- Paperback: 192 pages
- Publisher: Flamingo; New edition edition (12 Mar 1992)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0586090711
- ISBN-13: 978-0586090718
- Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 13 x 1.2 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,306,695 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
From the Back Cover
This mesmerising collection demonstrates perfectly Ballard's extraordinary writing talent. All the concentrated power and imagination that distinguish his novels are demonstrated here: the iron strength of his stories lies in the juxtaposition of a recognisable physical word with an inner, complex dream landscape. Within this Disaster Area you'll find:
'The Concentration City' – where the world creaks under one unimaginably vast megalopolis. There is no free space, and there is no way out…
'The Subliminal Man' – come face to face with the ultimate advertisement, then wish you hadn't…
'Manhole 69' – a group of surgically altered men try to do without sleep. But permanent consciousness turns out to be worse than any nightmare.
"Ballard's post-despair world, haunted by technological ghosts, is an environment like nobody else's"
BRIAN ALDISS
"One of the most sensitive and enigmatic novelists of the present day"
TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT
About the Author
J.G. Ballard was born in 1930 in Shanghai, where his father was a businessman. After internment in a civilian prison camp, he and his family returned to England in 1946. He published his first novel, The Drowned World, in 1961. His 1984 bestseller Empire of the Sun won the Guardian Fiction Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. It was later filmed by Steven Spielberg. His memoir Miracles of Life was published in 2008. J.G. Ballard died in 2009.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is a collection of 9 excellent and highly varied short stories. The stories are haunting, many with a strong use of symbolism - sadly an aspect of his early work which seems largely absent from his more recent novels.
The first story `Storm-bird, Storm-dreamer`, is in part an early example of one of Ballard`s recurring obsessions: flight. The story also carries strong echoes of S.T.Coleridge`s `The Ryme Of The Ancient Mariner`, particularly in the creeping sense of guilt felt by the main charecter after having killed the last of the remaining giant mutant birds. The same character then attempts to fly using wings made from the feathers of the dead birds, symbolising both a desire for transendence and a return to nature.
The symbolic use of flight also appears here in `The Concentration City`. Set in a far future where the earth is so crowded that it has become effectively one vast multi-layered city, the story follows a young man who dreams of flight and building a flying machine in a world where flying is not only no longer possible, but the very concepts of `free space` and `flight` are no longer understood or have any meaning. But by merely concieving of them, he has broken an important barrier.
Somewhat reminiscent of Philip K Dick, `The Subliminal Man` depicts a terrifying near future where twelve-lane expresseways and shopping complexes cover half the land, and people work twelve hours a day to buy consumer goods which become obsolete and have to be replaced within weeks. Hidden behind the massive billboards which line each side of the expressways are wastelands of junkyards and huge pyramids of jettisoned but perfectly functionable consumer items; cars, fridges etc, "gleaming silently like the refuse grounds of some forgotten El Derado". The main character becomes alarmed when he begins to suspect that the huge new signs, hundreds of feet high- but which seem to have no apparent use - may be being used to transmit subliminal advertising commands. The story is an uncharacteristicly straight-forward,but powerful warning about an over capitalised industrial society.
`Now wakes the sea` is another of Ballard`s explorations of the unspoken human desire to return to the womb, or the collective unconcious. The main character lives thousands of miles inland, but every night imagines that he sees the tide bringing the sea over the neighbouring rooftops, every day advancing a little further.
`Mr F. is Mr F.` also depicts this desire to return to a pre-uterine existence, but in a very different and far more literal way, with the main character undergoing a complete age reversal, resulting in the inevitable reverse pregnancy. Disturbing.
`Zone of Terror` is a story of a man, who through some time shift is continualy encountering his past self, but is unable to recognise this doppleganger as himself.
`Manhole 69` explores the possible side effects of induced sleep deprivation.
`The Impossible Man` depicts a future where due to a process of restorative surgery the life expectancy has risen to a century. But in the town where the story is set, the elderly inhabitants begin to mysteriously refuse the surgery which will prolong their life.
These are some of Ballard`s best short stories. I also recommend `Myths Of The Near Future`.
Format:Paperback
Although this relatively early collection isn't quite as strong as some of Ballard's best it does serve well as a foretaste of what was to come, with its many glimpses of future Ballardian themes. Some stories are better than others; most notably, The Concentration City, Now Wakes the Sea, and Zone of Terror. Others are a little weak, but they're all enjoyable, even if not always convincing. The prose, in the less successful stories, is also a little below Ballard's normal standard, but is always readable. In general it's a good read and worthwhile for all Ballard fans.
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