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Empire of the Sun #2
The Kindness of Women
Ballard here writes a brilliant hybrid of autobiography and fiction. The sequel to The Empire of the Sun, this work puts his earlier account of a boy’s experiences in occupied Shanghai in the context of a lifetime. Ballard’s eye has never been more cinematic, and his writing, especially in the love scenes, is a masterful blend of the raw and the tender.
352 pages, Paperback
First published December 15, 1991
About the author
J.G. Ballard
411 books3,847 followersJames Graham "J. G." Ballard (15 November 1930 – 19 April 2009) was an English novelist, short story writer, and essayist. Ballard came to be associated with the New Wave of science fiction early in his career with apocalyptic (or post-apocalyptic) novels such as The Drowned World (1962), The Burning World (1964), and The Crystal World (1966). In the late 1960s and early 1970s Ballard focused on an eclectic variety of short stories (or "condensed novels") such as The Atrocity Exhibition (1970), which drew closer comparison with the work of postmodernist writers such as William S. Burroughs. In 1973 the highly controversial novel Crash was published, a story about symphorophilia and car crash fetishism; the protagonist becomes sexually aroused by staging and participating in real car crashes. The story was later adapted into a film of the same name by Canadian director David Cronenberg.
While many of Ballard's stories are thematically and narratively unusual, he is perhaps best known for his relatively conventional war novel, Empire of the Sun (1984), a semi-autobiographical account of a young boy's experiences in Shanghai during the Second Sino-Japanese War as it came to be occupied by the Japanese Imperial Army. Described as "The best British novel about the Second World War" by The Guardian, the story was adapted into a 1987 film by Steven Spielberg.
The literary distinctiveness of Ballard's work has given rise to the adjective "Ballardian", defined by the Collins English Dictionary as "resembling or suggestive of the conditions described in J. G. Ballard's novels and stories, especially dystopian modernity, bleak man-made landscapes and the psychological effects of technological, social or environmental developments." The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry describes Ballard's work as being occupied with "eros, thanatos, mass media and emergent technologies".
While many of Ballard's stories are thematically and narratively unusual, he is perhaps best known for his relatively conventional war novel, Empire of the Sun (1984), a semi-autobiographical account of a young boy's experiences in Shanghai during the Second Sino-Japanese War as it came to be occupied by the Japanese Imperial Army. Described as "The best British novel about the Second World War" by The Guardian, the story was adapted into a 1987 film by Steven Spielberg.
The literary distinctiveness of Ballard's work has given rise to the adjective "Ballardian", defined by the Collins English Dictionary as "resembling or suggestive of the conditions described in J. G. Ballard's novels and stories, especially dystopian modernity, bleak man-made landscapes and the psychological effects of technological, social or environmental developments." The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography entry describes Ballard's work as being occupied with "eros, thanatos, mass media and emergent technologies".
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 107 reviews
September 19, 2012
This semi-autobiographical book contains one of the more bizarre and memorable seduction scenes I've come across. He's just met the woman, and he's standing in her kitchen. He asks her if she's married. She says she's divorced, but her ex-husband comes round every week to wash his clothes in her washing machine, and then they usually have sex.
"Do you have anything to wash?" she adds as an afterthought.
He's only got a pocket handkerchief, but that turns out to be enough.
"Do you have anything to wash?" she adds as an afterthought.
He's only got a pocket handkerchief, but that turns out to be enough.
August 14, 2023
My attempt to find equal pleasure while reading this as with Ballard's Empire of the Sun, did not come to pass. I often thought of the impressive earlier book and hoped that this would be the same. This is considered #2 of the earlier title, both semi-autobiographical, picking up from his experiences as a young boy in Shanghai during WW II.
Most of the narrative was technically well-written, but often there seemed to be gaps in the tale. It seemed to me that Ballard had a dual emphasis- sex and death. I am aware enough to understand the proclivities of human sexual attraction and varied practices, but his frequency and depth of the descriptions began to lessen my attention and appeal. How much can one appreciate the vivid portrayal of female anatomy and bodily secretions? It all began to interfere with my appreciation of the progression of the story.
His emphasis on death was more easily explained. He had observed and experienced many fatalities during and also after the war years. Remarkably, he was left caring for three young children following his wife's passing. He did describe that event tenderly and sadly.
Although this author is no longer living, I think that I will seek out other books he has written. After all, I did enjoy the earlier related work.
Most of the narrative was technically well-written, but often there seemed to be gaps in the tale. It seemed to me that Ballard had a dual emphasis- sex and death. I am aware enough to understand the proclivities of human sexual attraction and varied practices, but his frequency and depth of the descriptions began to lessen my attention and appeal. How much can one appreciate the vivid portrayal of female anatomy and bodily secretions? It all began to interfere with my appreciation of the progression of the story.
His emphasis on death was more easily explained. He had observed and experienced many fatalities during and also after the war years. Remarkably, he was left caring for three young children following his wife's passing. He did describe that event tenderly and sadly.
Although this author is no longer living, I think that I will seek out other books he has written. After all, I did enjoy the earlier related work.
April 25, 2024
Following on from Empire Of The Sun which gave insights into the origins of many of Ballard's preoccupations (such as crashed aircraft, drained swimming pools) this sequel fictionalises his later life. We get the crashed cars which fed into Crash and an LSD trip that seems to provide the inspiration for The Crystal World.
This time around I'm appreciating this much more.
This time around I'm appreciating this much more.
July 25, 2011
Rather than 'The Kindness of Women', perhaps this novel should be called 'The Secretions of Women'. In a sequence of sexual encounters, described in forensic detail for no discernible reason, bodily fluids ooze from every orifice. These graphic and sometimes disgusting descriptions of the sexual life are soaked in sweat, blood and mucus. Ballard's women, with all their lumps and bumps, their spots and scars, are as clinically described as is the female cadaver that he dissects as a medical student at Cambridge.
