When J. G. Ballard, who passed away Sunday, at the age of seventy-eight, was trying to place “Crash,” his dystopian masterpiece of “auto” eroticism, with a publisher, he received a note with a rejected manuscript: “This author is beyond psychiatric help. Do not publish.”
He regarded it as a sign of "complete artistic success."
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"J. G. Ballard" obituary in The New Yorker (20 April 2009)J. G. Ballard
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The NME online has reported the demise of JG Ballard with the headline: 'Klaxons, Joy Division inspiration JG Ballard dies'
It is not hard to imagine the ghost of Ballard smiling ruefully, as if this confirmed his every pessimistic thought about the bland inanity of modern culture. He's hardly dead five minutes and he is already being mislabelled for the culturally illiterate, suffering the same fate as Philip K Dick, the wildly original and imaginative science fiction novelist forever misremembered as "author of Bladerunner".J. G. Ballard
No artist's masterpiece can match a mother's creation of a successful child, one who has been freed to explore and to grow. ... Success is measured not only by who we are, but by what gifts we give. As the old chief said, "The gift is not complete until it is given again." Ah, the mother whose gift to the world is a person!
Gerry Spence
Jim the man and Ballard the writer is a walking paradox, a ragbag of contradiction. Jim is quiet spoken, Ballard outspoken. Jim is moderate, Ballard frequently obscene. Jim can see meaning in the smallest thing. ... Sometimes I think if Jim were running the universe what a benign place it would be. