The Empire's of J. G. Ballard

The Empire's of J. G. Ballard PDF Author: David Ian Paddy
Publisher: Gylphi Limited
ISBN: 1780240201
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
J. G. Ballard once declared that the most truly alien planet is Earth and in his science fiction he abandoned the traditional imagery of rocket ships traveling to distant galaxies to address the otherworldliness of this world. The Empires of J. G. Ballard is the first extensive study of Ballard's critical vision of nation and empire, of the political geography of this planet. Paddy examines how Ballard s self-perceived status as an outsider and exile, the Sheppertonian from Shanghai, generated an outlook that celebrated worldliness and condemned parochialism. This book brings to light how Ballard wrestled with notions of national identity and speculated upon the social and psychological implications of the post-war transformation of older models of empire into new imperialisms of consumerism and globalization. Presenting analyses of Ballard s full body of work with its tales of reverse colonization, psychological imperialism, the savagery of civilization, estranged Englishmen abroad and at home, and multinational communities built on crime, The Empires of J. G. Ballard offers a fresh perspective on the fiction of J. G. Ballard. The Empires of J.G. Ballard: An Imagined Geography offers a sustained and highly convincing analysis of the imperial and post-imperial histories and networks that shape and energise Ballard's fictional and non-fictional writings. To what extent can Ballard be considered an international writer? What happens to our understanding of his post-war science fictions when they are opened up to the language and logics of post-colonialism? And what creative and critical roles do the spectres of empire play in Ballard's visions of modernity? Paddy follows these and other fascinating lines of enquiry in a study that is not only essential reading for Ballard students and scholars, but for anyone interested in the intersections of modern and contemporary literature, history and politics. (Jeanette Baxter, Anglia Ruskin University) Shanghai made my father. Arriving in England after WW2, he was a person of the world who d witnessed extremes of human experience, and remained the outsider observing life from his home in Shepperton. 1930s Shanghai, Paris of the East , was a mix of international sophistication and violence, unfettered capitalism and acute poverty, American cars, martinis and Coca Cola, a place marked by death and war. It had a profound influence on my father and his imagination. Dr Paddy s fascinating book explores my father s fiction within an international context and offers a profound reading of a man who always kept his eyes and mind open to the world. (Fay Ballard)

The Empire's of J. G. Ballard

The Empire's of J. G. Ballard PDF Author: David Ian Paddy
Publisher: Gylphi Limited
ISBN: 1780240201
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 376

Get Book

Book Description
J. G. Ballard once declared that the most truly alien planet is Earth and in his science fiction he abandoned the traditional imagery of rocket ships traveling to distant galaxies to address the otherworldliness of this world. The Empires of J. G. Ballard is the first extensive study of Ballard's critical vision of nation and empire, of the political geography of this planet. Paddy examines how Ballard s self-perceived status as an outsider and exile, the Sheppertonian from Shanghai, generated an outlook that celebrated worldliness and condemned parochialism. This book brings to light how Ballard wrestled with notions of national identity and speculated upon the social and psychological implications of the post-war transformation of older models of empire into new imperialisms of consumerism and globalization. Presenting analyses of Ballard s full body of work with its tales of reverse colonization, psychological imperialism, the savagery of civilization, estranged Englishmen abroad and at home, and multinational communities built on crime, The Empires of J. G. Ballard offers a fresh perspective on the fiction of J. G. Ballard. The Empires of J.G. Ballard: An Imagined Geography offers a sustained and highly convincing analysis of the imperial and post-imperial histories and networks that shape and energise Ballard's fictional and non-fictional writings. To what extent can Ballard be considered an international writer? What happens to our understanding of his post-war science fictions when they are opened up to the language and logics of post-colonialism? And what creative and critical roles do the spectres of empire play in Ballard's visions of modernity? Paddy follows these and other fascinating lines of enquiry in a study that is not only essential reading for Ballard students and scholars, but for anyone interested in the intersections of modern and contemporary literature, history and politics. (Jeanette Baxter, Anglia Ruskin University) Shanghai made my father. Arriving in England after WW2, he was a person of the world who d witnessed extremes of human experience, and remained the outsider observing life from his home in Shepperton. 1930s Shanghai, Paris of the East , was a mix of international sophistication and violence, unfettered capitalism and acute poverty, American cars, martinis and Coca Cola, a place marked by death and war. It had a profound influence on my father and his imagination. Dr Paddy s fascinating book explores my father s fiction within an international context and offers a profound reading of a man who always kept his eyes and mind open to the world. (Fay Ballard)

The Empires of J.G. Ballard

The Empires of J.G. Ballard PDF Author: David Ian Paddy
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781780240183
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
An extensive study of Ballard's critical vision of nation and empire, of the political geography of this planet. The author examines how Ballard's self-perceived status as an outsider and exile, the Sheppertonian from Shanghai, generated an outlook that celebrated worldliness and condemned parochialism.

Empire of the Sun

Empire of the Sun PDF Author: J. G. Ballard
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1476737533
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
The classic, award-winning novel, made famous by Steven Spielberg's film, tells of a young boy's struggle to survive World War II in China. Jim is separated from his parents in a world at war. To survive, he must find a strength greater than all the events that surround him. Shanghai, 1941 -- a city aflame from the fateful torch of Pearl Harbor. In streets full of chaos and corpses, a young British boy searches in vain for his parents. Imprisoned in a Japanese concentration camp, he is witness to the fierce white flash of Nagasaki, as the bomb bellows the end of the war...and the dawn of a blighted world. Ballard's enduring novel of war and deprivation, internment camps and death marches, and starvation and survival is an honest coming-of-age tale set in a world thrown utterly out of joint.