There is nothing erotic about this, but then the book is not intended as a work of erotic fiction. The novel is heavily autobiographical, told chronologically in a series of episodic chapters, but with uneven and sometimes lengthy passages of time from one chapter to the next. It opens in 1937 in Shanghai, at the beginning of the second Sino-Japanese war. We follow Jim, the author's fictional self, from his Shanghai beginnings and his wartime experiences, to Cambridge as a medical student, and then to Canada as a trainee RAF pilot. Jim then appears as a married man in Shepperton, and we follow him through his adult life, with chapters describing the cultural and social revolution of the 1960s, and references to the novels that Ballard wrote during that time. The novel ends rather neatly when Jim returns to his childhood beginnings in Shanghai by way of participating in the filming of 'Empire of the Sun', his first autobiographical novel set in war-time Shanghai. The filming takes place at Shepperton studios, a mere stone's throw from his home.
Ballard was a child prisoner of war at the Lunghua camp in Shanghai, and his wartime experiences were to have a lasting effect on his life and his worldview. A particular incident, when Ballard witnessed the cruel murder of a Chinese youth by Japanese soldiers at a wayside railway station, seems to have haunted Ballard throughout his life. Both of these events are described in the early chapters of the 'The Kindness of Women'.
Ballard's adult life was also beset by tragedy when his wife died in her early 30s of an infection while on holiday in Spain. This tragic event is fictionalised in the novel as an accident that results in a fatal head injury.
The kindness of the women in this novel refers to their role in helping Ballard come to terms with the atrocities he witnessed as a child and to help him overcome his grief at the loss of his wife.
This is almost a very fine novel, but ultimately unsatisfying. Ballard wrote that the novel "represented my own life seen through the body of fiction that was prompted by that life." Anyone not familiar with much of Ballard's work might therefore struggle to make sense of some of the novel's episodes. I am one of those people.
There is nothing erotic about this, but then the book is not intended as a work of erotic fiction. The novel is heavily autobiographical, told chronologically in a series of episodic chapters, but with uneven and sometimes lengthy passages of time from one chapter to the next. It opens in 1937 in Shanghai, at the beginning of the second Sino-Japanese war. We follow Jim, the author's fictional self, from his Shanghai beginnings and his wartime experiences, to Cambridge as a medical student, and then to Canada as a trainee RAF pilot. Jim then appears as a married man in Shepperton, and we follow him through his adult life, with chapters describing the cultural and social revolution of the 1960s, and references to the novels that Ballard wrote during that time. The novel ends rather neatly when Jim returns to his childhood beginnings in Shanghai by way of participating in the filming of 'Empire of the Sun', his first autobiographical novel set in war-time Shanghai. The filming takes place at Shepperton studios, a mere stone's throw from his home.
Ballard was a child prisoner of war at the Lunghua camp in Shanghai, and his wartime experiences were to have a lasting effect on his life and his worldview. A particular incident, when Ballard witnessed the cruel murder of a Chinese youth by Japanese soldiers at a wayside railway station, seems to have haunted Ballard throughout his life. Both of these events are described in the early chapters of the 'The Kindness of Women'.
Ballard's adult life was also beset by tragedy when his wife died in her early 30s of an infection while on holiday in Spain. This tragic event is fictionalised in the novel as an accident that results in a fatal head injury.
The kindness of the women in this novel refers to their role in helping Ballard come to terms with the atrocities he witnessed as a child and to help him overcome his grief at the loss of his wife.
This is almost a very fine novel, but ultimately unsatisfying. Ballard wrote that the novel "represented my own life seen through the body of fiction that was prompted by that life." Anyone not familiar with much of Ballard's work might therefore struggle to make sense of some of the novel's episodes. I am one of those people.
November 9, 2015
Masterful storytelling, challenging our perceptions of convention.
After reading a literary disaster (The WallCreeper by Nell Zink) I was over-the-top relieved to be introduced to a true storyteller in reading The Kindness of Women by J.G. Ballard.
As I understand, this is the sequel to Empire of the Sun, which I did not read. I'd usually read the first one beforehand, but in this case, I was too eager to read Kindness to bother.
This book is so rich. Ballard leaves nothing bare, painting and building every detail until it's a rich impasto of color and sound. His writing is superb, the easy prose of a storyteller at home in his words.
We begin with the protagonist as a young boy in Shanghai, living in colonial bliss with his parents and Russian immigrant Nanny, Olga. The boy, James, is fascinated by war, but the undercurrent we immediately begin to feel is his fascination with the women in his life. This fascination is not, however, one-dimensional. There are layers upon layers of intrigue. When James gets his wish and war breaks out, he is separated from his parents and placed into a Japanese internment camp. He meets, Peggy, the first of many women he meets throughout his life that gives him a dose of the kindness of women.
When the war is over, he moves back to England and is lost for a time, searching for who he is and what he wants to be. But Shanghai has a hold on him, and the war, and he can't ever let that go, even as he settles in a small town in the countryside with his wife and three children.
When tragedy strikes James on a vacation to Spain, he is left to care for his three children alone. One of the most poignant and beautiful scenes in the book occurs upon his return home, when in his despair and grief, a woman whom no one could suspect, comes to his aid using her body and love for him to salve his emptiness and feelings of loss.
And this is the main theme of the story, these women who parade in and out of James's life, women who give him a piece of himself he didn't know he had lost so long ago in China. As he moves through the information age of television in the sixties and seventies, through strange dabblings with hallucinogenic drugs, his perceptions of reality get tested again and again, but the love he has for the various women in his life ground him, bring him back to the comfort of home and the juxtaposition of his wandering soul versus his craving for a provincial life.
The end of the book brings him full circle, to where he'd began his adventures in China, and I was also brought full circle as he speaks of "the women he has known;" I was given a glimpse into his reverence for the female mind, body, soul that left me with a sense of reverence for the intricacies and variations in human relationships--how utterly complex and nuanced they are, how incredibly fragile yet resilient our existence is.
Beautifully written, soulful and rich, this story takes "convention" and stretches our ideas of "morality" and causes them to groan with pleasure at the expansion. I'm eager to discover more of J.G. Ballard.
After reading a literary disaster (The WallCreeper by Nell Zink) I was over-the-top relieved to be introduced to a true storyteller in reading The Kindness of Women by J.G. Ballard.
As I understand, this is the sequel to Empire of the Sun, which I did not read. I'd usually read the first one beforehand, but in this case, I was too eager to read Kindness to bother.
This book is so rich. Ballard leaves nothing bare, painting and building every detail until it's a rich impasto of color and sound. His writing is superb, the easy prose of a storyteller at home in his words.
