Here is what I said (not having read Paul Bowes posting above, but our point do co-incide):

Firstly, I don’t think it’s necessary to have confirmation from Ballard that he intentionally wrote an ‘elemental quartet’. The elements are so deeply embedded within our western culture that it’s more than possible he did it unconsciously. And, if challenged, he would probably deny it anyway – as he tends to deny most things ascribing arcane motives to him. If I – or anyone else – decides to read them as that, and makes a decent case for it, I see that as perfectly fair. Otherwise we would end up doing nothing but biographical criticism. Ballard’s own reading of Ballard is, I’d argue, not all that interesting. Or not as interesting as that of some other writers.

Secondly, at the recent Ballard conference at UEA, Eunju Hwang gave a paper called ‘Disastrous Lanscapes and Self-Quest in J.G.Ballard’s Natural Transformation Quartet’. This was clearly an attempt to reread the four interlinked novels in a way that took for granted that they were interlinked. As far as I remember, no-one in the audience got up to challenge this. The use of ‘..World’ within three of the four titles suggests that these three novels are in some way to be thought of together. Drowning World involves water; Burning involves fire. Nothing is being forced there. So, it’s not going to be long before people look for the other two elements.

Thirdly, I think there is a technical point about The Crystal World. If you were to wish to make ‘earth’ fatal, but not by, say, turning it into molten lava which would kill all the characters within moments, how would you do it? Turning it into something as useless as crystal seems to me to solve the problem.

So, I wasn’t duped by Wikipedia. The reading I favour may possibly be perverse, but that’s Ballard for you.

Very best wishes, etc

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Nicola Barker/Toby Litt

In spite of Mr. Pringle’s objection, ‘The Crystal World”s place as the ‘earth’ novel is easily sustained – the book deals with the uncontrolled proliferation of matter. It’s also worth remembering that ‘The Drought”s original title was ‘The Burning World’, which reinforces that book’s standing as the ‘book of fire’.

It may well be that the apparent symbolic patterning across the four novels is accidental – but it’s a hell of a coincidence, and I would expect any competent critic, even at undergraduate level, to notice it. What the critic then makes of that patterning is up to the critic – not to David Pringle, or even Ballard himself.

In the end, however, it hardly matters whether Ballard intended the elemental symbolism or not. It’s in the language itself, and even an explicit denial of intent by Ballard wouldn’t root it out. ‘The Wind From Nowhere’ is Ballard’s first novel, and should be read as such, even if it has to be treated as apprentice work.

Iraklis, I have all the early Kraftwerks on CD, but no they are not official: mine are vinyl rips (although not too bad with the crackle and hiss). Didn’t know there were copies made from tape.

Oh, and Fear and Desire! I completely forgot about that. That reminds me to buy it; there’s a bloke on the net offering an nth-gen copy, but still I must have it.

I also used to wonder if there was a four elements scheme at work with Ballard’s early novels. Regarding The Drought and fire, it should be remembered that its early title was The Burning World. And another example of someone burying their early work is Stanley Kubrick whose first feature, Fear and Desire, is impossible to see outside occasional Kubrick season screenings.

I just checked out those early albums on Wiki — apparently the chaps are thinking of adding the ‘Ralf and Florian’ album to Catalogue when it comes out. So there you go — miracles do happen.

Still no word that the first two will go the same way, and if Tone Float ever gets an official re-release I’ll eat my shoe live via web cam on this site*.

(*disclaimer: I am lying).

Kraftwerk may have shunned their early albums but they were still playing Ruckzuck in the mid-Seventies; don’t suppose they had much choice since their back catalogue wasn’t very substantial then. I don’t see it as a shunning in their case so much as part of an ongoing evolution or streamlining. The (as yet unreleased) Catalogue album collection saw changes being made to some of the sleeve art including the Nazi radio set being dropped from Radio-activity in favour of the day-glo radiation symbol.