J. G. Ballard's "Miracles of Life"

I found this to be an enjoyable autobiography. I haven't read Ballard's work. I did watch the film Empire of the Sun. That's what made this book interesting. It let me see the story of his incarceration in a Japanese POW camp from two perspectives. That was interesting.

From what I gleaned from this book, I don't think I would like Ballard's fiction. His science fiction from a psychological 'what now' doesn't sound interesting. His description of the London art scene and his role in it doesn't interest me. I remember when the film Crash came out. It didn't interest me. But this book was interesting and the story of Empire of the Sun interested me.

I found this book oddly disturbing for his distance from his mother and father. He talks of them being cold, but his treatment of them was cold. From what I glean from this book, his fiction was disturbing, distant, and cold. He blames the experiences of his youth for shaping him. But I wonder. There is a coldness that runs through his fiction. While he claims the joys of family and his children, I don't get a sense of any human closeness to others. Strange man.

Here's a bit from the book I enjoyed. Ballard is revealing the seedy side of Kingsley Amis a friend:

Undoubtedly, Amis did have his mean streak, and was one of those people who feel a need to break with all their friends. His treatment of women could be crude. One of his former lovers, a student during his Swansea teaching days, told me that he would regularaly order his wife into the nearby park when it was time for his 'tutorial' with her. There the novelist's wife would push the pram until he drew the bedroom curtains and signal that she could return.