We begin with the protagonist as a young boy in Shanghai, living in colonial bliss with his parents and Russian immigrant Nanny, Olga. The boy, James, is fascinated by war, but the undercurrent we immediately begin to feel is his fascination with the women in his life. This fascination is not, however, one-dimensional. There are layers upon layers of intrigue. When James gets his wish and war breaks out, he is separated from his parents and placed into a Japanese internment camp. He meets, Peggy, the first of many women he meets throughout his life that gives him a dose of the kindness of women.
When the war is over, he moves back to England and is lost for a time, searching for who he is and what he wants to be. But Shanghai has a hold on him, and the war, and he can't ever let that go, even as he settles in a small town in the countryside with his wife and three children.
When tragedy strikes James on a vacation to Spain, he is left to care for his three children alone. One of the most poignant and beautiful scenes in the book occurs upon his return home, when in his despair and grief, a woman whom no one could suspect, comes to his aid using her body and love for him to salve his emptiness and feelings of loss.
And this is the main theme of the story, these women who parade in and out of James's life, women who give him a piece of himself he didn't know he had lost so long ago in China. As he moves through the information age of television in the sixties and seventies, through strange dabblings with hallucinogenic drugs, his perceptions of reality get tested again and again, but the love he has for the various women in his life ground him, bring him back to the comfort of home and the juxtaposition of his wandering soul versus his craving for a provincial life.
The end of the book brings him full circle, to where he'd began his adventures in China, and I was also brought full circle as he speaks of "the women he has known;" I was given a glimpse into his reverence for the female mind, body, soul that left me with a sense of reverence for the intricacies and variations in human relationships--how utterly complex and nuanced they are, how incredibly fragile yet resilient our existence is.
Beautifully written, soulful and rich, this story takes "convention" and stretches our ideas of "morality" and causes them to groan with pleasure at the expansion. I'm eager to discover more of J.G. Ballard.
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October 31, 2018Sećate se filma sa onim dečakom (koji će, kad poraste, da postane Betmen) koji je silom prilika i voljom kretenskih manijaka=političara (i, ništa boljih, građana koji su za njih glasali) završio u japanskom logoru, pa nekoliko godinica mora da se igra zanimljivom igrom koja se zove Preživljavanje?
Setićete se da je mali Džimi uspeo da preživi sve nedaće, da je iz barake stegnutih Britanaca prešao u američku baraku, da je sačuvao svoje lepe cipele i pilotsku jaknu, da je preživeo strogog narednika Nagatu, i da je na kraju balade hrana, zajedno sa ponekom atomskom bombom, padala sa neba… Nastupilo je doba obilja i neprepoznavanja roditelja.
E, šta je, zaboga miloga, posle rata bilo sa Džimijem? Upravo o tome nam govori roman „Dobrota žena“ glasovitog britanskog autora Dž. G. Balarda. Džimi se vratio u Veliku Britaniju i tu je čekao da počne neizbežni Treći svetski rat. Prtljag trauma koje je prošvercovao u svoju novu domovinu bio je pretežak za normalno funkcionisanje. Džimi želi da bude lekar, pilot, pisac, suprug, otac, ugledni građanin sela Luga (ili kako se veće zove englesko seoce u kome je pokušao da nađe mir).
Ipak, logor, atomska bomba i smrt koju je video i dalje utiču na njegov život.
Kao čovek koji je i sam veoma rano u životu video svet u svoj njegovoj surovosti, čovečanstvo ogoljeno od naučenih trikova civilizacije i svedeno na osnovni instinkt za preživljavanjem po svaku cenu, kao i smrt u svoj njenoj veličanstvenoj banalnosti lišenoj bilo kakvog misticizma ili nadnaravnog Balard je uvek na granici da njegovo pisanje sklizne u naučnu fantastiku i apsurd. Čini se da ga samo groteskna nakaznost stvarnosti odvraća od toga da posegne za neverovatnim prilikom dokumentovanja viđenog i proživljenog.
„Dobrota žena“ je roman koji je čvrsto utemeljen u stvarnosti i u tome se i zasniva sav horor i osećaj neprijatnosti tokom čitanja. Opisujući svet i društvo onakvim kakvim ga vidi neko ko je lišen bilo kakvih obzira za uglađenim šminkanjem stvarnosti Dž. G. Balard u svom romanu skicira stravu i užas sveta stvorenog na temeljima strahotama rata „koji će okončati sve ratove“. Ili je, beše, u pitanju rat posle tog rata? Ili onaj posle?
Više o romanu možete pročitati na ovom linku: http://www.bookvar.rs/dobrota-zena-tr...
Setićete se da je mali Džimi uspeo da preživi sve nedaće, da je iz barake stegnutih Britanaca prešao u američku baraku, da je sačuvao svoje lepe cipele i pilotsku jaknu, da je preživeo strogog narednika Nagatu, i da je na kraju balade hrana, zajedno sa ponekom atomskom bombom, padala sa neba… Nastupilo je doba obilja i neprepoznavanja roditelja.
E, šta je, zaboga miloga, posle rata bilo sa Džimijem? Upravo o tome nam govori roman „Dobrota žena“ glasovitog britanskog autora Dž. G. Balarda. Džimi se vratio u Veliku Britaniju i tu je čekao da počne neizbežni Treći svetski rat. Prtljag trauma koje je prošvercovao u svoju novu domovinu bio je pretežak za normalno funkcionisanje. Džimi želi da bude lekar, pilot, pisac, suprug, otac, ugledni građanin sela Luga (ili kako se veće zove englesko seoce u kome je pokušao da nađe mir).
Ipak, logor, atomska bomba i smrt koju je video i dalje utiču na njegov život.
Kao čovek koji je i sam veoma rano u životu video svet u svoj njegovoj surovosti, čovečanstvo ogoljeno od naučenih trikova civilizacije i svedeno na osnovni instinkt za preživljavanjem po svaku cenu, kao i smrt u svoj njenoj veličanstvenoj banalnosti lišenoj bilo kakvog misticizma ili nadnaravnog Balard je uvek na granici da njegovo pisanje sklizne u naučnu fantastiku i apsurd. Čini se da ga samo groteskna nakaznost stvarnosti odvraća od toga da posegne za neverovatnim prilikom dokumentovanja viđenog i proživljenog.
