A User's Guide to the Millennium - Here he is, one of the stars of twentieth century literature, J. G. Ballard, writing on topics ranging from Star Wars to Howard Hughes, from Salvador Dali to Richard Feynman, from Coco-Cola to Joseph Conrad. And here you go, direct quotes from the essays in this collection, a baker's dozen, coupled with my own comments. Bon Appétit!
ON SCIENCE FICTION
"One reason why the Apollo moon-landings failed to touch our imagination is that science fiction got there first, just as it has anticipated so much in our lives." ---------- Areas of the science fiction imagination I find infinitely fascinating: 1) exploring how artificial intelligence (AI) could impact human interactions, human emotions and human knowledge (for example, men and women falling in love or having sex with androids), 2) projecting how we humans would communicate with other intelligent lifeforms on other planets, 3) the powerful influence of yet to be discovered synthetic drugs to expand consciousness or provide intense human pleasure, 4) what society and culture might look like following a planet-wide catastrophe such as drastic climate change or nuclear war.
"One can almost make the case that science fiction, far from being a disreputable minor genre, in fact constitutes the strongest literary tradition of the twentieth century, and may well be its authentic literature." ---------- J. G. underscores science fiction’s central position by noting that beginning in the twentieth century and accelerating year by year, what’s important in people’s lives has more to do with technology and the future than with the past. To gage the verity of this, you can look at your own life: how central is technology to your work and leisure, your education and interaction with friends and family?
"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." ---------- This undoubtedly accounts for the author’s own brand of science fiction; instead of writing about colonists on the Red Planet, we have books like High-Rise where affluent residents under the influence of future architecture and technologies turn to bizarre forms of violence. A prime question: how will future social and cultural arrangements effect our very human nature, including different aspects of the human psyche. I, myself, think the biggest social shift in the future will be the abandoning of the single-family unit in favor of communes.
ON THE CAR
"What is the real significance in our lives of this huge metallized dream? Is the car, in more sense than one, taking us for a ride?" --------- The car is such a provocative subject. One aspect of the influence of the automobile is explored in his novel Crash, adopted for film by David Cronenberg. There's no question as to the central spot cars play in the US - to be a true American, one drives a car. But what about pollution? What about all the noise and filth? What about all the death and injury and destruction? Tsk, tsk - such un-American questions. The corporate interests make sure men and women need not bother their heads with such concerns.
ON ANDY WARHOL
"In many ways Warhol is the Walt Disney of the amphetamine age. In his silk-screen images there is the same childlike retelling of the great fairy-tales of our time, the mythic lives of Elvis and Marilyn, Liz and Jackie. --------- Our British man of letters views Warhol as THE artist of the American world of celebrities and popular culture, which is entirely accurate, no doubt. However, and this is the critical point for anybody engaged with the arts: Andy Warhol's art ranges from the excellent to the mediocre to the weak. We must engage with each work and judge what we see one at a time. I recall viewing two Andy Warhol silkscreens in a downtown NYC gallery - the power and magnificence of these pieces was enough to almost put me on my knees.
ON THE CULTURE OF THE COMIC STRIP
"The Star Wars series, Sylvester Stallone's entire career, and recent movies such as Die Hard and Total Recall are little more than imitation comic strips, patterned on the same compensation fantasies and paranoid view of the world." --------- This is one big reason I no longer watch television or go to see Hollywood movies - all of those productions strike me as a colossal extension of comic book clichés.
ON MAX ERNST'S THE ELEPHANT OF CELEBES
"Ernst's wise machine, hot cauldron of time and myth, is the benign deity of inner space." ---------- I suspect J. G. Ballard fans can detect a great deal in common between the surreal art of Max Ernst and a number of the author's tales, most notably The Crystal World.
ON HENRY MILLER
"I can still remember reading Tropic of Cancer when I first went to Paris after the war, and being stunned by the no-nonsense frankness of Miller's language and by the novel's sheer zest and attack." --------- I find it astounding that Ballard has such high praise for Henry Miller since the British author is completely opposite Miller, at least temperamentally. Also, as Ballard acknowledges, Miller had to wait until his was a bit older to begin his serious writing and for good reason: his one and only literary subject was himself.
ON NATHANAEL WEST
"Nathanael West's The Day of the Locust, first published in 1939, remains the best of the Hollywood novels, a nightmare vision of humanity destroyed by its obsession with film." --------- Ballard's admiration of Nathanael West is understandable since he himself comprehended the power of Hollywood and incorporated such an understanding in novels such as Millennium People and Cocaine Nights.
ON WILLIAM BURROUGHS
"Far from being an arbitrary stunt, Burroughs' cut-in method is thus seen as the most appropriate technique for this marriage of opposites, as well as underlining the role of recurrent images in all communication, fixed at the points of contact in the webs of language linking everything in our lives, from nostalgic reveries of 'invisible passenger took my hands in dawn sleep of water music - Broken towers intersect cigarette smoke memory of each other' to sinister bureaucratic memos and medicalese." ---------- It truly is amazing how an entire range of outstanding writers such as Norman Mailer, Martin Amis, Thomas M. Disch, and J. G. Ballard have judged Il hombre invisible among the very top writers in the twentieth century.
"Hitman for the apocalypse in his trench coat and snap-brim fedora, William Burroughs steps out of his life and into his fiction like a secret agent charged with the demolition of all bourgeois values." --------- J. G. calls on his keen skills with language and image in reviewing the work of Benzodiazepine Bill.
ON GRAHAM GREENE
"I first began to read Graham Greene in the mid-1950s and will never forget the sense of liberation his novels gave me." ---------- Undoubtedly Ballard found Greene an enormous influence, particularly appreciating how Greene expanded his literary voice far from the shores of England. J. G. has pointed remarks about the stultifying results when British authors remain within the confines of English culture.
ON BLUE VELVET
Blue Velvet is, for me, the best film of the 1980s - surreal, voyeuristic, subversive and even a little corrupt in its manipulation of the audience." ----------- This is but one of the films Ballard writes about in the collection, a book I highly recommend for all connoisseurs of literature.
Comments
Post a Comment