The Kindness of Women

when i was in grammar school or jr. high school (middle school to some of you freaks) i read "the world according to garp" and my eyes were jerked wide open, revealing so suddenly that adulthood was a desolate place where i wasn't sure i ever wanted to be. there was a build-up of this feeling throughout the book, but i distinctly remember the exact scene where this warning exploded in my face, making everything crystal clear and filling me with a nihilism that took me decades to shake.

this book gave me a shadowy echo of the same feeling, this time centered around the middle-aged years so closely ahead of me. desperation and desolation chase each other like car crash fetishists around the streets of london through most of the book, show more making me feel like i wanted to slam on the brakes and let it all fly past. true. there are some truly transcendent and beautiful moments, some scenes that stopped my heart a little, but mostly i wanted it to end.

i also have to complain, though maybe some others won't care as much as i do, that this is less of a sequel and more of a retelling of empire of the sun. or, rather, it starts with a retelling. suddenly we are back in lunghua camp, but there are all these people who hadn't been there before, all these situations that hadn't existed in the earlier work. i wouldn't mind so much, especially with the new characters added, some of whom i quite enjoyed, but these new storylines effectively erase some of the most poignant moments, and characters, in the "first" book.

some parts of this book would get two more stars, others one less. but, you know, you get what you pay for.

if anyone is interested (though my tenth grade english teacher would gape at the presumption of placing an author's reality on top of his fiction, and the man still influences my decisions to this day) this site has an interesting breakdown of what is fact and what is fiction in this book: http://www.jgballard.ca/criticism/jgb_pringle_kindness.html.

warning. spoilers. duh.

p.s. as a ballard fan, i knew one day i would have to face my techno-aversion and actually read "Crash." i even tried once, but stalled something like ten pages into it. this book had enough of that other work in it to free me from this obligation. at least that's what my mind says. so, it was worth it for that. show less

Sequel to J.G Ballard's Empire of the Sun and relates Jim's life after he leaves Shanghai at the end of WWII and the important relationships which intersect his life, some described in quite explicit sexual detail. I preferred the writing style to Empire of the Sun, and overall found the book interesting and quite sentimental.

The follow up to Empire of the Sun which told the story of Ballard's childhood in Shanghai before WWII and his subsequent internment. Perverted, drunk and highly talented. Ballard's struggle to deal with the scars of his childhood in Shanghai shape his life. The first half of the book is by far the more interesting. He journeys back to England, pursues different careers and has a lot of sex. He marries, has children but always finds himself as on outsider to general society. Determined not to conform to societal norms yet too closely tied by his family to fully break free into the counterculture lifestyle which he skims the surface of. After a life changing incident the book changes. Always the outsider now Ballard seems unable to show more engage life fully and the second half of the book portrays a life lived vicariously. Sex, drink, drugs and Shepperton shape the rest of his life. The last chapter, which shows his reaction to seeing his own life story on the big screen in 'Empire of the Sun' is a fitting finale to two books which are gripping, disturbing and tear inducing. show less

If you have come across The Empire of the Sun, a movie by Stephen Spielberg, that was just one part of J G Ballard’s early life.

The movie is true to the original book. This book is the second part of his autobiography.

To be honest some of his books are weird, like Crash for example but I would never have believed that Crash was based on true events and real people!

If you like biographies, either of these will show you inside a life that is really a mixture of the place and time he was born into and the subsequent unfolding of that, never boring.

Presumably autobiographical novel describing the effects on a European boy of life as a prisoner of the Japanese during World War II. Through a period of excess in the 1960's in England and the USA, during which he meets again friends and acquaintances from wartime Shanghai the central character comes to an understanding of how prison camp life and the war affected them all. Extremely frank and very convincing.

A fictionalized account of Ballard's adult life in England. As with his childhood, trauma intrudes, making life challenging.

Enjoyed Empire of the Sun so much that I bought the sequel - wasn't disappointed.