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J.G. Ballard Conversations
A highly sought cultural commentator, J. G. Ballard has provided thoughtful remarks on the state of the world for decades. J.G. Ballard Conversations brings together several of Ballard's latest interviews and gives readers penetrating insight into the mind of one of the freshest thinkers at work today. Covering topics such at the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the evolution of sexual relationships, and our strange, immersive celebrity culture, this book is a fount of provocative takes on the things that matter. Rounded out with rare photographs of Ballard and supplemental resources, J.G. Ballard Conversations is a necessary item for anyone interested in the modern world.
- GenresNonfiction
240 pages, Paperback
First published August 25, 2005
5 people are currently reading
331 people want to read
About the author
J.G. Ballard
469 books4,081 followersJames Graham "J. G." Ballard (15 November 1930 – 19 April 2009) was an English novelist, short story writer, and essayist. Ballard came to be associated with the New Wave of science fiction early in his career with apocalyptic (or post-apocalyptic) novels such as The Drowned World (1962), The Burning World (1964), and The Crystal World (1966). In the late 1960s and early 1970s Ballard focused on an eclectic variety of short stories (or "condensed novels") such as The Atrocity Exhibition (1970), which drew closer comparison with the work of postmodernist writers such as William S. Burroughs. In 1973 the highly controversial novel Crash was published, a story about symphorophilia and car crash fetishism; the protagonist becomes sexually aroused by staging and participating in real car crashes. The story was later adapted into a film of the same name by Canadian director David Cronenberg.
While many of Ballard's stories are thematically and narratively unusual, he is perhaps best known for his relatively conventional war novel, Empire of the Sun (1984), a semi-autobiographical account of a young boy's experiences in Shanghai during the Second Sino-Japanese War as it came to be occupied by the Japanese Imperial Army. Described as "The best British novel about the Second World War" by The Guardian, the story was adapted into a 1987 film by Steven Spielberg.
The literary distinctiveness of Ballard's work has given rise to the adjective "Ballardian", defined by the Collins English Dictionary as "resembling or suggestive of the conditions described in J. G. Ballard's novels and stories, especially dystopian modernity, bleak man-made landscapes and the psychological effects of technological, social or environmental developments." The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry describes Ballard's work as being occupied with "eros, thanatos, mass media and emergent technologies".
While many of Ballard's stories are thematically and narratively unusual, he is perhaps best known for his relatively conventional war novel, Empire of the Sun (1984), a semi-autobiographical account of a young boy's experiences in Shanghai during the Second Sino-Japanese War as it came to be occupied by the Japanese Imperial Army. Described as "The best British novel about the Second World War" by The Guardian, the story was adapted into a 1987 film by Steven Spielberg.
The literary distinctiveness of Ballard's work has given rise to the adjective "Ballardian", defined by the Collins English Dictionary as "resembling or suggestive of the conditions described in J. G. Ballard's novels and stories, especially dystopian modernity, bleak man-made landscapes and the psychological effects of technological, social or environmental developments." The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry describes Ballard's work as being occupied with "eros, thanatos, mass media and emergent technologies".
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
August 28, 2025
While this volume will appeal only to diehard J.G. Ballard fans, for the confirmed members of that group, it is quite a treat.
As the title promises, the content is primarily verbatim transcripts of conversations (as opposed to interviews) with several folks in the orbit of San Francisco's RE/Search Publications, including RE/Search head honcho V. Vale (aka Vale Hamanaka). Other notable conversationalists include Mark Pauline of the performance art group Survival Research Laboratories, Graeme Revell of the industrial rock group SPK, and David Pringle, who served as Ballard's archivist for many years.
The earliest conversation took place in 1983, and the last in 2005, a time span ranging roughly from the publication of Empire of the Sun (Ballard's most commercially successful novel) to the publication of his penultimate novel Millennium People.
I think the most illuminating conversation is from 1991, when Ballard chatted with Lynne Fox, who was writing a master's degree thesis on Ballard's fiction. Fox was very interested in mythological aspects of Ballard's work, as well as his great interest in surrealist painters (especially Salvador Dalí, Paul Delvaux, and Max Ernst). The resulting conversation goes deep into the common threads that are found throughout Ballard's corpus, and includes this key statement from the author:
Ballard is sometimes described as a pessimistic writer, largely because of those "end-points" that he references above, which are found throughout his novels and stories. Even a title like "Memories of the Space Age" has echoes of that sentiment. But pessimism has never really been the right angle through which to assess his worldview. As he says in the quote above, "Ends are also the beginning of the next step forward." That sentence accurately reflects the impact that his work has always had on my own psyche, where his fictions have marked out considerable territory over the years. I don't read Ballard to leer at the wastage, but to celebrate the possibilities of what might emerge from all the debris.
As the title promises, the content is primarily verbatim transcripts of conversations (as opposed to interviews) with several folks in the orbit of San Francisco's RE/Search Publications, including RE/Search head honcho V. Vale (aka Vale Hamanaka). Other notable conversationalists include Mark Pauline of the performance art group Survival Research Laboratories, Graeme Revell of the industrial rock group SPK, and David Pringle, who served as Ballard's archivist for many years.
