i still have a bone to pick with umberto rossi but rather than get into it with someone who may be lacking a sense of humor, or at least not one akin to my brand, i’ll leave it to someone else who was not afraid to use the word hate.

How I hate those who are dedicated to producing conformity.”
William S. Burroughs

I would have described Simon’s work above as more Gibson, Sterling or Shirley. Having said that, above all Simon is just sharing his experience of transit in a raw and vivid fashion.

BTW: I love these types of stoushes, I’m sure you’ll both end up best of friends.

Aaaghh, stop with the ‘Dr Sellars’! My thesis is actually still under examination.

Thanks for the offer of posting your MA — I’d genuinely like to take a look at it.

Regarding my so-called ‘prose’, I don’t care about people criticising it — I said this to you in my email. What I objected to in your comment was the accusation that I was imitating Ballard, and that I was trying to force a perspective on my readers! Also, the intimation that this site was somehow going downhill, swamped in a morass of bad poetry, even though this post was maybe the fifth such personal reminiscence in over 500 posts.

Anyway, send me your MA. Looking forward to it.

Regards,
Not-a-doctor Sellars

I did a Google search and found this:
http://www.bangor.ac.uk/english/publicat/dissertation.php

“School of English, Bangor University”

“A [Anthony] P Heath, ‘J. G. Ballard and the Positive Apocalypse.’ MA in English (1996) 1996.”

I’m curious, now. Is this you, Anthony? If so, how can we get a copy of your MA? I’d love to read it. If you’re as knowledgeable as you say you are, it should be a cracking read.

“A man shrugs off the clucking of his family and makes his way to International Departures. With the ticketing formalities over, he slumps at the bar and orders drinks.”

Man, the story is in the present tense. Ballard NEVER wrote anything important in the present tense. Read all his novels. He sticks to the traditional simple past. He may write in the first person or the second person, but he never uses the present. So where’s the imitation? It’s like saying that someone playing a piano is imitating Jimi Hendrix.

humble, yet you KNOW ballard. personally i hate most teachers, and i have a sneaking suspicion your students aren’t crazy about you. and please, don’t include me in your ‘we’.

Yeah me too Anthony. Likewise if it gets taken over by a whining pedagogue who admits he can’t write!

One of the great strengths of Ballardian is its very diversity, taking on as it does the wide range of responses that Ballard’s work and ideas spark off in us. It panders neither to the academic pedant nor the rabid fan, but welcomes all flavours of opinion without being itself diluted.

If you don’t like it then do something better yourself!

It’s not meant to be an imitation of Ballard. Who could possibly do that? It’s just my post-impressions of my recent trip to Barcelona, as a follow on to the coverage of the recent exhibiton I attended, and the strange headspace coming home put me in.

You know, I recognise this tone of criticism and it’s been levelled at the site before. Maybe you were even part of the last wave that swamped us.

What really gets me is that none of these critics, including you, are offering up any viable alternatives. I’ve been criticised for being ‘arrogant’ and ’supercilious’ before, through my writing on this site, and now you are sugesting I am in some way trying to ‘appallingly imitate’ Ballard. I don’t believe that was my intention, but perhaps that is beside the point.

What I would like to restate is: you’ve offered up your own credentials as a teacher ‘who knows Ballard’, so if you think you can do better, then please, as I said to the previous critics, submit your own work to the site and try to make it a better resource. I have always said I welcome submissions.

If you are not willing to do that, or to start up your own site, or to offer any kind of useful solution or collaboration to what you perceive the problem is, then I am really not sure what the point is of your comment.

As you said, you can ‘make your own frigging mind up’. I’m not trying to force any reader to see my point of view, as you seem to imply.

I am not claiming any merit to this post that has attracted such ire, save that is a *personal* impression only. If it’s true that ‘we have all we need from Ballard’, then why read any criticism of Ballard or of any other writer? What indeed is the point?

Also, as a final reminder, the site is called ‘Ballardian’, not ‘J.G. Ballard’. From the blurb under the ‘About’ page:

“Perhaps the site’s twin aims are best defined by the dual definitions applied to the word ‘Ballardian’, according to the Collins English Dictionary:

BALLARDIAN: (adj) 1. of James Graham Ballard (J.G. Ballard; born 1930), the British novelist, or his works. (2) resembling or suggestive of the conditions described in Ballard’s novels & stories, esp. dystopian modernity, bleak man-made landscapes & the psychological effects of technological, social or environmental developments.

That is to say, we explore the Ballardosphere (definition 2) as much as we do Ballard (definition 1). Or to say it another way, we use the term ‘Ballardian’ to identify a particular phase in late capitalism that is yet to play itself out, and which is best articulated by the writer J.G. Ballard. This site therefore attempts to formulate a world view refracted through the writings of an author who has continually and accurately predicted the bewildering pace of change in the late 20th and early 21st centuries.”

I can’t make it any plainer than that, Anthony, and I say this to you with all due respect.

All the best,
Simon

You should get serious about this writing lark.