J.G. Ballard
Just learned that J.G. Ballard has died. It isn't unexpected, because he has been ill for some years, but it's still a major shock and a major loss. According to the BBC news, he was a 'cult' author - whatever that means. He was one of the few people to fully understand the second half of the twentieth century, and how it continues to shape the future.
UPDATE: obituaries by David Pringle in the Guardian, Christopher Priest in the Financial Times; others in the Telegraph, and the Times. Tributes and links collected at Ballardian.com.
ALSO: Clute on Ballard.
UPDATE: obituaries by David Pringle in the Guardian, Christopher Priest in the Financial Times; others in the Telegraph, and the Times. Tributes and links collected at Ballardian.com.
ALSO: Clute on Ballard.
posted by Paul McAuley at 7:29 pm
4 Comments:
It's true, early obits are rather misrepresenting his work. Ironic that the print media would rather talk about film than books.
I'm very sorry he's gone. I reread The Drowned World recently and loved it all over again.
I had "The Voices Of Time" down just night before last, and was swept away once again by his sheer control.
Not long before that I had gone back to my treasured copy of Love and Napalm: Export USA, struck as always by his (again) control but also the anger and, especially in the case of "Why I Want To Fuck Ronald Reagan" his scalding prescience.
And there was, too, his sheer ongoing professionalism: he kept working, stretching and working, reaching and working, his own man and writer.
Doubtless when the masser (sic) media does the obits we'll hear mostly that his work inspired a Spielberg movie that started Christian Bale's ascent.
Speaking of the masser media, I'm going to spend some time with The Wind From Nowhere now.
Sad :(
I very like his short stories.
"The Time-Tombs", "Now the Sea Wakes".
In his short prose he showed the value of the word which is much diminished in our days.
There's a nice article by Johann Hari at the Indy. Unfortunately the comments system wasn't working when I tried so I couldn't tell him I liked it.
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