‘Le passé composé de J. G. Ballard’: JGB on Empire of the Sun
By Dan OHara • Mar 11th, 2009 •
Category: Alain Robbe-Grillet, Ambit magazine, America, France, Japan, Michael Moorcock, New Worlds, Shanghai, WWII, William Burroughs, archival, autobiography, death of affect, drained swimming pools, film, inner space, memory, science fiction, sexual politics, surrealism, technology, television
Dan O’Hara back-translates an interview with JGB originally published in French in 1985. As the interviewers observe, Ballard was almost the subject of a French cult due to Crash. Asking why there are no car-crashes in Empire of the Sun, they reveal a very suggestive lacuna, with Ballard replying that even when one characteristic theme is absent from a work, the underlying emotion may remain the same, expressed by different means. Choice of metaphor is merely a matter of tone
