, *plus* all those folks who read John
Updike or Umberto Eco, *plus* all the fans of Oprahs book club, *plus*
folks who read a couple of books a year and do not make a point of
choosing science fiction... SF comprises something like 15% of published
fiction in this country, last I heard. Well, 85% is bigger than 15%.
Besides which everyone knows, whatever their own pleasures may be,
that the "mainstream" (however *they* define it) is where to go to
find the fancy stuff.
I could go on at this point about how the proliferation of series novels
and Star Wars takeoffs has led to a dumbing-down of SF in particular,
but I will not: first of all, I may not believe that, and second,
Norman Spinrad has done a lot of it already, in his columns in
Asimovs Science Fiction.
Which is, by the way, an example of a counterforce that deserves some
credit. There are definite limits within the field, and moreso the
magazines, in a variety of ways; but I suspect SF is unusual (and
science fiction specifically, more unusual) in the extent to which
people with publishing influence are devotees willing to publish and
promote the exotic at *all*. I would be delighted to hear that
mystery and romance have similar high ends, but so far Ive seen no
sign of it. Whats weird about SF is not that people like Crowley
and Wolfe are not bestsellers (nor that people like Ballard and Russ,
whose most accessible work in SF is decades old and who have publicly
condemned icons of the field, are sneered at - fer crine out loud,
people get sneered at just for saying "sci-fi"!). Whats weird about
SF is that people like Crowley and Wolfe get published and honoured
within it at *all*, or at least thats how I see it.
(And while I apologise again for still not having located the
apostrophe, may I ask you to look into why your newsreader doesnt
offer the References: header? Some of us have newsreaders that like
that header, and most newsreaders do handle it properly.)
Joe Bernstein
--
Joe Bernstein, writer http://www.tezcat.com/~josephb/
Speaking for myself alone, but proponent for soc.history.early-modern -
ask for it now on your news server! j...@sfbooks.com jos...@tezcat.com
Eli Bishop
Mark Dillon wrote:
>
> This is certainly true. Ballard's prose is densely-textured, highly
> metaphorical and relentlessly physical; everything is shown with
> an almost hallucinatory vividness. It's not a transparent prose like
> Asimov's or Pohl's--or Disch's, for that matter.
I think I know what you mean about Disch, but I think that's a minority
of his writing, mostly later and more self-consciously pulpy novels.
It's hard to call most of _Camp Concentration_ or _334_ or many of his
stories "transparent prose," although they don't take place in
Ballard-land.
> My question is: where are the sf readers with a taste for
> idiosyncratic, non transparent prose?
>
> You know... they just might be a minority. Otherwise, books by
> Avram Davidson or M. John Harrison would have been more lucrative.
> William Burroughs would have won the Hugo award, and R. A. Lafferty
> would be as popular as Heinlein.
>
> Are they truly a minority? Any comments?
Is this a real question?
Yes, they are a minority, just as they're a minority among readers in
general. The difference is that they're a minority among an already
small minority. I mean, take the number of people who have actually
read _Ulysses_ (because they enjoyed it, not because they had to), and
divide it by the total number of readers of English literature (ANY
English literature); if that same percentage of SF readers made up
Joyce's whole following, he'd look pretty obscure.
Mark Dillon
Kevin J. Maroney (kmar...@crossover.com) wrote:
>I remember quite distinctly a
>sentence about Ballard's work--I don't remember the source, and I can
>only paraphrase the sentiment, not the words: In the future, humans
>may well spread to different planets, but that's much less interesting
>than the changes in how humans will live on all those planets. So you
>might as well set all your stories on Earth; Earth in 20 years, hell,
>Earth *right now* is as alien as other planets are.
Yes! Here's the Ballard quotation, from "Which Way to Inner
Space?" NEW WORLDS guest editorial, 1962:
"The biggest developments of the immediate future will take
place, not on the Moon or Mars, but on Earth, and it is _inner
space_, not outer, that needs to be explored. The only truly
alien planet is Earth."
He cites H. G. Wells by example. From an interview in VECTOR,
Jan. 1980:
"If you look at, say, the SF of H. G. Wells, very little of that is
set in the far future or on alien planets--THE ISLAND OF Dr. MOREAU,
THE INVISIBLE MAN, THE WAR OF THE WORLDS, large numbers of
his short stories: all are set in the present, or the near-present,
and not on Earth...."
John Boston (jbo...@mindspring.com) wrote:
>Ballard's characters are
>almost always more interested in exploring their inner landscapes (a
>term I'm sure Ballard has used) than in wrestling the external landscape
>into submission.
