J. G. Ballard has died

[dann]

Vonnegut, Farmer, and now J.G.Ballard:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/8007331.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/2041260.stm
http://www.jgballard.com/
Has anybody seen the movie adaptation (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0197256/) of his book The Atrocity Exhibition (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Atrocity_Exhibition)? I think that it must have been very short lived and I don't think that it ever premiered in my country.

[The Central Scrutinizer]

Who?

[Kensington]

thanks for the notice about JG Ballard. One of my all-time favorite authors.

[dann]

Who?

J.G. Ballard was a major writer in the new wave (http://www.artandpopularculture.com/New_Wave_(science_fiction)) in science fiction in the 1960s and 1970s. You may know him as the writer of the more or less autobiographical novel Empire of the sun (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_the_Sun), which Spielberg (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empire_of_the_Sun_(film)) adapted for the screen, but Cronenberg’s movie Crash (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crash_(1996_film)), also based on a Ballard novel (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crash_(1973_novel)), was much more ‘Ballardian’. (I once made the mistake of letting a high-school class see it. I had forgotten how sexually explicit it was.)

[dann]

thanks for the notice about JG Ballard. One of my all-time favorite authors.

:welcome3 to the forum, Kensington!

[dann]

J.G. Ballard's texts are often so experimental that it is sometimes hard to classify his stories as stories:

In some of these stories the deadpan, formal narrative voice works to comic effect, but others are so schematic and intellectualized that their narration becomes mere exposition, telling without showing, a skeleton prose. The most effective of the 14 stories in "War Fever" are, in fact, the three that approach most nearly to the condition of fictional bones without flesh -- crystals without molecular instabilities to cloud the clarity. One of these pure games of the spirit, "Notes Towards a Mental Breakdown," consists of a single sentence, with a long footnote to each word. Another, the funniest and rudest piece in the book, is "Answers to a Questionnaire" -- answers only, so that guessing the questions is half the fun. And "The Index" entirely escapes from narrative convention, since you can read it in any order and it consists of nothing but hints. What can we learn of the story of Henry Rhodes Hamilton from an index that is all that survives of his mysteriously suppressed autobiography? A good deal. Let us look under the letter C: "Churchill, Winston, conversations with HRH, 221; at Chequers with HRH, 235; spinal tap performed by HRH, 247; at Yalta with HRH, 298; 'iron curtain' speech, Fulton, Missouri, suggested by HRH, 312; attacks HRH in Commons debate, 367."
Here Mr. Ballard invites the reader to take his game pieces and play with them. Of course the game is played on the author's board and by the author's rules, but by inviting the reader's active collaboration Mr. Ballard allows his own scintillatingly inventive energy free play at last.
http://www.nytimes.com/books/98/07/12/specials/ballard-war.html

I included two of his stories mentioned above, Answers to a Questionnaire and The Index, in an anthology (http://ny.gyldendal-uddannelse.dk/product.aspx?meta_id=14503&folder_id=5987&folder_path=Gymnasiet%2FSprog%2FEngelsk%2FGrundb%F 8ger) of short stories in English for Danish high-school students. Since The Index was placed in the back of the book, as you would an actual index, one reviewer was unfortunate enough to mention how useful the index of the anthology was, thus revealing that she never actually read the book before writing her review. :)

[Almo]

Who?

Let it be noted that merely being unknown by the Scrut doesn't equate to unimportance.

I tried to read Crash, but it was tough going. I found the film easier. :eye-poppi