The earliest conversation took place in 1983, and the last in 2005, a time span ranging roughly from the publication of Empire of the Sun (Ballard's most commercially successful novel) to the publication of his penultimate novel Millennium People.
I think the most illuminating conversation is from 1991, when Ballard chatted with Lynne Fox, who was writing a master's degree thesis on Ballard's fiction. Fox was very interested in mythological aspects of Ballard's work, as well as his great interest in surrealist painters (especially Salvador Dalí, Paul Delvaux, and Max Ernst). The resulting conversation goes deep into the common threads that are found throughout Ballard's corpus, and includes this key statement from the author:
...I'm concerned in most of my fiction with mythologies that draw a concluding line underneath the human experience. They represent end-points. I'm trying to suggest that there's a new psychological order awaiting us, which I'm as convinced of as an ordinary individual as I am as an imaginative writer. The twentieth century is a kind of cusp, a moving off from the old order into the new order that lies ahead. Of course, modern technology, modern communication systems, are creating this new order whether we like it or not. You try to anticipate this new order, but by and large my fiction is littered with the debris of mythological end-points: all these empty swimming pools, abandoned hotels, technological debris, silence, deserts - these are not the images of starting points; these are the mythologies of ends. Ends are also the beginning of the next step forward.
Ballard is sometimes described as a pessimistic writer, largely because of those "end-points" that he references above, which are found throughout his novels and stories. Even a title like "Memories of the Space Age" has echoes of that sentiment. But pessimism has never really been the right angle through which to assess his worldview. As he says in the quote above, "Ends are also the beginning of the next step forward." That sentence accurately reflects the impact that his work has always had on my own psyche, where his fictions have marked out considerable territory over the years. I don't read Ballard to leer at the wastage, but to celebrate the possibilities of what might emerge from all the debris.
July 23, 2008
Ballard is a prophet for people who claim to be free thinkers, yet suckle at the teet of dystopian though ultimately humanist visionaries (I'm pointing at myself here). I really like Ballard but this really smacks of a secular religious text. I am totalllllllly cool with people who don't like religion or religiosity, but am skeptical of people who invent new messiahs (out of authors, bands, celebrities). I believe Ballard feels the same way (see atrocity exhibition, etc.), but I think he is a living example of his own predictions and in a way has been snared into his own unreality. Or rather people who idolize him (again, pointing at myself) have placed him on a pedestal to which he wouldn't want to belong. This is a collection of his conversations with people from RE/Search and other venues and perhaps tells you more about the interviewers adoration of the subject than about the subject himself. Seventy four thumbs up.
March 14, 2008
Vale (Publisher of Re-Search Books) and Ballard have a nice groove to their conversations. And the great thing about Ballard is that he's quite open to the world. He is also a visionary of scary sort - who can see what an apartment high-rise means to the soul, etc. Not essential, but a good book to have in your bookshelf by the other Ballard books.
May 7, 2021
The dominator of the transgressive muses on everything and everyone from Burroughs to George W, Bush, LA freeways to the sexual charge of car crashes. Ballard takes for a given that we all live in a hyper-reality and nothing is true lest it be for public display.
January 9, 2011
Engaging longform interfaces with the artist and commentator who exhorted postmoderns to pursue our obsessions fearlessly to their resolutions
Miss him
Miss him
July 28, 2021
I didn't know that much about Ballard before, besides knowing the basic plots of High Rise and Crash without having read either of the books and having always meant to read something by Ballard. But, I've decided to keep buying one RE/SEARCH publication every time I see one around, and this book caught my eye about a week ago, so I guess I'm closer to actually reading a Ballard book...probably, it'll be The Atrocity Exhibition.
Ballard is fun and has lots of opinions. I didn't always care for them, but I admire the honesty and the desire to be true. His thoughts about surrealist art – that at the time it was visionary because internal and external states were separated at the time, but now everything is all jumbled up, where we see Mickey Mouse on wristwatches, and internal states of mind & myth dominate reality – will stay with me.
There were a lot of good quotes, but I'll only leave with one just now...
“What we’ve got now is a new kind of literacy. We’ve got people are expert at reading the labels on products, expert at reading instructional manuals that come with a new kind of vacuum cleaner, or a computer or what have you. They’re expert at that kind of reading, but not at anything else.”
Ballard is fun and has lots of opinions. I didn't always care for them, but I admire the honesty and the desire to be true. His thoughts about surrealist art – that at the time it was visionary because internal and external states were separated at the time, but now everything is all jumbled up, where we see Mickey Mouse on wristwatches, and internal states of mind & myth dominate reality – will stay with me.
There were a lot of good quotes, but I'll only leave with one just now...
“What we’ve got now is a new kind of literacy. We’ve got people are expert at reading the labels on products, expert at reading instructional manuals that come with a new kind of vacuum cleaner, or a computer or what have you. They’re expert at that kind of reading, but not at anything else.”
June 27, 2020
Exactly what it says on the tin. If you want a collection of interviews with J.G. Ballard, this is the book.
June 17, 2022
Great book, semi-prophetic. This book is actually 358 pages, not 240 like stated in the info. I wish we could have this edited.
June 10, 2008
Goldmine.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews