ФГБОУ ВПО «МГУ им. Н.П. Огарёва»

Кафедра английской филологии

History of English Literature

James Graham "J.G." Ballard

Выполнила: студентка 404 группы,

кафедры «Теории и речи перевода»

К.В. Юрчак

Проверила: ст. пр. кав. англ. фил.

Л.И. Зотова

Саранск 2012

Contents

1. Life…………………………………………………………..3

   1. Shanghai………………………………………………3

   2. England and Canada…………………………………..4

   3. Full-time writing career……………………………….5

   4. Posthumous publication……………………………….7

2. Dystopian fiction……………………………………………..8

3. Television…………………………………………………….9

4. Influence……………………………………………………...10

   1. In popular music……………………………………….11

5. Works………………………………………………………....12

   1. Novels………………………………………………….12

   2. Short story collections…………………………………13

   3. Other…………………………………………………...14

6. Adaptations…………………………………………………...15

   1. Films……………………………………………………15

   2. Television………………………………………………16

7. Bibliography…………………………………………………..17

1. Life

   1. Shanghai

Ballard's father was a chemist at a Manchester-based textile firm, theCalico Printers' Association, and became chairman and managing director of its subsidiary in Shanghai, the China Printing and Finishing Company. Ballard was born and raised in theShanghai International Settlement, an area under foreign control where people "lived an American style of life". He was sent to the Cathedral School in Shanghai. After the outbreak of theSecond Sino-Japanese War, Ballard's family were forced to temporarily evacuate their suburban home and rent a house in downtown Shanghai to avoid the shells fired by Chinese and Japanese forces.

After the Pearl Harbor attack, the Japanese occupied the International Settlement. In early 1943 they began interning Allied civilians, and Ballard was sent to theLunghua Civilian Assembly Centerwith his parents and younger sister. He spent over two years, the remainder of World War II, in the internment camp. His family lived in a small area in G block, a two-story residence for 40 families. He attended school in the camp, the teachers being camp inmates from a number of professions. These experiences formed the basis ofEmpire of the Sun, although Ballard exercised considerable artistic license in writing the book, notably removing his parents from the bulk of the story.

It is often supposed that Ballard's exposure to the atrocities of war at an impressionable age explains the apocalyptic and violent nature of much of his fiction. Martin Amiswrote thatEmpire of the Sun "gives shape to what shaped him." However, Ballard's own account of the experience was more nuanced: "I don't think you can go through the experience of war without one's perceptions of the world being forever changed. The reassuring stage set that everyday reality in the suburban west presents to us is torn down; you see the ragged scaffolding, and then you see the truth beyond that, and it can be a frightening experience." But also: "I have—I won't say happy—not unpleasant memories of the camp. [...] I remember a lot of the casual brutality and beatings-up that went on—but at the same we children were playing a hundred and one games all the time!"

2. England and Canada

In 1946, after the end of the war, his mother returned to England with Ballard and his sister on the SS Arrawa. They lived in the outskirts of Plymouth, and he attendedThe Leys Schoolin Cambridge. After a couple of years his mother and sister returned to China, rejoining Ballard's father, leaving Ballard to live with his grandparents when not boarding at school. In 1949 he went on to study medicine atKing's College, Cambridge, with the intention of becoming apsychiatrist.

At university, Ballard was writing avant-gardefiction heavily influenced bypsychoanalysisandsurrealistpainters. At this time, he wanted to become a writer as well as pursue a medical career. In May 1951, when Ballard was in his second year at King's, his short story "The Violent Noon", aHemingwayesquepastichewritten to please the contest's jury, won a crime story competition and was published in the student newspaperVarsity.

Encouraged by the publication of his story and realizing that clinical medicine would not leave him time to write, Ballard abandoned his medical studies, and in 1952 he enrolled at Queen Mary, University of Londonto read English Literature. However, he was asked to leave at the end of the year. Ballard then worked as a copywriter for an advertising agency and as an encyclopedia salesman. He kept writing short fiction but found it impossible to get published.

In 1953 Ballard joined the Royal Air Forceand was sent to theRCAFflight-training base inMoose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada. There he discovered science fiction inAmerican magazines. While in the RAF, he also wrote his first science fiction story, "Passport to Eternity", as a pastiche and summary of the American science fiction he had read.

Ballard left the RAF in 1954 after two years and returned to England. In 1955 he married Helen Mary Matthews and settled in Cheswick, the first of their three children being born the following year. He made his science fiction debut in 1956 with two short stories, "Escapement" and "Prima Belladonna", published in the December 1956 issues ofNew Worlds and Science Fantasy respectively. The editor of New Worlds, Edward J. Carnell, would remain an important supporter of Ballard's writing and would publish nearly all of his early stories.