„Dobrota žena“ je roman koji je čvrsto utemeljen u stvarnosti i u tome se i zasniva sav horor i osećaj neprijatnosti tokom čitanja. Opisujući svet i društvo onakvim kakvim ga vidi neko ko je lišen bilo kakvih obzira za uglađenim šminkanjem stvarnosti Dž. G. Balard u svom romanu skicira stravu i užas sveta stvorenog na temeljima strahotama rata „koji će okončati sve ratove“. Ili je, beše, u pitanju rat posle tog rata? Ili onaj posle?
Više o romanu možete pročitati na ovom linku: http://www.bookvar.rs/dobrota-zena-tr...
November 28, 2017
The Fifty Year Therapy Session
You really can see how Ballard's life informed his fiction. What is High Rise if nothing more than a vertical Prisoner of War camp? What is The Unlimited Dream Company if nothing more than a prose jigsaw puzzle of Shepperton and environs put together through the kaleidoscope of a one-time LSD trip? The sex scenes drafted as Penthouse Letters from a deranged medical school dropout.
This autobiographical novel is like the second disc in a special edition DVD set - the one you watch eventually someday for a little background: behind-the-scenes footage and deleted scenes. Yes, you watch it, but only when you've watched the first disc, the main attraction, five or six times, and then with the commentary track three or four more. In other words, this book is inessential unless you are a Ballard completist of one stripe or another. And for those who wear those stripes, those oil-slick tyre treads glittering with the white dust of shattered glass, this is the good stuff right here.
You really can see how Ballard's life informed his fiction. What is High Rise if nothing more than a vertical Prisoner of War camp? What is The Unlimited Dream Company if nothing more than a prose jigsaw puzzle of Shepperton and environs put together through the kaleidoscope of a one-time LSD trip? The sex scenes drafted as Penthouse Letters from a deranged medical school dropout.
This autobiographical novel is like the second disc in a special edition DVD set - the one you watch eventually someday for a little background: behind-the-scenes footage and deleted scenes. Yes, you watch it, but only when you've watched the first disc, the main attraction, five or six times, and then with the commentary track three or four more. In other words, this book is inessential unless you are a Ballard completist of one stripe or another. And for those who wear those stripes, those oil-slick tyre treads glittering with the white dust of shattered glass, this is the good stuff right here.
May 2, 2015
Insight into an author, and the insane changes since WWII
I found his well-known, semi-autobiographic "Empire of the Sun" so interesting, I had to read this follow-up. What makes this novel stand out is that the main character is both very normal (a shy middle class middle aged father living in a UK suburb) and very weird (a man who is involved in one bizarre adventure after another, which are often significant artistic events, with very original creative people). This contrast gives the novel a kind of Gulliver's Travels flavor: instead of a novel by and about a swinger bragging about how swinging he was and all the important things he participated in, it's by and about a clueless misfit wondering why he is in the middle of all this excitement and social turmoil. Lots of fun, and highly recommended if you are interested in the contrast between the life of an author, his creations, and his beliefs, which are 3 different universes.
I found his well-known, semi-autobiographic "Empire of the Sun" so interesting, I had to read this follow-up. What makes this novel stand out is that the main character is both very normal (a shy middle class middle aged father living in a UK suburb) and very weird (a man who is involved in one bizarre adventure after another, which are often significant artistic events, with very original creative people). This contrast gives the novel a kind of Gulliver's Travels flavor: instead of a novel by and about a swinger bragging about how swinging he was and all the important things he participated in, it's by and about a clueless misfit wondering why he is in the middle of all this excitement and social turmoil. Lots of fun, and highly recommended if you are interested in the contrast between the life of an author, his creations, and his beliefs, which are 3 different universes.
July 11, 2019
This one's a rollicking, mad ride. Unexpected, but pleasantly so. Didn't think the Shepperton master could be so emotional and sensual. It's all about death: one precise, unbearable moment and how Ballard exorcises this childhood trauma through women, art, paternity, writing, and Spielberg. Up there with Crash, The Crystal World, and Cocaine Nights. Read this and be changed forever.
April 6, 2020
4.5 stars. A very well written, engaging, interesting, semi autobiographical novel about some major events in the narrator’s life. The novel is a sequel to ‘Empire of the Sun’. The book begins when ‘Jim’, the narrator, is 7 years old and living in Shanghai with his parents. Towards the end of World War II Jim is separated from his parents and imprisoned. The story shifts to Cambridge, England where Jim studies medicine for over one year. Then there is an account of him as a pilot in Saskatchewan for a couple of years. Jim then goes to England, writing and getting married. The author focuses on Jim’s coming to terms with ‘death’ and ‘sex’. He has a number of friends who he stays in contact with and his relationships with them are well described.
Here is an example of Ballard’s writing style:
‘Recently she had become intrigued by the admiring glances of other women. The admiration of her own sex existed on a higher and more intense plane than anything men could offer, like the romantic rivalries of sisters. Together, women formed a conspiracy of glances entirely exchanged behind the backs of their menfolk.’
Readers who enjoy Ballard’s writing style and are interested in Ballard’s life should find this book a worthwhile read.
Here is an example of Ballard’s writing style:
‘Recently she had become intrigued by the admiring glances of other women. The admiration of her own sex existed on a higher and more intense plane than anything men could offer, like the romantic rivalries of sisters. Together, women formed a conspiracy of glances entirely exchanged behind the backs of their menfolk.’
Readers who enjoy Ballard’s writing style and are interested in Ballard’s life should find this book a worthwhile read.
December 31, 2021
On my fourth read through I find that Ballard's work actually improves for me. This is one of those books that has managed to inform my own life in unexpected ways and is an illustration of the mystery that is literature. New areas of my life are illuminated. Old beliefs are polished with the nuance of experience. And again, I find myself in agreement with Ballard about the most glorious of gifts one can be given is the kindness of women.
Ballard is one of my favorite writers. He often gets grouped in science fiction for some unknown reason. A few books have impacted my life for years. This is one.
So fifth time through in 2021. I re-read in 2021. In part because this book and three others (The Stranger, The Winter of Our Discontent and The Sun Also Rises) were part of the inspiration for my wife's (J.A. Carter-Winward) 2021 Literary Novel of the Year for Indie Reader, Wade.
As 2021 draws to a close, I wanted to make sure I got all the books back on my list -- it is a quintuplet worth of books that is well worth reading and re-reading. I think I may do them all again in 2022.
Ballard is one of my favorite writers. He often gets grouped in science fiction for some unknown reason. A few books have impacted my life for years. This is one.
So fifth time through in 2021. I re-read in 2021. In part because this book and three others (The Stranger, The Winter of Our Discontent and The Sun Also Rises) were part of the inspiration for my wife's (J.A. Carter-Winward) 2021 Literary Novel of the Year for Indie Reader, Wade.
As 2021 draws to a close, I wanted to make sure I got all the books back on my list -- it is a quintuplet worth of books that is well worth reading and re-reading. I think I may do them all again in 2022.
March 17, 2021
J.G. Ballard was a Man Who Loved Women. Indeed he remembers women more vividly than any other part of his life, which is too bad, since they are secondary figures in this semi-autobiographical novel. Russian governess Olga, genius wife Miriam, lifelong friend Peggy, even Dr. Helen who is a cadaver that he dissects over many months at Cambridge: the fictionalized women he encounters are brilliant, unsentimental, multitude-containing and they casually refute gender stereotypes and resist oppression. Ballard's women are five stars, but this is the story of Jim, so it averages out to about three stars. The storytelling is uneven and doesn't show much care or effort.
My advice: skip this and enjoy his "Desert Island Discs" interview. His song choices illustrate his life story and his love of women. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p009...
My advice: skip this and enjoy his "Desert Island Discs" interview. His song choices illustrate his life story and his love of women. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p009...
April 14, 2014
What a weird book. I can't deny that Ballard is a good writer. However, not only did it feel like it was written purely because the author had success with the first one and wanted to keep gleaning that self-centered success as long as possible (with or without a story), it felt like "the kindness of women" really meant "all the sex I had with women who were not my wife."
November 27, 2018
I remember being rather moved by "Miracles of Life", but found this earlier version of the same material a great deal flatter. Part of my discomfort has to do with the fictionalized autobiographical format. In the main this book is about Ballard's life up to the point of writing, except that he allows himself to alter whatever facts he wants in what seems a peculiarly arbitrary way (while his wife Mary died of pneumonia, in this version Miriam dies of concussion, also while on holiday in Spain). Since the Kirkus review pretty much sums up what I think of this book I will leave it at that. The coy way he alludes to the filming of "Empire of the Sun" and its reception was particularly annoying.
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May 23, 2019Uf. Ovo uopšte nije bilo lako za čitanje. Autobiografska priča o čoveku koji je deo detinjstva proveo u logoru, prilagodio se takvom životu, i nikad nije stvarno uspeo (ili se usudio) da se makne odatle. Plus, recimo, prepoznate odakle mu ideja za "Sudar". I odakle ta zbrka u emocijama. I...
Dobro je ovo. Nije lako, ali je dobro.
Dobro je ovo. Nije lako, ali je dobro.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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November 1, 2020When I first held this book in my hands I quite frankly didn't expect it to be such a odd story.
Can't really rate it, because I feel like I didn't understand it properly. Feels like I missed something between the lines, between the pages.
What I can say actually is, it left me with that weird feeling of being "back from a journey" - I have that feeling semi often, it feels tiresome, heavy, but in a sense, it's good tired.
Some books you just enjoy, you flip through pages with urge and excitement, and this book wasn't like that.
Nevertheless, I can't say I hated it, especially because it's not written in some common style so to say, and the characters aren't that "polished" if you know what I mean.
They are messy and just... Humans.
Can't really rate it, because I feel like I didn't understand it properly. Feels like I missed something between the lines, between the pages.
What I can say actually is, it left me with that weird feeling of being "back from a journey" - I have that feeling semi often, it feels tiresome, heavy, but in a sense, it's good tired.
Some books you just enjoy, you flip through pages with urge and excitement, and this book wasn't like that.
Nevertheless, I can't say I hated it, especially because it's not written in some common style so to say, and the characters aren't that "polished" if you know what I mean.
They are messy and just... Humans.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 23, 2022
Memoir? Novel? Sort of like, a historical novel based on someone’s life that happens to be the author’s own. All about death and sex and women and men and friendship and love and family. Pretty rich stuff, but with that dry Ballard edge… right up to the way he encourages you to question what actually happened.
February 12, 2017
Ballard picks up in this book roughly where he left off in "The Empire of the Sun," although "The Kindness of Women" is more transparently autobiographical than the earlier work in which he took a few very significant novelistic freedoms. One powerful episode from Ballard's boyhood appears in both works and becomes an image of violence that will stalk Ballard throughout his post-Shanghai years: just at the end of the war, he encounters a group of Japanese soldiers at an otherwise deserted suburban railroad station torturing and eventually killing a young Chinese. Given the circumstances, he can do nothing but witness the horror. Ballard's dystopian, violent, but sometimes highly prophetic worldview stems from this experience and, more generally, a wartime Shanghai he could never quite put behind him. And then there was the tragic death of Miriam, his wife and the mother of his three children. The "kindness of women," including the very surprising kindness of one particular woman toward the end of the novel, did comfort his way through all of this. He describes his affairs with these women in a way that connects more to his years as a medical student, dissecting cadavers, than with anything at least this writer would call erotic. This is a strange book and, in my opinion, not on the same level of "Empire of the Sun." Still, it does reward reading. Will Self regards Ballard as perhaps the most important writer of the latter half of the 20th century. I would not rank him so highly, but he is surely one of the more prophetic writers of that time, someone who saw clearly the more disturbing directions television, the fascination with witnessing violence, and mass consumerism were taking us.
March 18, 2019
I read Empire of the Sun many years ago and when it came to the sequel, The Kindness of Women, I wasn't entirely sure what to expect. A continuation of post-war Jim's experiences? Sort of. What Ballard gives us is the story of his post war life after returning to England, a semi-autobiographical novel that serves both as an engrossing story of one man dealing with his own psychological issues, and a wider exploration of the post-war world.
The book is split into three sections. First we get a sort of reprise of Empire, with a chapter set before the war hits Shanghai, one in the camp, and one after liberation. These serve as a reminder of Jim's wartime experiences, the traumas that would haunt the rest of his adult life and inform his fictions.
The second section forms the larger part of the novel and is called "The Craze Years". It is here that Ballard lays out the rest of Jim's life, a thinly disguised version of his own. From Cambridge, where he studied to be a doctor, to joining the Royal Canadian Air Force, to deciding to become a writer, this part is Ballard laid bare. The damage of the war years is carried both by him and his friends, such as another camp survivor, David Hunter, or TV psychologist Dick Sutherland, or wild American drug addict Sally Mumford, each with their own neuroses and need to come to terms with their respective pasts. How they deal with the aftermath is, in a sense, how the world dealt with the psychic trauma of not just one but two World Wars. Death and sex become intermingled. The drug of television as well as those of a more conventional kind pervade the twentieth century as it lurches from the staid fifties to the psychedelic sixties to the drab seventies.
Jim's marriage ends prematurely with the death of his wife on holiday in Spain, leaving him to raise three children as a single father. Something almost unheard of at that time. But he does it, with the aid of a series of women friends (all of whom he ends up sleeping with at some point. Not sure if that's real or just wish fulfilment on Ballard's part), while he himself, through his writing, tries to make sense not only of the war, but the world and its obsessions: fame, sex, death, celebrity and war. You can play spot the story at certain points: oh there's Crash, or The Atrocity Exhibition, or Concrete Island....
Tellingly, the final section is called "After The War". It's here that things are resolved not only for Jim, but also for those other survivors of the late twentieth century. Things come full circle with Jim acting a brief cameo role in the film of Empire of The Sun. Peace at last?
A brilliant novel, this is every bit as good as Empire and stands alongside, Crash, The Drowned World and High-Rise as one of Ballard's best. Highly recommended.
The book is split into three sections. First we get a sort of reprise of Empire, with a chapter set before the war hits Shanghai, one in the camp, and one after liberation. These serve as a reminder of Jim's wartime experiences, the traumas that would haunt the rest of his adult life and inform his fictions.
The second section forms the larger part of the novel and is called "The Craze Years". It is here that Ballard lays out the rest of Jim's life, a thinly disguised version of his own. From Cambridge, where he studied to be a doctor, to joining the Royal Canadian Air Force, to deciding to become a writer, this part is Ballard laid bare. The damage of the war years is carried both by him and his friends, such as another camp survivor, David Hunter, or TV psychologist Dick Sutherland, or wild American drug addict Sally Mumford, each with their own neuroses and need to come to terms with their respective pasts. How they deal with the aftermath is, in a sense, how the world dealt with the psychic trauma of not just one but two World Wars. Death and sex become intermingled. The drug of television as well as those of a more conventional kind pervade the twentieth century as it lurches from the staid fifties to the psychedelic sixties to the drab seventies.
Jim's marriage ends prematurely with the death of his wife on holiday in Spain, leaving him to raise three children as a single father. Something almost unheard of at that time. But he does it, with the aid of a series of women friends (all of whom he ends up sleeping with at some point. Not sure if that's real or just wish fulfilment on Ballard's part), while he himself, through his writing, tries to make sense not only of the war, but the world and its obsessions: fame, sex, death, celebrity and war. You can play spot the story at certain points: oh there's Crash, or The Atrocity Exhibition, or Concrete Island....
Tellingly, the final section is called "After The War". It's here that things are resolved not only for Jim, but also for those other survivors of the late twentieth century. Things come full circle with Jim acting a brief cameo role in the film of Empire of The Sun. Peace at last?
A brilliant novel, this is every bit as good as Empire and stands alongside, Crash, The Drowned World and High-Rise as one of Ballard's best. Highly recommended.
March 22, 2016
JG Ballard's "fictional autobiography" posed some problems for me. Jim, having left the "Empire of the Sun" (also classed as a fictional autobiography) tries to make sense of the Post War world he finds himself in. My problem is that it is so difficult to engage with a book that is so obviously autobiographical, and you can't sift the truth from the fiction.
Jim is obsessed with two themes throughout the book: sex, and death. Sexual encounters (and there are a lot) are described in the most clinical, cold terms. The act of sex becomes a dispassionate observation of the male and female genitalia. Too often, Jim is unaroused, and has to be "worked on" by his female partner. It is as unsettling to read as the dissection of his female cadaver at Medical school.
Death haunts the pages of this book. When Jim leaves the Japanese camp at the end of the war, he is 15 years old and alone. He witnesses a murder of a Chinese clerk at a railway station. A slow, casual murder, committed by a Japanese soldier in the immediate aftermath of the Atomic bomb. Jim cannot intervene, he knows he too, could be killed in just as casual a manner. As he walks away towards Shanghai, Jim' life has changed forever.
Jim tries and fails to find a niche in Post War England. Failing to complete his studies as a medical student, he decides to be a pilot. But his motives are strange: convinced that World War 3 is around the corner, he wants to be one of the bombers, carrying his own "pieces of the sun" to annihilate and more importantly, to recapture the light he saw at the railway station, where the Chinese clerk died.
He finds happiness in his wife and children, but, as a young father and husband in the 1960's he becomes aware of a certain trend towards violence and the ever- intrusive camera lens. This leads him to believe that the world has become desensitized to the violent images they see on the TV screens day after day- Kennedy's assassination in particular, and the images being screened from Vietnam. He sees people morbidly interested in car crashes. Watching and filming instead of helping becomes the norm.
The title refers to women who helped him after the death of his wife, but Jim's view of life is distorted and strange. This makes him ideal material for LSD experiments, but he soon dismisses this. His view of humanity is that of a constant need to view lives and violence, and indeed, sex, through a camera, via TV. And just look at Big Brother.
This avuncular, puppy-eyed father who brought up three children on his own, and who loved every moment of it, has shown Jim to be a man verging on madness. But, is he Jim? This is the problem and the genius of the book. Where truth an fiction meld and become one.
Jim is obsessed with two themes throughout the book: sex, and death. Sexual encounters (and there are a lot) are described in the most clinical, cold terms. The act of sex becomes a dispassionate observation of the male and female genitalia. Too often, Jim is unaroused, and has to be "worked on" by his female partner. It is as unsettling to read as the dissection of his female cadaver at Medical school.
Death haunts the pages of this book. When Jim leaves the Japanese camp at the end of the war, he is 15 years old and alone. He witnesses a murder of a Chinese clerk at a railway station. A slow, casual murder, committed by a Japanese soldier in the immediate aftermath of the Atomic bomb. Jim cannot intervene, he knows he too, could be killed in just as casual a manner. As he walks away towards Shanghai, Jim' life has changed forever.
Jim tries and fails to find a niche in Post War England. Failing to complete his studies as a medical student, he decides to be a pilot. But his motives are strange: convinced that World War 3 is around the corner, he wants to be one of the bombers, carrying his own "pieces of the sun" to annihilate and more importantly, to recapture the light he saw at the railway station, where the Chinese clerk died.
He finds happiness in his wife and children, but, as a young father and husband in the 1960's he becomes aware of a certain trend towards violence and the ever- intrusive camera lens. This leads him to believe that the world has become desensitized to the violent images they see on the TV screens day after day- Kennedy's assassination in particular, and the images being screened from Vietnam. He sees people morbidly interested in car crashes. Watching and filming instead of helping becomes the norm.
The title refers to women who helped him after the death of his wife, but Jim's view of life is distorted and strange. This makes him ideal material for LSD experiments, but he soon dismisses this. His view of humanity is that of a constant need to view lives and violence, and indeed, sex, through a camera, via TV. And just look at Big Brother.
This avuncular, puppy-eyed father who brought up three children on his own, and who loved every moment of it, has shown Jim to be a man verging on madness. But, is he Jim? This is the problem and the genius of the book. Where truth an fiction meld and become one.
May 30, 2011
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, 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....
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.
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, 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....
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.
November 17, 2010
Het autobiografische ‘The Kindness of women’ van J.G. Ballard is een uitstekend boek en het vervolg op ‘Empire of the sun’, dat verfilmd werd door Steven Spielberg en gaat over de jonge Jim, die in WOII het jappenkamp in Shanghai overleefde.
Getekend door zijn heftige jeugd, probeert de oudere Jim zijn leven in na-oorlogs Engeland op te bouwen. Hij studeert medicijnen in Cambridge, wordt vlieger in Canada en uiteindelijk schrijver.
Ballard is een kroniekschrijver over het leven van de tweede helft van de vorige eeuw. In ‘The Kindness of women’ redden de vrouwen hem. Peggy zijn jeugdvriendin, die ook in het kamp zat. Zijn grote liefde Miriam, de moeder van zijn drie kinderen, maar die veel te jong stierf door een onnodige val. Sally, dope-verslaafde hippie en uiteindelijk Cleo.
Het verhaal wordt in min of meer losstaande hoofdstukken persoonlijk en betrokken verteld. De lezer is ooggetuige van een kwetsbare man die zijn zwaktes laat zien, ons deelgenoot maakt van zijn LSD-ervaringen, zijn diepe vriendschappen en erotische scenes open en onomwonden beschrijft.
De herkomst van de ideeën voor zijn volgende boeken, o.a ‘Crash’ (verfilmd door David Cronenberg) en ‘The atrocity exhibition’ worden in dit boek geboren en staan ook op mijn leeslijst.
Getekend door zijn heftige jeugd, probeert de oudere Jim zijn leven in na-oorlogs Engeland op te bouwen. Hij studeert medicijnen in Cambridge, wordt vlieger in Canada en uiteindelijk schrijver.
Ballard is een kroniekschrijver over het leven van de tweede helft van de vorige eeuw. In ‘The Kindness of women’ redden de vrouwen hem. Peggy zijn jeugdvriendin, die ook in het kamp zat. Zijn grote liefde Miriam, de moeder van zijn drie kinderen, maar die veel te jong stierf door een onnodige val. Sally, dope-verslaafde hippie en uiteindelijk Cleo.
Het verhaal wordt in min of meer losstaande hoofdstukken persoonlijk en betrokken verteld. De lezer is ooggetuige van een kwetsbare man die zijn zwaktes laat zien, ons deelgenoot maakt van zijn LSD-ervaringen, zijn diepe vriendschappen en erotische scenes open en onomwonden beschrijft.
De herkomst van de ideeën voor zijn volgende boeken, o.a ‘Crash’ (verfilmd door David Cronenberg) en ‘The atrocity exhibition’ worden in dit boek geboren en staan ook op mijn leeslijst.
January 26, 2013
The sequel to 'Empire Of The Sun' continues Jim's story through adulthood. Being told in the first person (as opposed to 'Empire's' third) makes this feel even more autobiographical than 'Empire', especially as Ballard deals with the well-known elements of his own life - the death of his wife and his decision to raise his three daughters by himself. Ballard's medical training has always had a major influence on his writing (he dissects subjects like Jim autopsies a corpse) and he doesn't spare his narrator this forensic examination even when they're based on himself. It leads to an uncomfortable read as the darkness and obsessions of Jim and those around him are exposed in ways that hit home harder because of the ordinariness of the domestic setting. It will be fascinating to compare this novel to Ballard's actual autobiography 'Miracles Of Life'.
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December 30, 2007not as enjoyable as 'empire of the sun', provided you enjoyed empire of the sun. this book more closely examines the grown-up consciousnesses of "james", writer, and foil for author j.g. ballard. downright scandalous in the sexy parts, and quite realistic in terms of philosophical mumblings. what this book lacks (and what comprised my favorite parts of empire of the sun) are the lush descriptions of the asian world that housed young james- his internee camp at lunghua, his parents' residences in shanghai, and his experiences with this great city on his bicycle. the narrator as a child was seemingly more innocent and pure in empire of the sun. whereas in the kindness of women, the narrator is just as bumblingly lusty, torpidly confused, and minutely desperate as all of us.
November 16, 2019
An autobiographical novel - names and events changed - following on from Empire of the Sun This book weaves through James/Jim’s life from the end of WW2 in Shanghai, through the following years of discovery, uncertainty, drugs, and sex. Lots of sex.
Women are a constant in Jim’s life, they seem to be the ones that understand him and can control him, unlike the men who are full of madness and mad schemes. Jim’s mind though, is as mad and warped as anyone. An exhibition of crashed cars anyone?
