It is worth noting, too, that Ballard’s career would simply not happen in the same way now. His transformations of genre fiction were, in part, made possible by the existence of a market for genre short stories — science fiction magazines in the 1950s and 1960s published a remarkable number of stories by what now seem classic writers. Those have all disappeared today, and it’s hard not to think that the future of English literature will be poorer as a result. Many of the great masterpieces of the English short story are genre stories — by Conan Doyle, M. R. James and P. G. Wodehouse, for example — and one can’t imagine where they would be published now. Ballard is the last of this distinguished line.
This is a remarkable autobiography, treating events which most of us can barely imagine with tranquil dignity and exactness. It is, Ballard says, his last book; he is terminally ill with cancer, and it ends with a moving tribute to the doctor who has made this final work, with its highly un- Ballardian title, possible. It has been a great career, and despite the wildness and provocations of many of his books, Ballard has carried out Matthew Arnold’s imprecation to ‘see life steadily and see it whole’. This is an unforgettable farewell.
Comments
Edward Morris
February 7th, 2008 5:06pmBallard is not the last of any line, and nothing has "all but disappeared." Genre fiction is completely alive and well, and if anyone here or at the NYT managed to bring their nose out of the air or remove their head from their backside they might actually find what Kit Marlowe called 'the literature of the age' right there in front of their noses instead of assuming that "genre fiction" ends at any given year. "Genre fiction that the mainstream supports or is willing to understand", yes. But the pulps haven't died at all, simply gone to where it takes some actual heart and research to write about them instead of nailing an entire arm of fiction into a coffin just to feed the world view that Random House or whoever is pushing this year. For shame.
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