Books
Miracles of Life
A crash course in survival
J. G. BallardFourth Estate, 278pp, ££14.99,
Philip Hensher on J.G. Ballard's memoirs
No one would be allowed to have J. G. Ballard’s career nowadays. When you consider the life of the average English novelist, what Cyril Connolly called the poverty of experience seems almost overwhelming, as the budding writer moves from school to university to a creative writing MA and on to the two-book contract. It is as thin a body of lived experience as the average Labour Cabinet minister possesses.
Reading J. G. Ballard’s autobiography, you sometimes need to pause to remind yourself just how young he was at the time of many of the atrocious events described. At the point where most English autobiographies are just beginning, as the subject leaves university, enough horror has been lived through by Ballard to supply a lifetime’s imaginative transformations.
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Three men and a singer
Harriet SergeantThe China Lover, by Ian Buruma
Not always a saint
Alan StrachanSybil Thorndike: A Star of Life, by Jonathan Croall
New light on a dark age
Jonathan SumptionMillennium: The End of the World and the Forging of Christendom, by Tom Holland
Books Of The Year
A further selection of the best and worst books of 2008 , chosen by some of our regular reviewers
Love between the lines
Sam LeithWords in Air: The Complete Correspondence Between Elizabeth Bishop and Robert Lowell,
edited by Thomas Travisano and Saskia Hamilton
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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.