English novelist (1930-2009)
The first person I met at Eden-Olympia was a psychiatrist, and in many ways it seems only too apt that my guide to this "intelligent" city on the hills above Cannes should have been a specialist in mental disorders. I realize now that a kind of waiting madness, like a state of undeclared war, haunted the office buildings of the business park. For most of us, Dr. Wilder Penrose was our amiable Prospero, the psychopomp who steered our darkest dreams towards the daylight. I remember his eager smile when we greeted each other, and the evasive eyes that warned me away from his outstretched hand. Only when I learned to admire this flawed and dangerous man was I able to think of killing him.
J. G. BALLARD
Super-Cannes
The Chinese enjoyed the spectacle of death, Jim had decided, as a way of reminding themselves of how precariously they were alive. They liked to be cruel for the same reason, to remind themselves of the vanity of thinking the world was anything else.
J. G. BALLARD
Empire of the Sun
Thinking of his unsettled dreams, and puzzled by their missing sound track, Jim tugged at his ruffed collar.
J. G. BALLARD
Empire of the Sun
First wives are a rite of passage into adult life. In many ways it's important that first marriages go wrong. That's how we learn the truth about ourselves.
J. G. BALLARD
Millennium People
In a real war, no one knew which side he was on, and there were no flags or commentators or winners.
J. G. BALLARD
Empire of the Sun
Psychiatrists — the dominant lay priesthood since the First World War.
J. G. BALLARD
A User's Guide to the Millennium
The camera resumes its melancholy tour.
J. G. BALLARD
Running Wild
Appearances proved nothing and everything.
J. G. BALLARD
Millennium People