Comments on: 'Kafka with Unlimited Chicken Kiev': J.G. Ballard on Cocaine Nights

By: Maziar

Maziar — Tue, 27 May 2008 12:10:01 +0000

Interesting interview. Thanks.
I’m a little confused. Why does Mr Ballard proposes that Marilyn Monroe is “better ” than Elizabeth Hurley? From what I’ve seen Hurley is a terrible actor but is Monroe really any better? Aren’t both figures “celebrated” because of there unconsciousness. A hook for the public (men & women) to hang their unconscious wishes and desires onto.
It’s true that Monroe’s mysterious death and the passage of over four decades has created a mythology around her, but is that what makes her “better”, “authentic”,…
that Hurley or any other female high profile celebrity in our cluttered media-scape?

By: johnny

johnny — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 16:15:25 +0000

nice gem of an interview.
there is a time and a place for rockford reruns, but if that’s all people will be doing, i’m glad i won’t be around. ballard’s interview makes me want to do something, take more action somehow, and as burroughs said, that’s part of a writers job; to make things happen.

crash is easily cronenbergs best film. why is he not already plotting the film version of super-cannes?

By: Simon Sellars

Simon Sellars — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 23:50:31 +0000

Of course Andy! All debate is welcome. I really think you hit the nail on the head. As Damien’s interview quite clearly demonstrates, Ballard’s obsessions today are slight refinements of his obsessions in 1996. Critics say that Ballard is being obvious, that he is repeating himself. But as you say, ‘originality’ is indeed a dead end, in and of itself. What is really original about Ballard is his response to current events, or anticipation of them, all the while utilising that basic template.

By: Andy Best

Andy Best — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 15:37:20 +0000

I agree about big business. Also nationalism. All travel and culture seems to be owned in one respect or another.

Love the site Simon. Hope you see that I’m not disagreeing with you per se, only carrying on from the great points you raised.

By: Simon Sellars

Simon Sellars — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 11:59:32 +0000

Hi Andy, guess I was trying to say that big business has seemingly squeezed the life out of the music industry, although there are many valuable seams to be mined deeper underground these days. I like what you say about originality lying in response mechanisms. I think Ballard might agree, given that the art of repetition is a privileged mode of enquiry for him.

By: Andy Best

Andy Best — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 07:32:24 +0000

That’s a controvesial view about music and an interesting one, that we’re at the end of history in that area.

It’s clear that popular music based around 3 or 4 piece arrangements goes around in circles (tonally) and it appears to be mainly repetition these days but there are other factors.

Kubrick said that the only original art form left was editing.

I like to think that the only originality is in the expression of events current to our time. This defines originality as having uniqueness or relevance. In which case I’d say lyrics are key and that hip-hop in it’s earlier socially concious forms is doing good work. For example Talib Kweli.

Keith Johnstone of the theatre world thinks about trying to be original as a clever dead end and that the best work comes out of being obvious. Which makes me think again of sticking to what you feel is relevant or real to you, literally or thematically.

Here in Shanghai, the mainstream crowd are doing a ‘Drowned World’. All around our enviroment is destroyed (by concrete and heat this time). Meanwhile 90% of people here prefer to go to huge dance clubs and melt away into techno beats that reach back into our historical selves.

By: Simon Sellars

Simon Sellars — Sun, 14 Oct 2007 02:10:18 +0000

Cheers, Damien, for posting this interview.

Rick, he’s right about music, in my opinion. It’s the end of history as far as that particular art form is concerned. And as for present-day celebrities, well as he said on another occasion, it’s ‘celebrity uncontaminated by actual achievement’. Can’t argue with that.

Supervert, the covers are so bizarre. The Russian one especially. And most of them focus on the drugs, which is actually not that prominent in the book. Whereas the architecture, which is the main ‘character’, is prominent, but only one cover features it: the German one. I guess angles and planes aren’t as sexy as nose candy (well, they are to me…). And what’s up with the Deco nostalgia of the French edition? The book is completely in and of its time, even now, 11 years on. Strange.

By: Supervert

Supervert — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 21:39:51 +0000

Nice interview, but what’s up with some of those covers? Ballard continues to be the writer most abused by his cover artists. If you set up a psychological experiment in which you placed the covers side by side and asked someone to tell the story suggested by each, you’d have not one but a dozen novels.

By: Rick McGrath

Rick McGrath — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 16:43:33 +0000

An amazing man. There he is, in ancient 1996, riffing on the culture of fear five years before Bush milked it to extreme after 9/11… JG seems a tad nostalgic for the Swingin’ Sixties, tho… dig the references to music and MM… he’s his usual professorial best in discussing CN… basically directing us on the way to read it: “I don’t say that crime is necessary to kickstart a culture, I’m just saying that one must beware of extreme solutions.” A theme he continues to explore today.