Again, this is right to the point. Here's another quotation, from an
interview published in METAPHORES, 1983:
"My novels and my fiction are of fulfillment. My characters embrace
what most people would run miles from, in novels like THE DROWNED
WORLD, THE CRYSTAL WORLD, and in another way CRASH... I think
that all of my fiction is optimistic because it's a fiction of psychic
fulfillment. The characters are finding themselves, which is after all
the only definition of real happiness: to find yourself and be who you
are...."
An idea that seems to run through much of Philip K. Dick's work
as well....
Mark Dillon
Rich Horton
Orson Scott Card is another who has extravagantly praised Asimov's
prose. Granted, Card's prose is a lot more similar to Asimov's than
Ballard's.
I think Asimov's "uninspired genre-style prose" is more than that.
Yes, his prose was ... clean is the nice way to put it. But it was
=so= clean. And, for me at any rate, his prose had "momentum". It
made me want to keep reading. It was not beautiful for sound, and
only occasionally beautiful for images, but it was ... efficient, and
efficient in a good way. "Uninspired genre-style prose", to me, is as
deficient in sound and imagery as Asimov's, but is also deficient in
the strengths of Asimov's prose: it's less likely to have what I've
called "momentum", it's less likely to be precise.
--
Rich Horton
Homepage: www.sff.net/people/richard.horton
Visit Tangent Online (www.sfsite.com/tangent) for timely reviews of SF short fiction
Rich Horton
wrote:
>The transparent style *can* in fact be used brilliantly. Two writers
>who do this and come to mind immediately are Connie Willis and Patricia
>McKillip (who is also, by the way, somewhat obsessive in her themes,
>for what its worth). This can result in great praise, as those two
>writers have in fact received. And there is a place for more opaque
>writers too, as witness Gene Wolfe. But I think it would be fair to
>say that the hierarchy of opaqueness here, Willis-McKillip-Wolfe, is
>also the hierarchy of sales.
McKillip "transparent"? Boggle. And indeed Willis is hardly
"transparent", to my mind, except by comparison with writers like
McKillip and Wolfe.
Unless you are defining transparent in a manner different than that
which I expected.
BTW, great to see your phosphors here again, Joe.
Rich Horton
wrote:
>SF comprises something like 15% of published
>fiction in this country, last I heard. Well, 85% is bigger than 15%.
>Besides which everyone knows, whatever their own pleasures may be,
>that the "mainstream" (however *they* define it) is where to go to
>find the fancy stuff.
But 85% does not equal "mainstream" by this definition. "Romance" is
definitely =not= mainstream, and it's a =huge= segment of the market.
(50%? A fugitive memory suggests, but maybe not.) And there is also
"mystery" and "Western" and maybe "action-adventure".
John Boston
says...
>
>In article <8DA67B1...@news.panix.com>,
>P Nielsen Hayden <p...@panix.com> wrote:
>>John Boston <jbo...@mindspring.com> wrote in
>><7erro7$2e6$1...@camel19.mindspring.com>:
>>
>>>To compound these crimes, Ballard has
>>>sometimes written disdainfully about traditional genre SF
>>
>>Although, as I recently mentioned in another online forum, Ballard is on
>>record as admiring Asimov extravagantly. For, I am not making this up, the
>>brilliance of his prose style.
>
>
>memory] the one after that, about traveling up a new river in Africa.
[snip]
If you liked THE DAY OF CREATION (the African river book), you
would probably like THE UNLIMITED DREAM COMPANY, which is somewhat
similar in mood and degree of fantasticality (excuse the non-word).
Anthony Burgess thought highly enough of it to include it in his book
of the 99 best novels of the century or whatever it was. Other Ballard
highlights include HELLO AMERICA, a vastly entertaining novel about
European visitors to a future US that has turned into a sort of self-
maintaining media theme park (this is Ballard satirizing his own methods
among other things); "The Ultimate City," a hilarious novella set in an
eco-virtuous future, with a typical Ballard megalomaniac who wants to
move into one of the abandoned cities, turn on all the lights, and
start up the party again (this is in his collection LOW FLYING AIRCRAFT);
THE CRYSTAL WORLD, probably the best of his world-wrecking tetralogy
of the early 1960s; and his short stories of the 1960s. The canonical
Ballard stories are "The Terminal Beach," "The Voices of Time," and
"The Drowned Giant." "Billennium" is a particular favorite of mine,
another very funny story. Ballard's stories were shuffled and dealt
in various ways, differently in the US and UK, but most of his collections
from this period are well worth reading, and his two "best of" collections
(THE BEST SHORT STORIES OF J.G. BALLARD and CHRONOPOLIS) particularly so.
John Boston
Ralph Barnes
Bernstein) wrote:
>In article <7esaue$2...@freenet-news.carleton.ca>,
>Mark Dillon <dq...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA> wrote:
>
>> My question is: where are the sf readers with a taste for idiosyncratic,
>> non transparent prose?
