Don't be fooled. This might look like a group of Brits posing for a photo before they hop on a bus to shop at their local mall or break up into groups to discuss their favorite P. D. James or Anthony Trollope, but in J. G. Ballard's Millennium People, they are about to set off a string of car bombs, dirty bombs and Molotov cocktails throughout their suburban gated community as a first step to igniting violent revolution.
Oh, how J. G. Ballard despised the contemporary world with particular ferocity. I can imagine the British authors he especially found repugnant - the names that come immediately to mind: Agatha Christie and R. F. Delderfield. He told an interviewer: "The bourgeois novel is the greatest enemy of truth and honesty that was ever invented. It's a vast, sentimentalizing structure that reassures the reader, and at every point, offers the comfort of secure moral frameworks and recognizable characters."
In this 2003 novel published when the author was age 73, there is no global cataclysm taking the form of mass flooding (The Drowning World) or water shortage (The Drought), not even a catastrophic accident (The Crash) or bizarre predicament (Concrete Island). Quite the opposite – the well-to-do residents of a London suburb who are the focus of Millennium People live in much the same way affluent suburbanites have lived for many decades: well-tended yards, polished cars, dinner parties, cappuccino, professional schedules, all taking place in predictable, subdued security.
And that’s precisely the point. After J. G. was forced to stomach a lifetime of English upper middle-class blandness, enough was enough. In this novel our British man of letters targets the suburban lifestyle just as it is, pointing his literary dart gun and zinger-darts of caustic wit, searing irony, gallows humor and acid satire at everything his English brethren hold near and dear.
Here's how Ballard frames his tale: narrator David Markham, a clinical psychologist, and his wife Sally are at Heathrow Airport when a bomb explodes on a baggage carousel. Shortly thereafter David learns his former wife Laura is among the casualties. David agrees to assist the police in their investigation of the terrorists responsible for Laura’s death.
I can see how many readers of Millennium People might be put off. What sounds like the makings of a crime thriller is anything but. At various points David Markham says he's eager to locate Laura’s killers but his efforts to this end are mostly wishy–washy. The story quickly shifts to David’s morbid fascination and association with suburbanites who have organized into terrorist cells hell-bent on abolishing the twentieth century by seemingly meaningless acts of violence.
Does all this sound utterly preposterous, even silly? I mean, take another gander at the above gaggle of Brits. Do these men and women strike you as the type of people capable of planting deadly bombs or instigating a series of riots? Therein lies the major thrust of the tale: the author is asking us to join him in exploring such a possibility, as improbable and ludicrous as it might seem. And here's several snapshots of three of the cappuccino sipping anarchists in action:
Guerilla Gal: Kay Churchill is a key member of our Volvo-driving terrorists. Ballard gives this college film studies instructor a fully rounded character, spanning the range from prickly, perceptive antiestablishmentarian to complete psychotic nutcase. Kay on film noir: “Black is a very sentimental colour. You can hide any rubbish behind it. Hollywood flicks are fun, if your idea of a good time is a hamburger and a milk shake. America invented the movies so it would never need to grow up. We have angst, depression and middle-aged regret. They have Hollywood.”
In order to stir the upper crust mental sludge, Kay walks door-to-door in a ritzy neighborhood posing as someone conducting a survey for a polling company. As part of on-the-job training and incentive to join their cause, she has David accompany her. The various interactions and David’s take on this whole business make for gut-busting hilarity. Here’s a sampling of Kay’s questions to these gin drinking Mercedes owners: “Personal grooming lies at the heart of people’s sense of who they are. Would your family consider washing less often?” “So, would you favour legislation banning dinner parties?” “So you’d sign a petition to revoke laws against sexual intercourse with animals?” “Tell me, sir, how would you feel about Spray-on Mud? An effective way of impressing people in the office car park on Monday mornings. A quick spray on the wheels of your car and your colleagues will think of rose pergolas and thatched cottages.” And J. G.'s title for this chapter: The Heart of Darkness. Did I mention searing irony and gallows humor?
But David's next outing with Kay Churchill isn't nearly as pleasant. Stopping her car in front of a video store, Kay hands David a few overdue video cassettes with instructions to quickly place them back on the shelves and then leave. Once in the video store, David takes his time, even stopping to read a video box. Such hesitation almost costs David his life. Boom! Boom! Boom! As David learned the hard way, Kay takes her terrorist group's violent, murderous agenda seriously - those overdue videos were really time bombs.
Pissed-off Pastor: The Reverend Stephen Dexter is on fire with the need to change people's attitudes. "Human beings aren't meant to be comfortable. We need tension, stress, uncertainty." And the good Reverend envisions tension, stress and uncertainty on a grand scale since his target for violent transformation is the biggest of all: the twentieth century. Gotta revolution, baby! Oh, my, things have come a long way in England since Anthony Trollope had Warden Septimus Harding play his cello.
Mr. Big: You might well ask: who is this group's leader? Introducing Doctor Richard Gould, seasoned pediatrician. Ballard fans familiar with Bobby Crawford from the author's Cocaine Nights will recognize how J. G. has a genius for creating an irresistible, charismatic charmer with a thirst for power and bending others to his will. David questions Gould prior to the next round of violence: "Do we need to go that far? Burt Lancaster, Bogart, Lauren Bacall . . . they're just movie actors." Richard Gould's breezy reply: "Just? They poisoned a whole century. They rotted your mind, David. We have to make a stand, build a saner England."
I've just touched on a few facets. There's the drama David has with wife Sally, death at the Tate Modern, storming the BBC, stampede and riot at a mall and much, much more. And so many quotable lines. Here's a quartet:
“Remember, the police are neutral - they hate everybody.”
“When Armageddon takes place, parking is going to be a major problem.”
“Either the world is at fault, or we’re looking for meaning in the wrong places.”
“The city was a vast and stationary carousel, forever boarded by millions of would-be passengers who took their seats, waited and then dismounted.”
British author J. G. Ballard, 1930-2009
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