J.G. Ballard Death Watch

As regular readers well know, I contemplated buying J.G. Ballard's The Atrocity Exhibition back in April.

Now comes word that Ballard has written his last book: his autobiography Miracles of Life, published in this year of our Lord two thousand and eight. However, all of his work has been vaguely autobiographical. This is what makes him such a fascinating figure, for me at least. The idea that one could draw a line from Jamie Graham of the 1940s Japanese-occupied Shanghai of Empire of the Sun to the automotive paraphiliac James Ballard of the transgressive new wave sf Crash. Either that, or its all one big joke.

Miracles of Life is Ballard's last book because frankly, he is dying. Terminally. Of advanced prostate cancer.

I still hope to get my hands on Ballard's The Atrocity Exhibition. And Crash. And The Drowned World. And Empire of the Sun. And High-Rise. And anything else, and there is plenty else.

The Atrocity Exhibition famously, or infamously, includes the short story "Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan." Reagan at the time of writing and publication in 1967-8 was, of course, still just Governor of California and a politician-to-watch. Here best to remember the man, a living memoriam, is an excerpt:

THE CONCEPTUAL ROLE OF REAGAN. Fragments of Reagan’s cinetized postures were used in the construction of model psychodramas in which the Reagan-figure played the role of husband, doctor, insurance salesman, marriage counselor, etc.

The failure of these roles to express any meaning reveals the nonfunctional character of Reagan. Reagan’s success therefore indicates society’s periodic need to re-conceptualize its political leaders. Reagan thus appears as a series of posture concepts, basic equations which reformulate the roles of aggression and anality. Reagan’s personality. The profound anality of the Presidential contender may be expected to dominate the United States in the coming years. By contrast the late JFK remained the prototype of the oral subject, usually conceived in pre-pubertal terms. In further studies sadistic psychopaths were given the task of devising sex fantasies involving Reagan. Results confirm the probability of Presidential figures being perceived primarily in genital terms; the face of LB Johnson is clearly genital in significant appearance--the nasal prepuce, scrotal jaw, etc. Faces were seen as either circumcised (JFK, Khrushchev) or uncircumcised (LBJ, Adenauer). In assembly-kit tests Reagan’s face was uniformly perceived as a penile erection. Patients were encouraged to devise the optimum sex-death of Ronald Reagan.

Twelve minutes to midnight.

Bonus Memoriam: A shot from the David Cronenberg's film adaptation of Crash. Here we see the vulva-like scar on the back thigh, an automobile accident-caused leg wound, of a character before the main character penetrates it sexually, liberating-ly so. These cars, this "perverse technology," this reshaping of the human body by modern technology," all brought to the forefront, the new flesh:


Bon appétit.