Finally another down

One of my favourite films is 'Empire of the Sun' so when I entered this challenge, I made sure to include the book on my list. Based on J.G. Ballard's own childhood, this novel tells the story of a boy's life in Japanese-occupied Shanghai. A story of war, starvation and survival.

I found it hard to rate this book and even harder to review it. I found this book an uncomfortable read, not in a 'it made me want to blind myself' but more in a 'got under your skin and stays with you' sort of way. So I suppose I could call it 'profound'. There is no doubt that this book is a mesmorising read, and once I hit my stride, I read the book in a night. It's a strange mixture of autobiography and fiction, which makes you wonder where Jim starts and Ballard begins (thankfully my edition had an essay by Ballard summing up his experience which gives you further insight).

Because of my love for the film, it's hard for me not to compare and contrast. The book is definitely much darker and deeper than the film. Through the language, Ballard portrays subtle nuances about situations and hidden depths to characters (minor oneces especially) which could never translate to screen. We're more connected to the world and to Jim with the book. Jim's hunger, hallucinations and desperation to survive in the cruel world of Shanghai and the camps resonate more, with the language of the book reflecting his state of being.

Yet, although in some aspects I felt closer to the world of Jim via the book, I found the book didn't resonate or have the impact that I felt the film had for me. Perhaps Jim's numbness translated more via the text, but I felt no emotionally connection to the people in Jim's world like I did with the film. In the book, there is just a sort of desperation which in the end isn't as nicely or touchingly resolved/relieved like in the film. There is no happy reunion with his parents only this: "Jim had wanted to explain to his parents everything that he and the doctor had done together, but his mother and father had been through their own war. For all their affection for him, they seemed older and far away".

Ballard is an exceptional writer and the book in itself is excellent, if only for the impact it has on you as a reader. It won't touch the heart like the film does, but certainly this book will resonate with you.

Matthew, Book Review, *J.G. Ballard, *Crash

I've been alternately sick and busy as of late, but I finally finished another book on my list: Crash by J.G. Ballard.

Reading Crash (1973) reminded me an awful lot of my experience reading William S. Burrough's Naked Lunch, in that both left me with the distinct impression that Dante really lowballed his idea of what hell could be in the Inferno. The book is narrated by one James Ballard, a television advertising producer who gets into a nasty car crash and is subsequently drawn to become part of a group of people for whom car crashes and sexuality are intrinsically linked.

Yes, you read that correctly: Crash involves sex, violence, and car crashes, but mostly various combinations of the three. Don't get me wrong, the novel isn't all just creepy, nightmarish smut -- it also raises plenty of questions concerning our increasing reliance on and relationship with technology, especially the dangers inherent in allowing those technologies to mediate or even replace our relationships with other human beings. Still, you're going to need a strong stomach if you want to read all the way through to the end. Ballard once explained his reasons for writing the book thusly: "I wanted to rub humanity's face in its own vomit and force it to look in the mirror." On that account, I'd say he succeeded.

On another note, I remember seeing Ballard's novel Empire of the Sun on at least one reader's list here. An acquaintance of mine once said that after he finished Crash, he was left wondering what would have to happen to a person to make them write a book like that; after reading Empire of the Sun, he thought, "yeah, that would probably do it." Make of that what you will.