Went to a fascinating exhibition yesterday on the life and works of JG Ballard (link here).

When I first discovered Ballard (especially with Concrete Island and High Rise) I remember being blown away by him, since then I've come across works of his which didn't do much for me, but I still think he deserves more plaudits than he gets. Partly I think it's because he's somehow considered to be a science fiction writer, which I think is a term that doesn't really suit (his books are mostly about imagined futures* - if that's sci-fi then so is The Road for example)

*The exhibition makes the point that he shifted from writing about the future to writing about the present reality in the 80s sometime, but it's hard to see the shift, because the future he imagined became the present

Anyway, it's definitely worth going to if you happen to be in Barcelona between now and November, though I wouldn't go as far as to say that it's so good that it's worth making a special trip.

(thread title taken from a series of odd advertisements he put in random magazines in the 70s while preparing to write The Atrocity Exhibition)

I thought Millennium People was highly amusing. I really liked the idea of middle-class riots and the rejection of high culture as part of the rat race.

I enjoyed High-Rise, too, but I think it would have been a bit more powerful when it was first written in the 60s or early 70s. I can see why it's called sci-fi...being Clockwork Orange-ish and all.

Why is the exhibition in Barcelona? Is it travelling from the UK?

I think he's been playing around with alternative presents rather than the future for a long time. Stuff like Crash and The Unlimited Dream Company were as much set in the present and SuperCannes or Cocaine Nights; although they were slightly more wildly imagined presents.

I always think he's underrated, but there are times when he feels like he's writing as a parody of himself - I particularly thought that about Kingdom Come. I think that, along with that because he plays much more with ideas than characters will always weigh against him with "serious" critics.

One thing I learned was that he published a pamphlet called "Why I Want To Fuck Ronald Reagan" which was then included in the appendix of the US version of the Atrocity Exhibition causing the whole thing to be pulped. It was subsequently printed out on authentic looking Republican national Committee paper and handed out at the convention in 1980 by some situationist group. (The wiki article on this suggests it might not have happened, but they do have the document in all its glory on display at the exhibition)

AG: I have no idea why Barcelona. I suspect the head honcho of the museum likes him and commissioned it.

Here it is. I thought it was very funny.

What exactly is a situationist? An anarchist?

No, worse. Someone who thinks that revolution is best brought about through art and theater.

Every time you see a bunch of students carrying around a coffin marked "the Death of Accessible Education" or some such thing, you are watching the bastard children of Guy Debord and the situationists.

Every time?

Memetic children, that is.

And yes, every single time.

Wait up AG, it's not quite as linear as that is it? For starters the Situationists existed for quite a while before Debord became involved with them. Their art/theatre agitprop, which only came to prominence in May 68, and Debord "led," was heavily — and I mean really heavily — influenced by Dadaist events fifty years previous. Also, contemporaneously, Rubin and Hoffman's Yippies predated May 68 by several months, and were producing very visible absurdist/political events before Paris Spring. It's probably impossible to say who new about what at the time but I think it's safe to say it wasn't, and isn't, all down to Debord.

Quite right, AdC. Though I did say "and the situationists" to cover this off.

I think I find J.G. Ballard more of an attractive idea than a reality, which might <he says, smugly licking his lip and flicking his eyes to the side> even be appropriate. I've got his collected short stories on the shelf and I can't get past the first page of any of them - such unengaging prose.

But, Crash is astonishing. It really is head-spinningly good, and completely inexplicable. I admired The Atrocity Exhibition but I read the widescreen version with all the bits in the margins (Is it still published in that format? I don't know) and it's more of a visual art thing than a decent novel.

But him, out in Surrey, getting up every morning, sending the kids to school, setting about the sherry by 10am, and sitting down to draft Why I Want To Fuck Ronald Reagan - you've got to love that.

He's a surrealist above all, isn't he?

I've got his collected short stories on the shelf and I can't get past the first page of any of them

I used to read La Signora to sleep with one every night after she came out of hospital. They were odd but felt right in a prickly sort of way.