Ballardian

Photo by Jennie Middlemiss.

There’s loads of media action surrounding Miracles of Life at the moment. Note how it’s all UK based, though; Ballard is virtually invisible in the mainstream media anywhere else. I can barely get this site noticed outside of England, so imagine how JGB must feel about the sad fact that his last few books have failed to find a US publishing deal. That’s got to be a bone in the throat (I reckon it’s a complete travesty) although I do suspect JGB himself gave up caring long ago, his attitude towards the US media loud and clear in The Atrocity Exhibition and Hello America.

Here’s the round up…

+ An extended interview with Ballard, conducted by James Naughtie from BBC Radio 4 and available as a RealPlayer stream. The talk’s a bit ’same old’, but check out the fabulous photos of JGB accompanying it: very candid, very ‘on’, completely different from the studied and seemingly slightly bored poses we’re used to. Good stuff.

+ A review in the Telegraph from Frances Wilson. Most of it is a summary of the book, barely a review, save for this:

There is a peculiar beauty to the work produced during a final illness, whether or not that work is the crowning achievement of a lifetime.

The beauty of Miracles of Life lies in the love Ballard feels for those dear to him. As I reached the closing pages, I felt I was intruding on a private scene; J.G. Ballard the writer belongs to his readers; as a father and a partner he belongs to his family, and we should quietly leave the room.

+ Paul Dunn’s review in the Times. He makes the salient point that not only is Ballard invisible elsewhere, but he is barely appreciated in England:

IF EVER THE OLD WISDOM that a prophet is without honour in his own country applied to a writer, surely it is to J.G. Ballard.

True, the publishers of this autobiography have found a couple of (undated) jacket quotes proclaiming him our “number one” and “most important living novelist”. But you look in vain for any real recognition from the literary establishment for a career that started with The Drowned World in 1963.
…
His refusal - or inability - to fit in is apparent from the opening pages of this book. If he is without honour in his own land, one good reason is the difficulty of pinning down where home is.

+ A great review from Sam Leith in the Literary Review:

Two of his great praise-words, applied with ingenuous enthusiasm, are ‘cheerful’ and ‘easy-going’. Ballard finds these qualities, and values them, even and in fact especially, in circumstances where you would not expect them. They are abundantly present in him. The man sporadically denounced in the pages of the Daily Mail as a menace to society is in fact an exemplary family man with an enormous capacity for affection.

He brought up his three children - they are the ‘miracles of life’ of the title - single-handedly after the sudden death of his wife in the early 1960s, and positively trills at the mention of them. He pays open-handed tribute to friends, and writes gratefully of his long relationship with his partner Claire Walsh. You get the strong impression that he is happy. In an endnote, he delivers the rabbit-punch: he has advanced prostate cancer. Ballard is dying. His note seems to suggest that this will be his last book. He can be proud of it.

+ Miracles will be book of the week on BBC Radio 4, from Feb 11:

JG Ballard’s memoir, abridged in five parts by Andrew Simpson, in which the best-selling author reflects on various influences that have shaped his work. 1: Early life in 1930s Shanghai was like a stage set. Read by James Laurenson. (description from radiotimes.com)

Thanks to Mike B. Andy L. and David P. for tip offs.