JG Ballard - Kingdom Come Interview

Easily the best interview with JG Ballard after the recent publication of Kingdom Come was done by Simon at Ballardian.com

Iain Sinclair On JGB

Excellent and extensive interview with Iain Sinclair about Ballard over at Ballardian.com

JG Ballard: Kingdom Come

More info on JGB's new novel, Kingdom Come, which is due out on 4th September: Amazon now features the cover art for Kingdom Come, while the HarperCollins website FireAndWater.com mentions that there will be two events which Ballard will presumably be attending:

Thu 14 September - Institute of Education, London, WC1

There's no other info about the events on the Harper site at the moment, unfortunately.

JGB on Empire Of The Sun

JGB on writing Empire Of The Sun and the subsequent Spielberg film - a brilliant piece in The Guardian:
"During the 1960s, the Shanghai of my childhood seemed a portent of the media cities of the future, dominated by advertising and mass circulation newspapers and swept by unpredictable violence. But how could I raise this Titanic of memories? Brought up from the sea bed, the golden memory hoard could turn out to be dross. Besides, there are things that the novel can't easily handle. I could manage my changing relations with my parents, my 13-year-old's infatuation with the war, and the sudden irruption into our lives of American air power. But how do you convey the casual surrealism of war, the deep silence of abandoned villages and paddy fields, the strange normality of a dead Japanese soldier lying by the road like an unwanted piece of luggage?

I waited 40 years before giving it a go, one of the longest periods a professional writer has put off describing the most formative events in his life. Twenty years to forget, and then 20 years to remember. There was always the possibility that my memories of the war concealed a deeper stratum of unease that I preferred not to face. But at least my three children had grown up, and as I wrote the book I would never have to think of them sharing the war with my younger self." [Guardian]

Synopsis Of New JGB Novel

There's now a synopsis for JGB's new novel Kingdom Come on Amazon: "This is a new masterpiece of fiction from J. G. Ballard which asks, could Consumerism turn into Facism? Richard Pearson, unemployed advertising executive and life-long rebel, is driving out to Brooklands, a motorway town on the M25. A few weeks earlier his father was fatally wounded at the Metro-Centre, a vast shopping mall in the centre of this apparently peaceful town, when a deranged mental patient opened fire on a crowd of shoppers. When the main suspect is released without charge thanks to the dubious testimony of self-styled pillars of the community - including Julia Goodwin, the doctor who treated his father on his deathbed - Richard suspects that there is more to his father's death than meets the eye, a more sinister element lurking behind the pristine facades of the labyrinthine mall. Determined to unravel the mystery, Richard soon realises that the Metro-Centre, with its round-the-clock cable channel and sports clubs, lies at the very heart of his father's death. Consumerism rules the lives of everyone in the motorway towns and feeds the cravings of this bored community with its desperate need for something new, whatever the cost. Riots frequently terrorise the streets, immigrant communities are set upon by roving bands of hooligans and sports events mushroom into jingoistic political rallies. Gradually, Richard finds himself drawn into this world, caught up in the workings of the mall, exposed to the insides of the consumer dream, and starts upon dismantling this wayward vision his advertising career helped to found! In this gripping, dystopian tour de force, J.G. Ballard holds up a mirror to middle England, reflecting an unsettling image of suburbia and revealing the darker forces at work beneath the gloss of consumerism and flag-waving patriotism."

JGB on Cronenberg's A History Of Violence

JGB reviews Cronenberg's new film in the Sydney Morning Herald: "David Cronenberg's films are full of images that make us recoil. But what we are really trying to hide from, writes J. G. Ballard, is the messy business of being alive.

Are we all, without realising it, taking part in a vast witness protection program? Did we observe, at some time in the distant past, a deeply disturbing event in which we were closely implicated? Were we then assigned new identities, new personalities, fears and dreams so convincing that we have forgotten who we really are?

These questions crowded my head as I watched A History of Violence, a film as brilliant and provocative as anything David Cronenberg has directed. All Cronenberg's films make us edge back into our seats, gripped by the story unfolding on the screen but aware that something unpleasant is going on in the seats around us." [Read the full review]

New JG Ballard novel in September 2006

Kingdom Come is the title of the new JGB novel, due out on September 4th from Fourth Estate. There is a skeletal Amazon page at the moment with no extra information save that the hardback is 304 pages.

Rage Of Treason: JGB and V.Vale Interviews

Interesting piece from Graham Rae that contains a brief JGB interview re the Conversations book and a more lengthy one with the book's editor, V.Vale, plus Rae's own take on Ballard, at LauraHird.com

Age of unreason: 2004 Ballard interview

In this wide-ranging interview, JG Ballard talks to Jeannette Baxter about globalisation and terrorism, government and the media, the internet and intimacy. The Guardian.

Bruce Sterling on JG Ballard

Glorious interview with Bruce Sterling, talking about the impact and influence of JGB on, well, everything [Ballardian]

The Killer Inside

David Cronenberg's films are full of images that make us recoil in horror. But what we are really trying to hide from is the whole messy business of being alive. By JG Ballard [Guardian]

Secrets of the emperor's bunker

JG Ballard applauds Alexander Sokurov's remarkable
film portrait of Hirohito [Guardian]