A User's Guide to the Millennium: Essays and Reviews [Paperback]

J. G. Ballard (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 15, 1997

Over the course of his career, J.G. Ballard has revealed hidden truths about the modern world. The essays, reviews, and ruminations gathered here—spanning the breadth of this long career—approach reality with the same sharp prose and sharper vision that distinguish his fiction. Ballard's fascination for and fixation upon this century take him from Mickey Mouse to Salvador Dali, from Los Angeles to Shanghai, from William Burroughs to Winnie the Pooh, from the future to today.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Ballard, the British novelist best known for Empire of the Sun, has also done a considerable amount of movie and book reviewing, as well as assorted hackwork, mostly for British newspapers, and this collection is a representative selection. His pieces display a crisp style, an offbeat affection for some of the trappings of contemporary life-such as superhighways, shopping centers, high-rise hotels-usually scorned by literary folk, and an abiding passion for science fiction (of which Ballard himself is a skilled practitioner). He is excellent on SF movies (there are not nearly enough of his cogent reviews of these here), but he is less interesting, being perhaps less involved, in writing about the visual arts. His book reviews are a highly eclectic lot, displaying great enthusiasm for William S. Burroughs, Nathanael West and Henry Miller. The real problem with this collection, apart from its lack of focus, is that Ballard the essayist is not nearly as compelling as Ballard the creative writer.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

A respected figure in contemporary fiction, Ballard is best known for his novels (most recently Crash, on which a film just honored at Cannes was based). This nonfiction collection, however, features the reviews and essays Ballard has written over the last 30 years, commenting on public figures as diverse as Albert Einstein, Andy Warhol, Salvador Dali, and Nancy Reagan. Noteworthy are his reviews and comments on science fiction and surrealism, subjects he examines with considerable enthusiasm and knowledge. While his reviews offer pungent insights into the preoccupations and paranoia of the late 20th century, the autobiographical essays recounting Ballard's early years in China are especially compelling. Born in Shanghai in 1930, he spent four years interned in a Japanese prison camp, an experience he writes of eloquently, strongly defending the American decision to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. (His novel Empire of the Sun, which Steven Speilberg made into a film, covers the same territory.) This thought-provoking, informative, and entertaining book is recommended for all libraries.?Nancy R. Ives, SUNY at Geneseo, N.Y.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Picador; First Edition edition (April 15, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312156839
• ISBN-13: 978-0312156831
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,483,888 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Born in Shanghai in 1930, J. G. BALLARD is the author of sixteen novels, including "Empire of the Sun," "The Drowned World," and "Crash." He lived in London until his death in April 2009.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Ballardophile, January 26, 2000

By 

[e-mail] (Tulsa, Oklahoma) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A User's Guide to the Millennium: Essays and Reviews (Paperback)

Ballard describes this collection of published essays and reviews as a continuation of his fiction "by surreptitious means". Those accustomed to Ballard's imaginative gifts will be pleased to discover them no less diminished in describing the extravagances and banalities of our fin du monde era. Above all, Ballard's distinctive, fluid flashes mark this book. On Max Ernst's "The Eye of Silence": "This spinal landscape with its frenzied rocks towering into the air above the slent swamp, has attained an organic life more real than that of the solitary nymph sitting in the foreground. These rocks have the luminosity of organs freshly exposed to the light. The real landscapes of the world are seen for what they are--palaces of flesh and bone that are the living facades enclosing our own subliminal consciousness." Ballard's words and worldview are always intelligent, if not always welcome. For those who can keep up, this book offers marvelous vistas.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Continuing Iconography in the World According to Ballard., June 29, 1998

By A Customer

This review is from: A User's Guide to the Millennium: Essays and Reviews (Paperback)

In this, the first I believe, collection of J. G. Ballard's non-fiction writings, Ballard is again writing about his favorite themes and obsessions. Dali, Burroughs and Mae West all appear. This time, however, he is writing about them in reality, for book reviews and the like, not as characters and archetypes in a hallucinatory fictional landscape. Despite our knowledge that we a reading an alleged non-fiction collection, the overwhelming presence of the Ballard worldview remains and makes one wonder if perhaps the non-fiction of reality and the imagination of Ballard are more closely linked that we would like to admit. Ballard's prose and style shine through illuminating the seemingly mundane subject matter. Also the careful categorization of the essays/reviews furthers the reader's impression that this is indeed a Ballard collection. The chapter headings of Film, Lives, The Visual World, etc. and titles such as "Hitman for the Apocalypse" adorning the review of a book on Burroughs bring to mind the headers and chronology of The Atrocity Exhibition. This in not necessarily a book for Ballard beginners. Another point of entry would better initiate a reader new to Ballard. But if you are familiar with his work and his common themes and elements, it is fascinating to watch his skill as a writer and constructer as he creates vehicles of ideological validation from Sunday supplement subjects.