>>
>> You know... they just might be a minority. Otherwise, books by
>> Avram Davidson or M. John Harrison would have been more lucrative.
>> William Burroughs would have won the Hugo award, and R. A. Lafferty
>> would be as popular as Heinlein.
>>
>> Are they truly a minority? Any comments?
>
>
>Which is, by the way, an example of a counterforce that deserves some
>credit. There are definite limits within the field, and moreso the
>magazines, in a variety of ways; but I suspect SF is unusual (and
>science fiction specifically, more unusual) in the extent to which
>people with publishing influence are devotees willing to publish and
>promote the exotic at *all*. I would be delighted to hear that
>mystery and romance have similar high ends, but so far Ive seen no
>sign of it. Whats weird about SF is not that people like Crowley
>and Wolfe are not bestsellers (nor that people like Ballard and Russ,
>whose most accessible work in SF is decades old and who have publicly
>condemned icons of the field, are sneered at - fer crine out loud,
>people get sneered at just for saying "sci-fi"!).
Whats weird about
>SF is that people like Crowley and Wolfe get published and honoured
>within it at *all*, or at least thats how I see it.
>
Hmmm. You have a point and that is something to think about. Up until
now I had actually expected genre-fans to be more open to Wolfe & company
than they have been. Why? It seems to me that there are a significant
number of genre sci-fi people out there who emphasize good writing (as
opposed to fun adventure stories written poorly). There are those who
claim that Heinlein ought to be taught alongside Shakespeare in high
schools and that genre SF needs to be respected by the snobby lit. critics
in the NY Times Book Review (or at least those that complain that the
snobby lit. critics are assholes because they don't praise the literary
acheivements of sci-fi authors).
I don't follow the buzz among genre-mystery, genre-romance, or
genre-western people but I always wonder if among them there is a
significant group that laments the lack of literary respect their genre's
get from the main stream.
If there truly is this difference between fans of the SF genre and the
others, then it seems sensible to me that SF publishers & fans alike
should be more open to good prose than their counterparts in other
genres.
OTOH,
Ahasuerus
> Yes! Here's the Ballard quotation, from "Which Way to Inner
> Space?" NEW WORLDS guest editorial, 1962:
> "The only truly alien planet is Earth." [snip]
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
... which may very well be the best answer to the original question yet :)
--
Ahasuerus
Ahasuerus
> non transparent prose?
>
> You know... they just might be a minority. Otherwise, books by
> Avram Davidson or M. John Harrison would have been more lucrative.
> William Burroughs would have won the Hugo award, and R. A. Lafferty
> would be as popular as Heinlein.
>
> Are they truly a minority? Any comments?
But of course! :)
More importantly, it's not "a minority" but rather a number of minorities.
A Lafferty fan (like me) may also enjoy Vance and C.A. Smith, like Wolfe
and Davidson, and tolerate Harrison and Ballard. And v.v., of course :)
--
Ahasuerus
Mark Dillon
Ahasuerus <ahas...@not-for-mail.org> wrote:
>A Lafferty fan (like me) may also enjoy Vance and C.A. Smith, like Wolfe
>and Davidson, and tolerate Harrison and Ballard. And v.v., of course :)
It's interesting that you should mention Clark Ashton Smith....
Smith and Ballard share a vague connection in my mind, and not just
because I "discovered" both within the same time period (that Golden
Age of science fiction: the ages of nine and ten!).
It hardly seems likely that Ballard read Smith during his formative
years, but both were heavily influenced by the French symbolists and
Decadents--Baudelaire, Rimbaud, Lautreamont--and that influence comes
through in the intricacy of their prose, their irony and detachment,
their emphasis upon physical detail, visual evocation, and a certain
macabre sensibility.
Well... I _did_ say it was a vague connection....
Mark Dillon
Graydon
> I think Asimov's "uninspired genre-style prose" is more than that.
> Yes, his prose was ... clean is the nice way to put it. But it was
> =so= clean. And, for me at any rate, his prose had "momentum". It
> made me want to keep reading. It was not beautiful for sound, and
> only occasionally beautiful for images, but it was ... efficient, and
> efficient in a good way. "Uninspired genre-style prose", to me, is as
> deficient in sound and imagery as Asimov's, but is also deficient in
> the strengths of Asimov's prose: it's less likely to have what I've
> called "momentum", it's less likely to be precise.
If there's such a thing as transparent prose, Asimov generally wrote
light-amplifying prose. At his best, prose which was very selective
about which light got amplified.
--
graydon@ | Hige sceal şe heardra, heorte şe cenre,
lara.on.ca | mod sceal şe mare şe ure maegen lytlağ.
| -- Beorhtwold, "The Battle of Maldon"
Rich Horton
>Rich Horton <rrho...@concentric.net> writes:
>> I think Asimov's "uninspired genre-style prose" is more than that.
