J.G. Ballard: Quotes - by J G Ballard & Mike Ryan (Paperback)

About the Book

Ballard's books have remained fresh decades after they were first published, and the thoughts collected in "J.G. Ballard: Quotes" have worn equally as well. Small enough to fit in a pocket, this book brings together J. G. Ballard's trenchant thoughts on music, film, celebrity, the rise of corporate media, the death of reality, and much more. Grouped by topics such as "Sex: Relationships, Sex x Technology equals the Future, Pornography" and "Surrealism, Imagination," these quotes are both concise and clear, and provide a strong beacon for readers who are used to a baffling daily assault of advertisements, phone calls, and e-mails. They are also an excellent resource to help readers better understand Ballard's novels, which stand among the most visionary, provocative literature of the 20th century. A Ballardian glossary, the essay "Guide to Virtual Death," and a bibliography round out this excellent resource.

Book Synopsis

Born in Shanghai November 15, 1930, James Graham Ballard
spent several formative years in a Japanese concentration camp before settling
in England in 1946. After RAF flight training and medical studies with the aim
of becoming a psychoanalyst, Ballard concentrated on inventing the genre of
Speculative Fiction, charting the myths and psychopathologies of the near
future. His autobiographical novel Empire of the Sun was made into a
feature film by Steven Spielberg; David Cronenberg filmed his techno-noir-sex
classic CRASH.

To date Ballard has written 17 prophetic/poetic novels; in
his newest, Millennium People (2003), random acts of terrorism
dynamically unsettle London, England. The Complete Short Stories of J.G.
Ballard, recently released, is almost 1200 pages and an instant classic.

J.G. Ballard has been featured in Search
& Destroy #10, the RE/Search #1-2-3 tabloids, RE/Search #8/9:
J.G. Ballard, and the RE/Search illustrated edition of The Atrocity
Exhibition. RE/Search is proud to have published J.G. BALLARD QUOTES;
and J.G. BALLARD CONVERSATIONS, featuring interviews conducted by MARK
PAULINE (Survival Research Laboratories) and GRAEME REVELL (SPK; composer).

From the Back Cover

A real revolution, as 9-11 was in its way, will
always come from some unexpected corner of the sky. --J.G. Ballard

Review Quotes

"The hunt for striking one-liners is the fun of J.G. BALLARD
QUOTES, a compendium of provocative quips and comments culled from 40 years of
his writing and interviews...

"Quotables crop up on every page, on the arts, media, religion,
death, writing, and writers... Often they compress the modern world with
magnificent concision... And for all the techno-talk, one of the wisest epigrams
here is quite homey: "If you can smell garlic, everything is all right."--New
York Times, December 1, 2004

"Britain's most uncompromisingly contemporary novelist."--New
Statesman

"J.G. Ballard is the Dr. Moreau of British fiction, creator
of controlled environments and out-of-control dystopias... Ballard understands
the transformation technology may effect on human desire."--Observer

"He continues to produce the most trenchant and effective
critique of the era."--Independent

"Ballard always amazes."--Sunday Times

"Ballard just gets hipper and hipper."--Guardian

"Need some cheering up? Turn no further than the always
futuristic novelist J.G. Ballard--that master of deadpan humor disguised as
rabid immoral imagination. Ballard's iconic witticisms comprise the new
RE/Search publication J.G. Ballard Quotes: Does the Future Have a Future?...
This book provides a keen insight into the mind of a 20^th-century
counterculture hero...

"After delving into this volume a little further, one finds
that it is a gold mine of futuristic insight, with passages about media
landscapes, the death of reality, sex, technology, art, religion, time, car
crashes, imagination, surrealism and--most fittingly for Silicon Valley--the suburbs...
It sounds exactly like he's talking about certain parts of San Jose: "There are
all these immaculate, brand-new suburban houses in nicely wooded suburbs; every
house has a boat and a BMW in the driveway. The schools are built according to
the most advanced thinking about what a school should be like; there are
recreation aids and sports facilities... And all this adds up to the death of the
soul in the whole place. There's a desperation just waiting to be born there.
If you live in a totally civilized society, madness is the only way you can
express your own freedom."

Ballard has said numerous times since 1974 that sex times
technology equals the future, and that this equation will create a new value
system. He envisioned sex with cars, computers and closed-circuit TV... Ballard
said: "There are people who are constantly rediscovering the world on a
second-by-second basis, for whom every minute is a new excitement. Whether it's
a sort of naivete or not I don't know, but I've always been one of those. I wake
up in the morning and look out, and I'm always amazed and think, "What is
this?"

"J.G. Ballard quotes is perfect high-quality reading for the
bus stop or bathroom. You can flip to any page and descend into the future. If
there is one."--Metro News, Silicon Valley's Weekly Newspaper

About the Author

Born in Shanghai November 15, 1930, James Graham Ballard
spent the first 15 years of his life in China. Interned in a Japanese camp
during World War II, he was repatriated to England at the age of sixteen. After
studying medicine at Cambridge, he sold his first "speculative fiction" story
to New Worlds in 1956 and began writing a series of planetary disaster
novels, ultimately focusing on the inner landscape in psychopathological
classics such as Crash and High-Rise. In 1987 Steven Spielberg
made a movie of his best-selling autobiographical work, Empire of the Sun.
For the past 30 years J.G. Ballard has lived in Shepperton, England, home of
the famous film studios. {J.G. Ballard died April 19, 2009 in London, U.K.]