J.G. Ballard dead

[Pie 1]

Oh man, what a loss.
An immense writer.

RIP.

 

[e19896]

Will J G Ballard's death get a hundredth of the public interest given to dimwit racist shitbucket Jade Goody?

RIP:

 

[QueenOfGoths]

Very sad, a great writer RIP

 

[ouchmonkey]

You're an idiot.

Ballard would have been fascinated by the public spectacle of Jade's death. It's the kind of thing he might have written about.

It's a recurring theme in his work that in a comfortable, ordered society we turn to extremes of human behaviour and experience for entertainment.

 

[sojourner]

RIP to a fine author,

Yep

 

[Dillinger4]

You're an idiot.

Ballard would have been fascinated by the public spectacle of Jade's death. It's the kind of thing he might have written about.

It's a recurring theme in his work that in a comfortable, ordered society we turn to extremes of human behaviour and experience for entertainment.

^

 

[Pie 1]

Will J G Ballard's death get a hundredth of the public interest given to dimwit racist shitbucket Jade Goody?

RIP:

 

[marty21]

great writer, only read a couple of his, keep meaning to read some more, read crash and concrete island and they are both fab

RIP

 

[Yossarian]

He was one of the greats, RIP J.G Ballard.

 

[Badger Decoy]

Sad to hear he's died. Great author, very influential. Cocaine nights was the first book of his that I read and it really blew me away.

RIP

 

[bluestreak]

Now that's a well deserved RIP.

 

[Diamond]

You're an idiot.

Ballard would have been fascinated by the public spectacle of Jade's death. It's the kind of thing he might have written about.

It's a recurring theme in his work that in a comfortable, ordered society we turn to extremes of human behaviour and experience for entertainment.

I'm not sure that's right. I don't think the turn to that kind of behaviour is reactionary, I think it's essential, as displayed in the works that I have read. Which is a far more bleak outlook.

 

[Diamond]

Just bought the Atrocity Exhibition this afternoon. Is it worth sticking with because it is pretty heavy going early on? Like reading a prose version of an epic poem.

 

[laptop]

"a giant on the world literary scene" guardian headline
"cult author" bbc headline

I suspect what happened with that BBC headline was that the night editor saw the story and changed it to avoid alienating readers who didn't know who Ballard was - such as, er, that same night editor.

There's a really rather good obit on p5 of the Financial Times:

Early short stories like ’The Sound-Sweep’ (1960), ’The Voices of Time’ (1960), ’The Garden of Time’ (1962), ’The Cage of Sand’ (1962) and the stories from the sequence known as Vermilion Sands, were in some ways the highest expression, the ultimate form, of speculative literature, then and now. Inspired more by painters like Ernst, Dali and Delvaux than by other writers, his fiction was atmospheric, visual and endlessly intriguing.

These early short stories are still the least known of Ballard’s output, but they remain amongst the finest short fiction of the late 20th century.

 

[Sean]

While it's truly sad that he's gone, at least his influence on other writers will remain. Off the top of my head, my three most recent favourite novels have all been pretty Ballardesque, whether they were meant to be or not: Martin Martin's On the Other Side by Mark Wernham, The Road by Cormac McCarthy and The Book of Dave by Will Self. I reckon Ballard was genuinely seminal.

 

[toblerone3]

Just started reading Concrete Island written in the early 1970s about a modern day Robinson Crusoe figure being stranded on wasteland between motorways after a crash. Very much of its time and all the more powerful for it. But still relevant in many ways.

For some reason it reminds me a little of The Cement Garden. another classic set in the 1970s West London.