>> Yes, his prose was ... clean is the nice way to put it. But it was
>> =so= clean. And, for me at any rate, his prose had "momentum". It
>> made me want to keep reading. It was not beautiful for sound, and
>> only occasionally beautiful for images, but it was ... efficient, and
>> efficient in a good way. "Uninspired genre-style prose", to me, is as
>> deficient in sound and imagery as Asimov's, but is also deficient in
>> the strengths of Asimov's prose: it's less likely to have what I've
>> called "momentum", it's less likely to be precise.
>
>If there's such a thing as transparent prose, Asimov generally wrote
>light-amplifying prose. At his best, prose which was very selective
>about which light got amplified.
I think that's a wonderful phrase, thank you!
<SJKH>
wrote:
>And then, of course, there's CRASH.
Not Ballards' fault, of course, but the film was the purest shite I've
ever had the mis-fortune of seeing. Even worse, because of my job, I
had to watch it many, many times. Dark days...
--
Simon
Visit the John Brunner dedicated web site:
http://www.python82.freeserve.co.uk
Mark Dillon
Jo Walton (J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk) wrote:
>A story exists with a world and characters and it is a story, a
>subcreation, it is real in its own terms. It's just a story, but
>to the reader it is _a story_, one cares and is interested and
>connected to it. If the story is an allegory or an elegant
>metaphor in the way that :The Romance of the Rose: and :Concrete Island:
>are, then it is consciously looking outside itself and betraying
>its own truth, it's not just resonant with other things it _is_
>the other things which for me leaves the story feeling hollow and
>diminished, as if what I'd cared about I'd cared about under false
>pretenses while the author was just distracting me with them.
I agree with you. I prefer a story that carries a sense of conviction
on its own, that functions as a story first and foremost. I want to be
involved with it and feel some sort of emotional or intellectual
response. I want it to move me.
If, in addition, a story has a complex symbolic or metaphorical level,
I'll take great pleasure in exploring it -- I reread more often than I read!
-- but I should not have to notice this level in order to feel a story's
impact. This level is secondary; the story comes first.
That's why I love Ballard's work.
Yes, personal symbols reappear in story after story, and his language
is rich in metaphor, but Ballard's words come to life on the page.
Nothing is vague; nothing is transparently "allegorical"--every rock,
every sand dune, every shattered concrete bunker is right there in
front of you. You can see the desert light and taste the dust. Everything
is saturated with a looming sense of anticipation and a lingering sense of
loss.
And everything familiar becomes deeply strange, as if cast in the
final guttering of a burnt-out star.
That tangible strangeness is what I look for in science fiction.
In story after story, Ballard conveys it with conviction,
visual detail and emotional resonance.
Mark Dillon
Nancy Lebovitz
>Rich Horton <rrho...@concentric.net> writes:
>> I think Asimov's "uninspired genre-style prose" is more than that.
>> Yes, his prose was ... clean is the nice way to put it. But it was
>> =so= clean. And, for me at any rate, his prose had "momentum". It
>> made me want to keep reading. It was not beautiful for sound, and
>> only occasionally beautiful for images, but it was ... efficient, and
>> efficient in a good way. "Uninspired genre-style prose", to me, is as
>> deficient in sound and imagery as Asimov's, but is also deficient in
>> the strengths of Asimov's prose: it's less likely to have what I've
>> called "momentum", it's less likely to be precise.
>
>If there's such a thing as transparent prose, Asimov generally wrote
>light-amplifying prose. At his best, prose which was very selective
>about which light got amplified.
How would you categorize the prose in _A Deepness in the Sky_? I didn't
notice Vinge doing anything special, but book (especially the first half
or so) had a very striking clarity.
Graydon
> On 13 Apr 1999 17:51:36 GMT, gra...@lara.on.ca (Graydon) wrote:
> >Rich Horton <rrho...@concentric.net> writes:
> >> I think Asimov's "uninspired genre-style prose" is more than that.
> >> Yes, his prose was ... clean is the nice way to put it. But it was
> >> =so= clean. And, for me at any rate, his prose had "momentum". It
> >> made me want to keep reading. It was not beautiful for sound, and
> >> only occasionally beautiful for images, but it was ... efficient, and
> >> efficient in a good way. "Uninspired genre-style prose", to me, is as
> >> deficient in sound and imagery as Asimov's, but is also deficient in
> >> the strengths of Asimov's prose: it's less likely to have what I've
> >> called "momentum", it's less likely to be precise.
> >
> >If there's such a thing as transparent prose, Asimov generally wrote
> >light-amplifying prose. At his best, prose which was very selective
> >about which light got amplified.
>
You're welcome.
It came to me just after reading your post, although I've been trying
to explain Asimov's prose style to myself for years.
