A review by paulcowdell
Millennium People by J.G. Ballard
4.0
Another 3.5, I think, as the later Ballard doesn't quite do it for me in the same way as that magnificent, crystalline early stuff. But this is something of a surprise even for that later oeuvre. At times it is almost (unBallardian concept in some ways) playful.
Satire's a complicated genre. It can be all too easy for the satirised to identify with their representation to such an extent that the author ends up bending and adapting to them. This being Ballard, of course, no such mimsy conciliation happens, you'll be satisfied to know, but he does seem to be responding to a readership that might not quite have got what was going on more generally. (The book had some rave reviews from possibly unlikely quarters, like the Telegraph stable of papers, for example). It feels like this was the trigger for some of the uncustomarily knockabout one-liners.
But because it still /is/ Ballard, the result feels somewhat uneven. He's still prying away at the latent violence, the alienation, the apocalyptic concrete vistas of Heathrow, after all, and the writing here is no less beautiful or stunning than before. Some moments just pull you up short with their incision. London, for example, is described as 'a vast and stationary carousel, forever boarded by millions of would-be passengers who took their seats, waited and then dismounted.'
Even here, Ballard is unflinching, probing away at bleakness and humanity without sentiment or flippancy. Even when it doesn't quite come off, Ballard is still your best companion in a an empty and violent world.
Satire's a complicated genre. It can be all too easy for the satirised to identify with their representation to such an extent that the author ends up bending and adapting to them. This being Ballard, of course, no such mimsy conciliation happens, you'll be satisfied to know, but he does seem to be responding to a readership that might not quite have got what was going on more generally. (The book had some rave reviews from possibly unlikely quarters, like the Telegraph stable of papers, for example). It feels like this was the trigger for some of the uncustomarily knockabout one-liners.
But because it still /is/ Ballard, the result feels somewhat uneven. He's still prying away at the latent violence, the alienation, the apocalyptic concrete vistas of Heathrow, after all, and the writing here is no less beautiful or stunning than before. Some moments just pull you up short with their incision. London, for example, is described as 'a vast and stationary carousel, forever boarded by millions of would-be passengers who took their seats, waited and then dismounted.'
Even here, Ballard is unflinching, probing away at bleakness and humanity without sentiment or flippancy. Even when it doesn't quite come off, Ballard is still your best companion in a an empty and violent world.