The Kindness of Henry
Author: Simon Sellars • Oct 18th, 2007 •Category: Ballardosphere, visual art
Book designer Henry Yee has done a few Ballard covers in his time. His latest, for the reprint of The Kindness of Women, is lovely, weaving the erotic possibilities of the text (the curvature of a woman’s breast) with strong design (a prominent orb, enhanced with a block quote) and the persistence of memory (the ‘rising sun’ motif, a continuum with Empire of the Sun, to which Kindness is the sequel).
The latest addition in the J.G. Ballard redesigned series for Picador. A semi-autobiographical sequel to Empire of the Sun. I finally heard from Ballard’s agent that he liked this cover. He actually said he liked it. Nice. This is high praise since he wasn’t fond of any of my other redesigns for him. Or for that matter, any of his covers ever published anywhere.
..:: Previously on Ballardian
+ Collapsing Bulkheads: The Covers of Crash
+ ‘Woefully Underconceptualised’: Rick McGrath on Ballard’s Cover Art
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King Henry, surely? Yes, a great design… but very very unfortunately marred only by the placing of a blurb from the San Francisco Chronicle right over the winsome maiden’s left breastal region… talk about media becoming the message… can I say it sucks? That’s what back covers are for… Love the flag/woman images, though… her headless beauty is similar to the pictures of the naked Claire JG liked to snap in his naughty days.
I really liked Henry Yee’s other Ballard covers, especially the ones for Crash and Super-Cannes, but I think this one is rather trite. It has the virtue of trying to be true to the text, but the picture looks like a photography student’s “art nude” and placing the center of the flag over her breast is an obvious move design-wise. It makes the book look like literary erotica, rather than literature that happens sometimes to include erotica.
Oh yeah? I liked it. This lady has a waxy mannequin feel, which seems appropriate for Ballard. And she’s just a torso, too, perfect for the erotica of anatomy going on in this book. Maybe the orb over the boob is a little obvious, but I just like how it’s all integrated with Empire.
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