--
graydon@ | Hige sceal þe heardra, heorte þe cenre,
lara.on.ca | mod sceal þe mare þe ure maegen lytlað.
John Boston
have you seen John T. Sladek's parody of Ballard, "The
Sublimation World"? It's in his collection THE STEAM-
DRIVEN BOY.
John Boston
Graydon
> In article <7f0078$9u7$1...@lara.on.ca>, Graydon <gra...@lara.on.ca> wrote:
> >light-amplifying prose. At his best, prose which was very selective
> >about which light got amplified.
>
I wouldn't; I haven't read it.
--
graydon@ | Hige sceal ţe heardra, heorte ţe cenre,
lara.on.ca | mod sceal ţe mare ţe ure maegen lytlađ.
Mark Dillon
John Boston <jbo...@mindspring.com> wrote:
>By the way, if you're up for a spot of lese majeste,
>have you seen John T. Sladek's parody of Ballard, "The
>Sublimation World"?
Yes! Although it's nowhere near as funny as the stories by
Chipdip K. Kill, Hitler I. E. Bonner and Iclick as-i-move, it
has a nicely Ballardesque finale:
"He took out the blue grape to eat and found that it, too, was
diminished, worn away by the invisible though solid wind that
moved from past to future."
---from THE STEAM-DRIVEN BOY AND OTHER STRANGERS.
John Sladek, Panther Books, 1973. Also included in
THE BEST OF JOHN SLADEK, Pocket Books, 1981.)
And a certain G. G. Allbard, author of THE WOUNDED WORLD,
RASH, and DAY OF THE DIABETIC has this to say to Thomas
Disch:
"... a literature of extremity, like mine, is therapeutic.
By revealing the hidden significance of our ailments it allows us
to live in harmony with them. Illness opens up _larger_
realms of being. It is the quintessentially modern experience.
Hospitals are the cathedrals of the twentieth century. Take a
simple thing like vaccination. Only a culture that could produce
Strauss's SALOME could conceive of _resisting_ the lure of disease
by yielding to it. That yielding must be held within limits, needless
to say. It won't do to go out and be vaccinated for typhoid six times
in an afternoon, as 'Allbard" does at the end of RASH. But you can't
deny that that represents the secret longing of the vaccinee."
---Thomas M. Disch, "The Eternal Invalid," NEW WORLDS TEN,
Corgi Books, 1976.
Mark Dillon
Peter D. Tillman
>Non-random electrons from Mark Dillon <dq...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA>
>asserted
>>
>>On the few occasions when I've had the opportunity to meet
>>with other sf readers, I was always surprised to learn that
>>they rarely read J. G. Ballard--if at all. They either ignored
>>his work or despised it.
>>
>>This left me puzzled.
>>
>>For the past twenty-five years, Ballard has been at the
>>top of my list of favourites.
><Snip>
>
I'd always considered Ballard an entertaining, if minor, British
writer until "Empire of the Sun" was published. It's a remarkable,
slightly(?)-fictionalized account of his childhood in Shanghai,
the Japanese conquest, and the internment camps for Europeans.
IMO Empire blows away any previous Ballard. If you haven't read it,
you should -- one of the best historical novels I've read. Not to
be missed
Best, Pete
--
Recent book reviews:
http://www.silcom.com/~manatee/reviewer.html#tillman
http://www.sfsite.com/revwho.htm
Jo Walton
is...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu "Peter D. Tillman" writes:
> I'd always considered Ballard an entertaining, if minor, British
> writer until "Empire of the Sun" was published. It's a remarkable,
> slightly(?)-fictionalized account of his childhood in Shanghai,
> the Japanese conquest, and the internment camps for Europeans.
>
> IMO Empire blows away any previous Ballard. If you haven't read it,
> you should -- one of the best historical novels I've read. Not to
> be missed
It also reads well as SF, if you consider it the account of a child
ceasing to be human and becoming... something else.
It's very different from other Ballard I've read in that it's much
less detached.
I wouldn't say I liked it, and I'm not sure I could read it again
but it's certainly an excellent novel.
--
Jo - - I kissed a kif at Kefk - - J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk
http://www.bluejo.demon.co.uk - Interstichia; Poetry; RASFW FAQ; etc.
Ken MacLeod
<J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> writes
>In article <7fo967$msr$1...@alexander.INS.CWRU.Edu>
> is...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu "Peter D. Tillman" writes:
>
>> I'd always considered Ballard an entertaining, if minor, British
>> writer until "Empire of the Sun" was published. It's a remarkable,
>> slightly(?)-fictionalized account of his childhood in Shanghai,
>> the Japanese conquest, and the internment camps for Europeans.
>>
>> IMO Empire blows away any previous Ballard. If you haven't read it,
>> you should -- one of the best historical novels I've read. Not to
>> be missed
>
>It also reads well as SF, if you consider it the account of a child
>ceasing to be human and becoming... something else.
