kateofmind's review against another edition
5.0
I'll have a full review up at Skiffy and Fanty, but in brief, this fictionalized autobiography is part meditation on how our everyday world has become indistinguishable from science fiction and part cautionary tale against letting one writer -- especially one as pathologically fascinating, prescient and disturbing as J.G. Ballard -- so completely colonize your imagination that you find yourself transformed into one of that writer's protagonists without the benefit of the writer's guiding hand on the "plot" of your life. A passage at the end offers the reader a chance to interpret all that came before -- encounters with telepaths, UFO sightings, muggings and random violence on many continents and not one but two failed attempts at a PhD -- as symptoms of a disease we don't yet know or side effects of a treatment we haven't yet developed, and that might make this book More Ballard Than Ballard.
I'd be very, very interested to see what people who are unfamiliar with J.G. Ballard make of this book, and how it might color their experience of reading Ballard afterward -- which anyone who does take this up will surely want to do!
I'd be very, very interested to see what people who are unfamiliar with J.G. Ballard make of this book, and how it might color their experience of reading Ballard afterward -- which anyone who does take this up will surely want to do!
robpalindrome's review against another edition
5.0
What a weird and wonderful book!
Part homage to JG Ballard, part summary of his life and academic critique of his work, (large) part 'gonzo' style travelogue and, at times, part imitation/exploration of the 'ballardian' aesthetic.
Ballard is infamous for the duality of his life - writing graphic and shocking extracts of The Atrocity Exhibition in between dropping off and collecting his children from school and carrying out mundane housework, for instance - and Sellars's parallel universe seems to work in a similar way. At times I was really left questioning which parts of the book were autobiographical, and which were pure fiction, much in the way one wonders how much of the central character in Empire of the Sun or Miracles of Life is JG Ballard (or how much of the 'Ballard' in Crash is the authorial James Graham Ballard). At other points, it's quite clear that it's pure fiction... There is an ambiguity and enigmatic quality to the work that is at times really captivating.
I found this a thoroughly enjoying experience, but then I am also fairly obsessed with Ballard's oeuvre and with what Sellars has dubbed 'applied ballardianism'. While reading I kept questioning how the book might be received by someone less interested in (or even aware of) Ballard's work. Ballard's influence remains present throughout the book, yet as a 'page turner' and a book focused on travel, the difficulties of academia, and even the paranormal (!), I believe there is more than enough here to engage readers less enthusiastic about the protagonist's central obsession.
Read this if you are at all interested in Ballard, obsession (or perhaps more accurately, an obsession with obsessions), 'gonzo' style writing, and the self-doubt and mania one can encounter when working on a PhD.
Don't read it if you are expecting an academic study of Ballard (there a plenty other more suitable options that have been published in the last 10 years), or if you are about to start work on a doctorate...
Part homage to JG Ballard, part summary of his life and academic critique of his work, (large) part 'gonzo' style travelogue and, at times, part imitation/exploration of the 'ballardian' aesthetic.
Ballard is infamous for the duality of his life - writing graphic and shocking extracts of The Atrocity Exhibition in between dropping off and collecting his children from school and carrying out mundane housework, for instance - and Sellars's parallel universe seems to work in a similar way. At times I was really left questioning which parts of the book were autobiographical, and which were pure fiction, much in the way one wonders how much of the central character in Empire of the Sun or Miracles of Life is JG Ballard (or how much of the 'Ballard' in Crash is the authorial James Graham Ballard). At other points, it's quite clear that it's pure fiction... There is an ambiguity and enigmatic quality to the work that is at times really captivating.
I found this a thoroughly enjoying experience, but then I am also fairly obsessed with Ballard's oeuvre and with what Sellars has dubbed 'applied ballardianism'. While reading I kept questioning how the book might be received by someone less interested in (or even aware of) Ballard's work. Ballard's influence remains present throughout the book, yet as a 'page turner' and a book focused on travel, the difficulties of academia, and even the paranormal (!), I believe there is more than enough here to engage readers less enthusiastic about the protagonist's central obsession.
Read this if you are at all interested in Ballard, obsession (or perhaps more accurately, an obsession with obsessions), 'gonzo' style writing, and the self-doubt and mania one can encounter when working on a PhD.
Don't read it if you are expecting an academic study of Ballard (there a plenty other more suitable options that have been published in the last 10 years), or if you are about to start work on a doctorate...
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