RealityStudio.org

Well, you asked me about him regretting writing Crash, as he obviously did to a degree (probably took him back to an emotionally pained period in his life he did not like to look back on)(but then again who knows), and he did say he regretted it, for whatever reasons. I just provided the quote to back up what I said. You provide an alternative, far earlier quote. Both our quotes back up our own personal stances. He was always conflicted about that book. I think as he got close to the end of his life, and was evaluating it, he looked at that book, where he made his pain most plain, and was embarrassed and disgusted and depressed by it. Personally, I think the near-death quote trumps all previous quotes, because his consciousness, and what he would have believed, would have been very focused near the end, and these would probably have been his final thoughts on Crash. Of course some of his fans are going to think differently, it touched them in different ways. But look at the rest of the interview. He talks about how when he was growing up emotion was never expressed in his household. Crash is one of the angriest, most bitter, most despairing books ever written. I would imagine that having given himself away emotionally like that to the general public - and maybe even himself - would have conflicted a person raised not to express their emotions (of course, part of the reason his work was so extreme, as was WSB's) to the bittersweet end. I personally don't like the book at all, and have read it once, though confess talking about it has made me want to read it again. Pity my copy is in Scotland. Sure the local library will have it. Just need to find some time to finish it, is all. Maybe JGB was embarrassed about how much of his personal private pain he gave away in that book, because it wasn't the old English 'stiff upper lip' fashion. But one thing's for sure. I miss the old man, that's for sure, and always will. And there's nothing I can say beyond that.

fair enough, but when one uses the phrase "in some ways i regret" it's a given that there are more important, or at least other ways that they do not regret. it's like saying to your spouse "in some ways i regret marrying you," you mean that nothing is perfect, but overall, of course you don't regret the marriage. there's probably nothing one does in life that there isn't some regret connected to. to make the statement: he regretted writing it, is in my opinion disingenuous, or at least misleading. somebody could read that statement and think he made a flat out condemnation of the book, but if one reads the full quotes one can see it was much more nuanced than that. just saying.

there has been discussion on the forum of burroughs' common law wife joan vollmer, and of burroughs' changing views on women over the years, but, what are we to make of the strange women who populate ballard's stories? i recently came across this quote.

Now, Camille Paglia's view of women I would endorse 100 per cent, that they are dangerous, passionate, potentially quite cruel and more than a match for any man. I think there is a common female fantasy about cutting the throats of all the men in the world.'
–J.G. Ballard
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/1994/au ... lard/print

here's someone else who didn't care for it.
http://www.complete-review.com/reviews/ ... /crash.htm

how ballard came to write crash:
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/ ... 241208.ece

that was probably a bad example. (my wife wouldn't let me get away with it!) but more like "in some ways i regret being a writer" and he actually said something along those lines as i recall, but there are many ways that he didn't.

reminds me of the oft asked question burroughs would get: is there anything you regret in life? burroughs would answer with something like: there's not a day that goes by that i don't regret something, and you're asking me about a whole lifetime?!"

Thanks for the links, Johnny. I got Crash out of the library today and sat reading a bit of it in the car in the sun in our parking lot, which actually brought the text home a bit more to me, the feel of the steering wheel, the seat, the dials and dashes. Man, what a beautiful, extreme, disturbing, depressing book. The lyrical car-death-fuck passages in the first couple of chapters seem, to me, Burroughs-inspired, though I may be wrong. It's very poetic and sort of beautiful...but he's waxing lyrical about the most insane shit you/he could imagine. Not very enjoyable, but admirable in an extreme sort of way, in that he went as far out as he went and never censored himself. You can't fault that. I think that bad review is bullshit, by the way.

“Ballard’s own uneasiness about ‘Crash’ is clear from his shifting pronouncements about it; he himself can never quite decide if it is a cautionary tale with a moral purpose, a deeply immoral and corrupting book, or a dispassionate forensic examination of a repressed cultural logic.” - Andrzej Gasiorek in his great litcrit Ballard tome.

http://laurahird.com/newreview/jgballard.html

I wonder if Elizabeth Taylor ever read the book (though I doubt it) and, if she did, what she thought of it. Doubt she'd have been happy - probably would have made her afraid to drive on motorways...

Ballardian Glamour

Author: Simon Sellars • Dec 11th, 2008 •
Category: Ballardosphere, academia, fashion, sexual politics

http://www.ballardian.com/ballardian-glamour

Partner of JG Ballard talks about the loss of the author and her role in his work
POSTED BY ALEX AT 15:01

Claire Walsh, long term partner of JG Ballard, has spoken about the author in an interview with the Guardian.

Mr Ballard died last week (19 April) after a long illness. In the article Ms Walsh talks about her 40 years on and off with ‘Jimmy’.

One of the most interesting revelations is that Ballard used Claire as his muse in several of his disturbing stories, including the controversial novel Crash and the character Catherine.

“She was even originally called Claire in the book,” Walsh says. “And had I really been a cross between Mother Teresa and Marilyn Monroe, as the portrait suggested, I might have been keen for that to go ahead. But I persuaded him to change the name in the end. He would use other things, too. I almost drowned once going into the sea after a rock concert wearing a long dress and wellington boots. That cropped up.”

Been a fan of this seminal prescient interview for years:

http://www.jgballard.com/gravenewworld.htm

And one for fans of The Atrocity Exhibition:

http://www.jgballard.ca/interviews/macb ... _1967.html

And that led to a nice wee treasure trove of indexed interviews I will have fun digging through, personally:

http://www.jgballard.ca/interviews/interviews.html

wow! that's something to file away for a rainy day. many thanks!

I'm at work right now and it's very helpful whiling away a boring day.

i've been aware of the TED series for quite a while, but i must admit i robbed the candy store again at simon's twitter/ballardian for this clip; and rightly so, since now i will present to you, a ballardian woman in the flesh (okay a copy). i for one would like to see more examples.
meet rachel armstrong.
i think the photos she shows later would make terrific book covers for JGB.
http://www.ted.com/talks/rachel_armstro ... tself.html

Hafta look at that Armstrong thing at home; no sound here.

Funny thing about reading those Ballard interviews. Reading them in chronological order, you can see the evolution of his thoughts on certain things, but what's also amazing is how little the core of his beliefs in certain aspects of human behavior and evolution and could-be future changed over the decades - he's saying things in 1973 or so that he would still be saying in only slightly different form in 1998 or so. It's fascinating, and shows just how fucking far ahead of the curve he was.

confessions of an agoraphobic flaneur
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D_eq_X_xG6I

Helmut Newton
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVJd1k2Uu5g

This sounds interesting; not a huge Self fan at all but his interview with Ballard in Junk Mail is superb (the U.S. version is horribly edited, as I found out to my cost; get the U.K. version if you want it):

http://www.sffaudio.com/?p=11068

Ballard's turning in his fucking grave (did he get buried or cremated?):

http://music.uk.msn.com/photos/photos.a ... 984&page=3