>
Given that it seems autobiographical, isn't that a little ... unkind?
:->
It does read well as SF. Bits of it that gave me that skiffy prickly
chill include:
when you find out what 'The Empire of the Sun' actually refers to;
when the lad glimpses the Chinese Communist troops, and you know the
next war is starting right there.
>It's very different from other Ballard I've read in that it's much
>less detached.
>
It helps to account for the rest of Ballard's writing. As does _The
Kindness of Women_.
>I wouldn't say I liked it, and I'm not sure I could read it again
>but it's certainly an excellent novel.
>
Ditto, and ditto for _The Kindness of Women_. What I took from that, and
I could be wrong, was the surprising idea that Ballard loves Western
society with the sort of fanaticism that's usually attributed to its
enemies.
E.g. The lyrical description of Shepperton and its young mothers, and
the wish that he personally could nuke Moscow.
--
Ken MacLeod
Jo Walton
k...@libertaria.demon.co.uk "Ken MacLeod" writes:
> In article <924855...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>, Jo Walton
> <J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> writes
> >In article <7fo967$msr$1...@alexander.INS.CWRU.Edu>
> > is...@cleveland.Freenet.Edu "Peter D. Tillman" writes:
> >
> >> I'd always considered Ballard an entertaining, if minor, British
> >> writer until "Empire of the Sun" was published. It's a remarkable,
> >> slightly(?)-fictionalized account of his childhood in Shanghai,
> >> the Japanese conquest, and the internment camps for Europeans.
> >>
> >> IMO Empire blows away any previous Ballard. If you haven't read it,
> >> you should -- one of the best historical novels I've read. Not to
> >> be missed
> >
> >It also reads well as SF, if you consider it the account of a child
> >ceasing to be human and becoming... something else.
>
> Given that it seems autobiographical, isn't that a little ... unkind?
> :->
Insofar as it's autobiographical, and considering that he went straight
from that to an English Public School, well, I'm not surprised that I
find most of his fiction rather alienated.
I've never met him, and that wasn't meant as a comment about him.
> It does read well as SF. Bits of it that gave me that skiffy prickly
> chill include:
>
> when you find out what 'The Empire of the Sun' actually refers to;
>
> when the lad glimpses the Chinese Communist troops, and you know the
> next war is starting right there.
The whole texture of the novel is like SF - unlike the rest of
Ballard's work that's labelled as SF, which is all metaphorical. This
does strike me as tolerably strange.
> >It's very different from other Ballard I've read in that it's much
> >less detached.
>
> It helps to account for the rest of Ballard's writing. As does _The
> Kindness of Women_.
Which I haven't read.
> >I wouldn't say I liked it, and I'm not sure I could read it again
> >but it's certainly an excellent novel.
>
> Ditto, and ditto for _The Kindness of Women_. What I took from that, and
> I could be wrong, was the surprising idea that Ballard loves Western
> society with the sort of fanaticism that's usually attributed to its
> enemies.
>
> E.g. The lyrical description of Shepperton and its young mothers, and
> the wish that he personally could nuke Moscow.
If :Empire of the Sun: is autobiographical, I can't say I'm surprised.
And people ought to be able to love their society without being
embarrassed or the idea being surprising, though you're right that
it is.
ObSF: Ballard's "The Kiss" is the first story that ever made me feel
physically nauseous. But I was very young when I read it - the Penguin
:Best SF:, ed. Aldiss, that was some of my formative reading.
Ken MacLeod
<J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> writes
>In article <rnKGiAAL...@libertaria.demon.co.uk>
> k...@libertaria.demon.co.uk "Ken MacLeod" writes:
>
>> In article <924855...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>, Jo Walton
>> <J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> writes
>> >
[Empire of the Sun]
>> >It also reads well as SF, if you consider it the account of a child
>> >ceasing to be human and becoming... something else.
>>
>> Given that it seems autobiographical, isn't that a little ... unkind?
>> :->
>
>Insofar as it's autobiographical, and considering that he went straight
>from that to an English Public School, well, I'm not surprised that I
>find most of his fiction rather alienated.
>
>I've never met him, and that wasn't meant as a comment about him.
>
I guessed so, hence the evil grin smiley.
>
>The whole texture of the novel is like SF - unlike the rest of
>Ballard's work that's labelled as SF, which is all metaphorical. This
>does strike me as tolerably strange.
>
Good point. It's more SFnal than a lot of his SF. Also it reveals the
source of a lot of his characteristic imagery. ('So that's where all the
empty swimming-pools come from', sort of thing.) I don't think all his
SF is metaphorical. Some of it is classic skiffy 'extrapolation' e.g.