From 1957, Ballard worked as assistant editor on the scientific journal Chemistry and Industry. His interest in art led to his involvement in the emerging Pop Artmovement, and in the late fifties he exhibited a number ofcollagesthat represented his ideas for a new kind of novel. Ballard'savant-gardeinclinations did not sit comfortably in the science fiction mainstream of that time, which held attitudes he consideredphilistine. Briefly attending the 1957Science Fiction Conventionin London, Ballard left disillusioned and demoralized and did not write another story for a year. By the late 1960s, however, he had become an editor of the avant-gardeAmbit magazine, which was more in keeping with his aesthetic ideals.

3. Full-time writing career

In 1960 Ballard moved with his family to the middle-class London suburb of Sheppertonin Surrey. Finding that commuting to work did not leave him time to write, Ballard decided he had to make a break and become a full-time writer. He wrote his first novel,The Wind from Nowhere, over a two-week holiday simply to gain a foothold as a professional writer, not intending it as a "serious novel"; in books published later, it is omitted from the list of his works. When it was successfully published in January 1962, he quit his job at Chemistry and Industry, and from then on supported himself and his family as a writer.

Later that year his second novel, The Drowned World, was published, establishing Ballard as a notable figure in the fledgling new wave movement. Collections of his stories started getting published, and he began a period of great literary productivity, while pushing to expand the scope of acceptable material for science fiction with such stories as "The Terminal Beach".

In 1964 Ballard's wife Mary died suddenly of pneumonia, leaving him to raise their three children – James, Fay and Bea Ballard– by himself. Ballard never remarried; however, a few years later his friend and fellow authorMichael Moorcockintroduced him to Claire Walsh, who became his partner for the rest of his life (in fact he died at her London residence), and is often referred to in his writings as "Claire Churchill". After the profound shock of his wife's death, Ballard began in 1965 to write the stories that becameThe Atrocity Exhibition, while continuing to produce stories within the science fiction genre.

The Atrocity Exhibition (1969) proved controversial – it was the subject of an obscenity trial, and in the United States, publisherDoubledaydestroyed almost the entire print run before it was distributed – but it gained Ballard recognition as a literary writer. It remains one of his iconic works, and was filmed in 2001. Along with the book, he also produced a 75-hour installation for theICAcalledThe Assassination Weapon, the title of one of the book's chapters, featuring a film about a deranged H-bomber pilot projected simultaneously on three screens to the sound of cars crashing.

Another chapter of The Atrocity Exhibition is titled "Crash!", and in 1970 Ballard organized an exhibition of crashed cars at the New Arts Laboratory, simply called "Crashed Cars". The crashed vehicles were displayed without commentary, inspiring vitriolic responses and vandalism. In both the story and the art exhibition, Ballard explored the sexual potential of car crashes, a preoccupation which culminated in the novelCrash in 1973.

The main character of Crash is called James Ballard and lives in Shepperton (though other biographical details do not match the writer), and curiosity about the relationship between the character and his author gained fuel when Ballard suffered a serious automobile accident shortly after completing the novel. Regardless of real-life basis, Crash, like The Atrocity Exhibition, was also controversial upon publication. In 1996, the film adaptationbyDavid Cronenbergwas met by atabloiduproar in the UK, with theMail campaigning actively for it to be banned.

Although Ballard published several novels and short-story collections throughout the seventies and eighties, his breakthrough into the mainstream came only with Empire of the Sun in 1984, based on his years in Shanghai and theLunghua internment camp. It became a bestseller, was shortlisted for theBooker Prizeand awarded theGuardian Fiction PrizeandJames Tait Black Memorial Prizefor fiction. It made Ballard known to a wider audience, although the books that followed failed to achieve the same degree of success.Empire of the Sun was filmed by Steven Spielbergin 1987, starring a youngChristian Baleas Jim (Ballard). Ballard himself appears briefly in the film, and he has described the experience of seeing his childhood memories reenacted and reinterpreted as bizarre.

Ballard continued to write until the end of his life, and also contributed occasional journalism and criticism to the British press. Of his later novels, Super-Cannes (2000) was particularly well received, winning the regionalCommonwealth Writers' Prize. Ballard was offered aCBEin 2003, but refused, calling it "aRuritaniancharade that helps to prop up our top-heavy monarchy". In June 2006, he was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer, which metastasizedto his spine and ribs. The last of his books published in his lifetime was the autobiographyMiracles of Life, written after his diagnosis. His final published short story, "The Dying Fall", appeared in the 1996 issue 106 of Interzone, a British sci-fi magazine. It was reproduced in The Guardian on 25 April 2009.

4. Posthumous publication

In October 2008, before his death, Ballard's literary agent Margaret Hanbury brought an outline for a book by Ballard with the working title Conversations with My Physician: The Meaning, if Any, of Life to the Frankfurt Book Fair. The physician in question is oncologist Professor Jonathan Waxman of Imperial College, London, who was treating Ballard for prostate cancer. While it was to be in part a book about cancer, and Ballard's struggle with it, it reportedly was to move on to broader themes. In April 2009 The Guardian reported that HarperCollins announced that Ballard's "Conversations With My Physician" could not be finished and plans to publish it were abandoned.