Mon 21 Jan 2008
J. G. Ballard: Shanghai Hunchbacks
Monday, Jan 21st, 2008 at 3:21 pmCategories: China; History; Ballard, J.G.
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A striking reminiscence from J. G. Ballard:
Shanghai was one of the largest cities in the world, 90% Chinese and 100% Americanised. Bizarre advertising displays – the honour guard of 50 Chinese hunchbacks outside the premiere of The Hunchback of Notre Dame sticks in my mind – were part of the everyday reality of the city, though I sometimes wonder if everyday reality was the one element missing.
- J. G. Ballard @ Times Online: Link.
Via Boing Boing.
Miracles of Life @ Amazon.
I’m saddened to hear that Ballard is in the late stages of cancer. I read some of his books and short stories over the years, beginning in my teens; never so much as to make me a fan, but enough to give me the sense that I’d met the author and liked him as a person.
“Death was what the Atlantic wall and Siegfried line were all about. Whenever I came across these grim fortifications along France’s Channel coast and German border, I realised I was exploring a set of concrete tombs whose dark ghosts haunted the brutalist architecture so popular in Britain in the 1950s.”