'The Killing Grounds' which is an interesting story of a future Britain
under US occupation. And which I suspect lies in the background of Paul
MacAuley's 'The King of the Hill' which has a similar theme from an 80s
rather than 60s perspective.
(I think you'd like both of these stories.)
[snip]
> What I took from that, and
>> I could be wrong, was the surprising idea that Ballard loves Western
>> society with the sort of fanaticism that's usually attributed to its
>> enemies.
>>
>> E.g. The lyrical description of Shepperton and its young mothers, and
>> the wish that he personally could nuke Moscow.
>
>If :Empire of the Sun: is autobiographical, I can't say I'm surprised.
>
>And people ought to be able to love their society without being
>embarrassed or the idea being surprising, though you're right that
>it is.
>
The surprise wasn't so much that, as that Ballard is often a rather dour
critic of our present wonderful society. _The Atrocity Exhibition_ and
stories like 'The Killing Grounds' struck me when I read them as, well,
a little anti-American. But _The Kindness of Women_ has a quite
different feel. It seems to celebrate a lot of what his SF seemed to
criticise. The architecture, the suburbs, the media landscape, the
preparations for atomic war ...
ObSF: _Life in the West_ by Brian Aldiss.
(Which strikes a similar note, less surprisingly in Aldiss's case.)
--
Ken MacLeod 'In the Beginning all the World was America ...'
John Locke, _Second Treatise of Government_
John Boston
k...@libertaria.demon.co.uk says...
>
>In article <924892...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>, Jo Walton
><J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> writes
>>In article <rnKGiAAL...@libertaria.demon.co.uk>
>> k...@libertaria.demon.co.uk "Ken MacLeod" writes:
>>
>>> In article <924855...@bluejo.demon.co.uk>, Jo Walton
>>> <J...@bluejo.demon.co.uk> writes
>>> >
>
>[Empire of the Sun]
>
>>> >It also reads well as SF, if you consider it the account of a child
>>> >ceasing to be human and becoming... something else.
>>>
>>> Given that it seems autobiographical, isn't that a little ... unkind?
>>> :->
>>
>>Insofar as it's autobiographical, and considering that he went straight
>>from that to an English Public School, well, I'm not surprised that I
>>find most of his fiction rather alienated.
>>
>>I've never met him, and that wasn't meant as a comment about him.
>>
>
>I guessed so, hence the evil grin smiley.
>
>>
>>The whole texture of the novel is like SF - unlike the rest of
>>Ballard's work that's labelled as SF, which is all metaphorical. This
>>does strike me as tolerably strange.
>>
>
>Good point. It's more SFnal than a lot of his SF. Also it reveals the
>source of a lot of his characteristic imagery. ('So that's where all the
>empty swimming-pools come from', sort of thing.)
Right. In fact, one might conclude that all his years of writing
SF were merely temporizing, skirting around this body of tremendously
powerful memory until he had the strength to deal with it directly in
EMPIRE OF THE SUN.
One might. I'm not sure one should.
John Boston
John Boston
>
[snip]
>
>ObSF: Ballard's "The Kiss" is the first story that ever made me feel
>physically nauseous. But I was very young when I read it - the Penguin
>:Best SF:, ed. Aldiss, that was some of my formative reading.
I think you may be having a MOTION OF LIGHT IN WATER moment.
I didn't recall a Ballard story called "The Kiss," so I went to the
Contento/Locus indexes and don't find one; nor do I find any Ballard
story except "Track 12" in any of the Aldiss Penguin anthologies; nor
do I find a story by anybody else called "The Kiss" in any of those
books. I mention this not to play nit-picking games but because you
are obviously thinking of something real and I wonder what it is.
John Boston
Mark Dillon
Ken Macleod <k...@libertaria.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> _The Kindness of Women_ [...]. What I took from that, and
> I could be wrong, was the surprising idea that Ballard loves Western
> society with the sort of fanaticism that's usually attributed to its
> enemies.
>
> E.g. The lyrical description of Shepperton and its young mothers, and
> the wish that he personally could nuke Moscow.
It's been a while since I read THE KINDNESS OF WOMEN, so I might
be wrong, myself... but it seems to me that the lyrical descriptions
of Shepperton and life in the sixties show that he was overcoming
the sort of alienation hinted at in his wish to drop the Bomb ---
not just on Moscow, but everywhere. He wanted World War Three
because he could not come to terms with what he had seen
in World War Two.
The first half of the book is haunted by images of dead kamikaze
pilots, and that terrible memory of the Chinese boy casually
choked to death by Japanese soldiers (a scene I'd much rather
forget, but then, Ballard apparently felt the same way).
If I recall correctly, Ballard embraced the idea of the nuclear
age and global holocaust --- an Empire of the Sun --- to give
these terrible memories a sense of closure... rather like
Travis/Traven/Talbert/Talbot in THE ATROCITY EXHIBITION,
who wants to reenact the Kennedy assassination in a way that
_makes sense_.