J. G. Ballard

J. G. Ballard PDF Author: D. Harlan Wilson
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 0252050037
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
Prophetic short stories and apocalyptic novels like The Crystal World made J. G. Ballard a foundational figure in the British New Wave. Rejecting the science fiction of rockets and aliens, he explored an inner space of humanity informed by psychiatry and biology and shaped by Surrealism. Later in his career, Ballard's combustible plots and violent imagery spurred controversy--even legal action--while his autobiographical 1984 war novel Empire of the Sun brought him fame. D. Harlan Wilson offers the first career-spanning analysis of an author who helped steer SF in new, if startling, directions. Here was a writer committed to moral ambiguity, one who drowned the world and erected a London high-rise doomed to descend into savagery--and coolly picked apart the characters trapped within each story. Wilson also examines Ballard's methods, his influence on cyberpunk, and the ways his fiction operates within the sphere of our larger culture and within SF itself.

The Kindness of Women

The Kindness of Women PDF Author: J. G. Ballard
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1466856653
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 337

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Book Description
In The Kindness of Women, a sequel to his award-winning Empire of the Sun, young James returns to England at the end of World War II. He stumbles through medical study at Cambridge, trains briefly as an RAF pilot in Canada, and marries. When his wife dies suddenly, Jim is thrust into the violence and sexual promiscuity of the sixties. Penetrating and wise, J. G. Ballard's biting social commentary and pushing of boundaries make this semi-autobiographical novel a small classic.

Miracles of Life

Miracles of Life PDF Author: J. G. Ballard
Publisher: HarperCollins UK
ISBN: 0007272340
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 295

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Book Description
One Of Britain S Most Significant Writers. Beginning With The Events That Inspired His Classic Novel, Empire Of The Sun, Turned Into An Acclaimed Film By Steven Spielberg, In This Revelatory Autobiography Ballard Charts The Course Of His Astonishing Life: His Early Childhood Spent Exploring Pre-War Shanghai, The Deprivations And Unexpected Freedoms Of The Lunghua Camp, To His Return To A Britain Physically And Psychologically Crippled By War. He Explores His Subsequent Involvement In The Dramatic Social Changes Of The 1960S, And The Adjustments To Life Following The Premature Death Of His Wife. In Prose Displaying His Characteristic Precision And Eye For Detail, Ballard Recounts The Experiences Which Would Fundamentally Shape His Writing, While Providing A Striking Social Analysis Of Post-War Britain. Miracles Of Life Is An Utterly Captivating Account Of An Extraordinary Writer'S Extraordinary Life. 'Exquisitely Written...A Subtle, Restlessly Enquiring Work Of Touching Humanity, Is Ballard'S Crowning Achievement.' Financial Times.

The Siege of Krishnapur

The Siege of Krishnapur PDF Author: J.G. Farrell
Publisher: New York Review of Books
ISBN: 1590173732
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 376

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Book Description
Winner of the Booker Prize. An insightful and thrilling novel about the British Empire in India during the Great Mutiny of 1857, as seen through the eyes of a young, love-struck idealist. India, 1857—the year of the Great Mutiny, when Muslim soldiers turned in bloody rebellion on their British overlords. This time of convulsion is the subject of J. G. Farrell's The Siege of Krishnapur, widely considered one of the finest British novels of the last fifty years. Farrell's story is set in an isolated Victorian outpost on the subcontinent. Rumors of strife filter in from afar, and yet the members of the colonial community remain confident of their military and, above all, moral superiority. But when they find themselves under actual siege, the true character of their dominion—at once brutal, blundering, and wistful—is soon revealed. The Siege of Krishnapur is a companion to Troubles, about the Easter 1916 rebellion in Ireland, and The Singapore Grip, which takes place just before World War II, as the sun begins to set upon the British Empire. Together these three novels offer an unequaled picture of the follies of empire.

Super-Cannes

Super-Cannes PDF Author: J. G. Ballard
Publisher: Picador
ISBN: 1429970537
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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Book Description
Long-regarded as one of the true visionary writers of the twentieth century, J.G. Ballard was one of the first British writers of the post-war period to begin to see, and to map out in his fiction, the future course of our civilization. For forty years his unflinching eye has turned to the point where the advancing edge of our technological progress has worn away our inner humanity. Eden-Olympia is more than just a multinational business park, it is a virtual city-state in itself, with the latest in services and facilities for the most elite high-tech industries. Isolated and secure, overlooking the luxurious French Riviera, the residents lack nothing. Yet one day Dr. Greenwood from Eden-Olympia's clinic goes on a suicidal shooting spree. Dr. Jane Sinclair is hired as his replacement, and she and her husband, Paul, are given Dr. Greenwood's house as a residence. Unable to work while recovering from an accident, Paul spends his days taking a close look at the house where Dr. Greenwood shot himself and three hostages. He discovers clues in the house lead him to question Eden-Olympia's official account of the killings. Drawn into investigating the activities of the park's leading citizens, while Jane is lured deeper into Eden-Olympia's inner workings, Paul uncovers the dangerous psychological vents that maintain Eden-Olympia's smoothly running surface. An experiment is underway at Eden-Olympia, an experiment in power and brutality. Soon Paul finds himself in race to save himself and his wife before they are crushed by forces that may be beyond anyone's control.

Garden of Time

Garden of Time PDF Author: J. G. Ballard
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781457991264
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description


J. G. Ballard: Visions and Revisions

J. G. Ballard: Visions and Revisions PDF Author: J. Baxter
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230346480
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 255

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Book Description
Providing an extensive reassessment of dominant and recurring themes in Ballard's writing, including historical violence, pornography, post 9/11 politics, and urban space, this book also engages with Ballard's 'late' modernism; his experimentation with style and form; and his sustained interests in psychology and psychopathology.