The Death of JG Ballard Imagined as a Long Sad Sigh Over a Cup of Coffee
I heard this morning of the death of JG Ballard - one of my absolute favourite writers. From those slightly pulpy but always fiercely thought out early novels (The Wind From Nowhere and The Drought are my favourites), the phenomenal bank of short stories (Memories of the Space Age, describing a long abandoned Cape Kennedy is haunting and staggeringly vivid), the truly transgressive psycho-geography of the late sixties and early seventies (Crash is great, but everyone should have their minds bent by The Atrocity Exhibition) to the noirish satires of the last decade or so, he was restlessly bold and always engaging. Even the very coldest surgical edge of his writing - and he could be very cold - still seems to come from a wistful and human place.
I think a lot of people tend to value prophecy in science fiction, but Ballard did something else - he used an incredible imagination to expose the fabric of the mind, the cold blood of western society, and the factories and wastelands - real and metaphorical - that helped create our modern world.
I think a lot of people tend to value prophecy in science fiction, but Ballard did something else - he used an incredible imagination to expose the fabric of the mind, the cold blood of western society, and the factories and wastelands - real and metaphorical - that helped create our modern world.