By the end of the book he has come to terms with all this:
"The time of desperate stratagems was over, the car crashes and
hallucinogens, the deviant sex ransacked like a library of extreme
metaphors. Miriam and all the murdered dead of a world war had
made their peace. The happiness I had found had been waiting for
me within the modest reach of my own arms, in my children and
the women I had loved, and in the friends who had made their own
way through the craze years."
Mind you, this is all paraphrase, inadequate at best. I'll have
to sit down and read the book again....
Mark Dillon
Mark Dillon
jbo...@mindspring.com (John Boston) wrote:
>In fact, one might conclude that all his years of writing
>SF were merely temporizing, skirting around this body of tremendously
>powerful memory until he had the strength to deal with it directly in
>EMPIRE OF THE SUN.
I remember reading an interview back in the eighties, in which
Ballard said that he could not revisit the traumas of his childhood
until his own children had grown up. He almost felt as if he were
protecting them from his own past.
Mark Dillon
Jo Walton
jbo...@mindspring.com "John Boston" writes:
It took me less than a minute to cross to the bookshelves, find
the anthology and confirm that the Ballard story I mean is indeed
called "Track 12".
It _should_ be called "The Kiss" though.
Peter D. Tillman
In a previous article, dq...@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Mark Dillon) says:
>
>Ken Macleod <k...@libertaria.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> _The Kindness of Women_ [...]. What I took from that, and
>> I could be wrong, was the surprising idea that Ballard loves Western
>> society with the sort of fanaticism that's usually attributed to its
>> enemies.
>>
>[snip]
>
>The first half of the book is haunted by images of dead kamikaze
>pilots, and that terrible memory of the Chinese boy casually
>choked to death by Japanese soldiers (a scene I'd much rather
>forget, but then, Ballard apparently felt the same way).
>
Yes. So this re-appears in _The Kindness of Women_ ?
I suppose I should give this book another shot -- started it
once, or at least had it out -- it didn't get very good
notices at the time.
And I agree with Jo -- I haven't felt any need to reread "Empire".
Though it has images -- one mentioned above -- that I'll carry
to the grave.
--Pete
Martin Wisse
>It took me less than a minute to cross to the bookshelves, find
>the anthology and confirm that the Ballard story I mean is indeed
>called "Track 12".
>
>It _should_ be called "The Kiss" though.
And give away the surprise ending?
Martin Wisse
Asia2000
: My question is: where are the sf readers with a taste for idiosyncratic,
: non transparent prose?
: You know... they just might be a minority. Otherwise, books by
: Avram Davidson or M. John Harrison would have been more lucrative.
: William Burroughs would have won the Hugo award, and R. A. Lafferty
: would be as popular as Heinlein.
On the other hand, Gene Wolfe did win the Hugo.
: Are they truly a minority? Any comments?
: Mark Dillon
Robert Pearlman
My comment, FWIW: I never found Davidson's prose non-transparent. I
always knew, or thought I knew, what each sentence and paragraph
meant.
My only experiences with Ballard were his early potboilers, "The
Crystal World" and "The Wind from Nowhere", and a non PB, "Terminal
Beach".
In TCW people and things suddenly and spontaneously "crystallize",
over large areas. What that mean? If Ballard knows, he's not
telling. It's clearly not fun, but how a crystallized object is
different is not stated. I got an impression of shininess and
hardness. Sort of like Rock and Rye. Is this "non-transparent"
prose? No virtue of characterization or plot. In such circumstances
distinction of language is worse than useless -- "worse than Jove in a
thatched hut!".
TWFN had similar flaws. TB had different flaws. "Enough" I said,
"already". TB was widely praised. I decided that Ballard was
accreting a cult and have not looked at his stuff since. Rumor has it
that it's improved, and I may change my habits, if I can get somebody
else to pay for my copy.
--
Pearlman
Richard Moorman
I found Ballard's first four novels pretty useless and didn't understand
how he could carry a single image (big huge wind, everyone crystalizes,
etc) to such lengths. What was the point?
Fortunately he gets more outre, then more transparent, as time goes on.
Ballard gets more disturbing and more transparent simultaneously in
"Crash", his book about car crashes as hallucinatory sex. He continues
the trend toward transparency in his two autobiograhical 'novels' -
"Empire of the Sun" covers his childhood in a Chinese prison camp during
WWII, and "The Kindness of Women" about his adulthood in Britain.
Stephen Spielberg adapted "Empire of the Sun" to the silver screen, and
Spielberg doesn't usually go in for "opaque" works.
So give those a shot. It's always fun to read the first ten pages or so
of "Crash" and then give up if it's just trash to you.
--
Quantum materiae materietur marmota monax
si marmota manax materiam possit materiari?