Ballard’s ‘The Recognition’ on BBC7
Author: Simon Sellars • Apr 10th, 2008 •Category: Ballardosphere, audio, short stories
You have two days left to listen to the dramatisation of Ballard’s “The Recognition”, which “explains the story behind the bizarre circus that rolls into town”. It’s read by Michael Maloney and is available on the BBC Radio 7 website.
Here are the opening paragraphs:
On Midsummer’s Eve a small circus visited the town in the West Country where I was spending my holiday. Three days earlier the large travelling fair which always came to the town in the summer, equipped with a ferris wheel, merry-go-rounds and dozens of booths and shooting galleries, had taken up its usual site on the open common in the centre of the town, and this second arrival was forced to pitch its camp on the waste ground beyond the warehouses along the river.
At dusk, when I strolled through the town, the ferris wheel was revolving above the coloured lights, and people were riding the carousels and walking arm in arm along the cobbled roads that surrounded the common. Away from this hubbub of noise the streets down to the river were almost deserted, and I was glad to walk alone through the shadows past the boarded shopfronts. Midsummer’s Eve seemed to me a time for reflection as much as for celebration, for a careful watch on the shifting movements of nature.
J.G. Ballard, ‘The Recognition’ (1967).
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I listened to this in the early hours during the week on BBC 7 - and am still uneasy …
I listened many times to “The Recognition” on BBC (both last week and some months ago when it also was on BBC7), but I still have no idea what the animals were, or what the familiar smell is, or what’s the story behind the circus, or anything. Can you please explain this story to me??
Well, in that case you did not have ‘the recognition’.
I didn’t have the recognition, but the guy in the story certainly recognized the smell and knew what was in the circus cages. The best guess I have is that the rude drunken circus patrons were caged up the next morning. But that still doesn’t make a lot of sense. And i still don’t know what the smell is.
Another possible mystery is why a previous response was deleted (it was by Simon Sellars, who said he’d re-read or re-listen to the story and get back to me).
because i don’t know myself david! i am making enquiries.
Funny thing is I really liked the story (or more accurately, the BBC dramatization) even though I can’t figure it out.
I can only assume the circus collects souls, and that the man recognises his own scent in there.
It’s human beings in the cages — and the smell is the smell of humanity.