the monkey puzzle: j.g. ballard

« plague songs | Main | coloured lines »

September 05, 2006

j.g. ballard - kingdom come

J.G. Ballard - Kingdom Come

If you've read any of J.G. Ballard's recent work (Cocaine Nights, Super-Cannes et al - I haven't tackled Millennium People yet) you probably won't be too surprised by his particular viewing angle in Kingdom Come, though his sights have moved on from the upwardly mobile white-collar workforce of Super-Cannes to the sport-mad, shopping-obsessed proletariat. In the process of investigating his father's murder in a shopping centre, an ex-advertising exec comes face to face with the new religion of consumer-fascism that he (and, y'know, all of us - which is the book's not-so-subtle point) helped create. He ties in the rush on St George flags with shopping frenzies and the ugly tide of racist attacks in England. One can't help thinking of New Waver's song Chadstone whilst reading the book.

17:28 reading

Your Host

Andrew J Cosgriff.

Recent Posts

Posts Recently Commented Upon

Ten Most Recent CDs

(intended future purchases)

Currently Listening To

(Sorry, I couldn't reach my AudioScrobbler RSS feed.)

(thanks, last.fm.)

Other Recent Listening

Hair

sorta dark red with one blond bit.

Wasting Time On

work, unfortunately.

Reading

gold, by dan rhodes.
cat's cradle, by kurt vonnegut.

(what else i've been reading)

Help Save The World

I may not (so far) run the kind of blog that posts social conscience linkage - other friends seem to have it covered better than I could manage (yes, I'm aware that's no excuse), but this doesn't mean that I don't care about the State of Things^TM.

i donate to :

but there's other things worth worrying about too, like :

Looking For Something ?

Feed ?

yes indeed - a merged feed of my flickr photos, del.icio.us tags and posts here:

Licensing

This weblog is licensed under a Creative Commons License.

Thanks Heeps

this blog runs on Movable Type

and I use ecto to post, most of the time.