Customer Reviews

J.G. Ballard: Quotes

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

J.G. Ballard's "Quotes" is one of my favorite books. How does Ballard do it? He offers the starkest insights about Western culture and the psychopathology of the human race, and yet the book is fun, exciting, and totally addictive. The editors have combed all of Ballards books for interesting excerpts, and they have arranged them conveniently into chapters. There is a chapter on Writers and Writing, a chapter on 9/11, a chapter on Beaches, a chapter on William S. Burroughs--it goes on and on. Yes, sometimes there are redundancies, but that did not bother me. In fact, it is interesting to see how Ballard takes an insight or prediction and retools it slightly over time. One of my favorite of his predictions is that in the future, science and pornography will intersect. That may seem obvious to some people now, but Ballard made this prediction in the early 1970's. Another thing this book is good for: getting titles to other interesting books. Ballard reads widely, and he recommends books throughout this volume; some are books I had never heard of. "The Black Box", for instance, contains the transcripts of dialogue between pilots and air-traffic controllers for flights that eventually crashed. Ballard cites one of his favoite books: "The Los Angeles Yellow Pages". He considers this directory a surrealist work. Likewise, the chapter on film is good for some titles: after reading Ballard I returned to "The Road Warrior" and "The Hitcher" (two of my childhood favorites) and saw them in a new, Ballardian light. If you like this one, I would also recommend the book of Conversations with Ballard and "A User's Guide to the Millenium". Of course, "Crash" is not to be missed...

A great little reference book, qoutes that seem to be relevant to just about everything that is going on, and a lot of them are from a long time ago. Of course you could say that about a lot of things, but to be able to boil the zeitgeist of now down itno easily digestiable snippets that are both profound and witty, is a wonderful talent. This is, I think, and indespensible book for JG Ballard fans and reference book fans (I'm both, btw).

J.G. Ballard has had his fingers on a strange universal pulse for many years, somehow seeing just around the corner in time. His comments, whether in fictional form from his literary characters, or from himself in interviews, are truly unique.

This new collection from Re/Search is like a box of psychopathology candy. Your brain is going to be nibbling on these bits for a long time. The collection draws from his published work, private notes, and interviews. If the usual inspirational sayings leave you feeling rather flat, just open a page of this book and read one at random. Chances are you will be thinking about it the rest of the day.

The quotes are organized into topical sections including (but not limited to) The Future, The Past, Virtual Reality, Celebrity, Death, Film, Art, Technology and Science, America, Airports, Freeways, Swimming Pools, Car Crash, Sex, William S. Burroughs, and reflections by Ballard on his unique life and experiences.

A great book for Ballard fans, those who love to discuss/debate, or anyone who likes to keep their brain dusted off.

I was encouraged to read this book by vale,one of the authors,
i'm glad he did. Ballard's quotes are both evocative and provocative. you can read this book from front to back or in any order you wish and you will find Ballard very perspicacious!
the style of regular and boldface type make the book even more of a delight to read. you'll find Ballard will catch you unaware and bring you to new and challenging insights. Ballard's forthright honesty and ability to grasp the essence of each topic is a joy to read.
We must thank the authors for giving us a book for our time,especially we babyboomers who have lived this observed history.
A true delight,you'll read it often now and in the future.

I've never actually gotten through any Ballard books, I'm embarrassed to admit. I know that he's great, and many people whose opinions I respect absolutely love him-- but for me, his fiction, and even sometimes his essays, have been a hard slog. I remember one sophisticate friend telling me that Crash was *supposed* to be boring, that that's part of the whole point. If so, then the work demands a bit too much from this lazy reader.

That's why J.G. Ballard: Quotes is such a delight. It gives people like me exactly what we do love about Ballard, his provocative, far-out ideas, in their purest, most compact form-- without having to wade through any context. Reading this book is like freebasing Ballard.** You can pick it up and get some quick idea hits at any time, and put it down whenever without losing your place. (Who wants to buy the mobile message network rights?) In this way, it's more like the Analects of Confucius or even a tarot deck than the kind of volume you'd sit down and read through sequentially. But it's fun to have around, and for what it's worth, also a great shortcut to understanding Ballardian thought. Most of the topics he discusses-- politics and media, the future, art, infrastructure and topography, etc.-- are just the things I'm most interested in.

My main criticism is that ideas sometimes repeat-- you'll occasionally read a quote that's similar to one that you read a few pages before. When it develops the idea, it's fun to see how Ballard carries and expands on his concepts from one work to the next. But when he says almost the exact same thing in two different books, I'd just as soon only read the earlier quote. Note that this doesn't happen often. But a good book review should be critical, and this is really the only thing I could come up with.

**Judging from what little I know about the practice of freebasing.

Here's a book by arguably our greatest living writer, now that William S. Burroughs resides in the land of the dead. And Ballard is a worthy successor too, and this book shows us why. "J. G. Ballard Quotes" will open up your mind like a Tanguy painting come to life. Not only is Ballard's fiction so riveting and mind bending as to really have no peer, but his creative thinking is equally as brilliant. Read "J. G. Ballard Quotes" anyway you choose: jump around in it, or front to back; either will inspire you, propell you even, to read more and more of the great Seer of Shepperton. This is a how-to-book for the space age. You cannot afford not to read it!!

Much as it pains me to do so, I'm forced to give J.G. Ballard: Quotes one fewer star than the five I would have loved to have given it for the simple reason that it's slapdash in comparison with the indispensable RE/Search #8/9 (the Ballard issue): "unknown" is a too-frequent citation; the loving inclusion of every possible permutation of a given quote, culled from decades of interviews, is calculated to appeal to the devout fan only; and the choice of a tacky, inapt cover image---a bilious illustration from the golden age of SF pulps---over one of Ana Barrado's eerie, desolate photos of Ballardian cityscapes is a Class A design crime.

Nonetheless, four stars at least, since this is a bottomless font of insights and inspiration from the incomparable Ballard, a visionary novelist whose black-comedic critique of the postmodern condition is more trenchant, and wittier by far, than anything French philosophy has to offer. Read Baudrillard and Virilio as science fiction and Ballard as philosophy---or, better yet, self-help guru for the irreparably disaffected.

I begin every day with a quote, chosen at random, from this book of daily affirmations---or, more properly, daily negations---and go forth with a spring in my step, intellectually well-armed to do battle with my local megamall, multistory parking garage, gated community, and other Ballardian horrors come to life.

RE/Search has compiled the best blips and ramblings from Ballard's extensive body of work, illuminating the uninitiated and re-affirming to the already converted that Ballard is one of the sharpest commentators on the modern world. The book itself is compact and formated for easy digestion during commuting hours or periods in limbo, and each quote is a gem. This book will definitely keep you intrigued and sane on your otherwise dismal journey through the day to day.

I can read this quote book just picking from the chapter on psychopathology or from the chapter on technology and science where the quotes are from as early as the 1960s, but I never feel like the statement is irrelevant to our lives today. I love the Ballard Glossary at the back of the book, though I have my own definition of these things, but I do not disagree with Ballard's definition -- we're both able to see these things in twisted ways.

"J.G. Ballard scans the suicide-code of a chemical=anthropoid into the abolition world, as if the drug fetus's modem=heart of the corpse mechanism is aspirated acid." - Kenji Siratori, author of Blood Electric