Women are a constant in Jim’s life, they seem to be the ones that understand him and can control him, unlike the men who are full of madness and mad schemes. Jim’s mind though, is as mad and warped as anyone. An exhibition of crashed cars anyone?
July 2, 2020
The sequel to Empire of the Sun and a revisit to J G ‘s youth in wartime in Shanghai and a voyage of catharsis and healing through the 50s and 60s until the release of his movie.
His life was a rollercoaster involving an interesting cast of characters and some wonderful women. Ballard is one of Britain’s interesting chroniclers of the post WW2 world and for that alone deserves to be read as we move into the second decade of the 21st century.
His life was a rollercoaster involving an interesting cast of characters and some wonderful women. Ballard is one of Britain’s interesting chroniclers of the post WW2 world and for that alone deserves to be read as we move into the second decade of the 21st century.
March 28, 2021
What can I say about this! Quite disturbing, given part biographical. Got 3 for parts of it and the books that he wrote. If he wasn't the author he was, then a book about an alcoholic with the odd dabble in drugs and an obsession with sleeping with every woman that crossed his path. The returning to Shanghai in his memory got a little tiresome. A male version of The Lady of Shalott drifting.
Shelved as 'maybe'
September 23, 2011A sequel to Empire of the Sun! I din't know about this at all. Thanks Cassiel for bringing it to my attention.
November 23, 2014
Alternative title "Eventually I Will Sleep with Every Woman I Know".
October 12, 2018
J.G. (James Graham) Ballard inleiden, hoeft voor de trouwe lezers van mijn boekbesprekingen niet meer. Wie niét tot die categorie behoort, kan hier of hier zijn kennis bijspijkeren, maar zou zich dus eigenlijk dood moeten schamen.
Hoe dan ook, zelfs wie nauwelijks van de auteur gehoord heeft, kent wellicht wél "Empire of the Sun", zijn autobiografische boek over zijn jeugd in het door de Japanners bezette Sjanghai tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Diezelfde gebeurtenissen vormen het startpunt van deze "De zachtheid van vrouwen", al wilde Ballard niet met zoveel woorden gezegd hebben dat ook dit boek biografisch was. Hij zei, in tegendeel, dat de meeste karakters in het boek volkomen fictief waren, maar ter gelijker tijd, dat het boek zijn levensverhaal is "gezien door de spiegel van de fictie ontstaan door dat leven".
Desalniettemin: James Ballard ging wel degelijk, net zoals zijn hoofdpersonage Jim, medicijnen studeren in Cambridge. Net zoals hij lid werd van de Royal Air Force en vliegtraining kreeg op de Canadese basis Moose Jaw. Hij trouwde ook en kreeg net zoals zijn hoofdpersonage drie kinderen, maar zijn echtgenote stierf aan een longontsteking, niet aan de gevolgen van een val. Vervolgens voedde hij, zoals Jim, zijn kinderen alleen op. Ook andere passages, zoals degene die gelinkt is aan het boek "Crash" (verfilmd door David Cronenberg) en "Empire of the Sun" (verfilmd door Spielberg), zijn voor vaste lezers van de auteur duidelijk herkenbaar.
Andere stukken zijn dat minder, net zoals de leidraad van dit boek: (de) vrouwen (van Ballard). En net in die leidraad zit een voor mij storend element in "De zachtheid van vrouwen": de neiging van de auteur om wel héél expliciet en zeer biologisch seksscènes te beschrijven. Da's iets waar ik nooit het nut van ingezien heb (nog los van het feit dat taal daar sowieso te kort schiet) en dat mijns inziens ook niet bijdraagt tot het verhaal.
Maar los daarvan is ook dit boek van Ballard weer een aanrader, ook voor wie verder niks van de auteur gelezen heeft. Het kán zelfs de deur openen naar verdere lezing, gezien in dit boek een aantal thema's aangeraakt worden die ook in zijn vollédig fictieve (maar in sommige gevallen langzamerhand van het visionaire aan het overgaan in de werkelijkheid) werk een hoofdrol spelen.
Hoe dan ook, zelfs wie nauwelijks van de auteur gehoord heeft, kent wellicht wél "Empire of the Sun", zijn autobiografische boek over zijn jeugd in het door de Japanners bezette Sjanghai tijdens de Tweede Wereldoorlog. Diezelfde gebeurtenissen vormen het startpunt van deze "De zachtheid van vrouwen", al wilde Ballard niet met zoveel woorden gezegd hebben dat ook dit boek biografisch was. Hij zei, in tegendeel, dat de meeste karakters in het boek volkomen fictief waren, maar ter gelijker tijd, dat het boek zijn levensverhaal is "gezien door de spiegel van de fictie ontstaan door dat leven".
Desalniettemin: James Ballard ging wel degelijk, net zoals zijn hoofdpersonage Jim, medicijnen studeren in Cambridge. Net zoals hij lid werd van de Royal Air Force en vliegtraining kreeg op de Canadese basis Moose Jaw. Hij trouwde ook en kreeg net zoals zijn hoofdpersonage drie kinderen, maar zijn echtgenote stierf aan een longontsteking, niet aan de gevolgen van een val. Vervolgens voedde hij, zoals Jim, zijn kinderen alleen op. Ook andere passages, zoals degene die gelinkt is aan het boek "Crash" (verfilmd door David Cronenberg) en "Empire of the Sun" (verfilmd door Spielberg), zijn voor vaste lezers van de auteur duidelijk herkenbaar.
Andere stukken zijn dat minder, net zoals de leidraad van dit boek: (de) vrouwen (van Ballard). En net in die leidraad zit een voor mij storend element in "De zachtheid van vrouwen": de neiging van de auteur om wel héél expliciet en zeer biologisch seksscènes te beschrijven. Da's iets waar ik nooit het nut van ingezien heb (nog los van het feit dat taal daar sowieso te kort schiet) en dat mijns inziens ook niet bijdraagt tot het verhaal.
Maar los daarvan is ook dit boek van Ballard weer een aanrader, ook voor wie verder niks van de auteur gelezen heeft. Het kán zelfs de deur openen naar verdere lezing, gezien in dit boek een aantal thema's aangeraakt worden die ook in zijn vollédig fictieve (maar in sommige gevallen langzamerhand van het visionaire aan het overgaan in de werkelijkheid) werk een hoofdrol spelen.
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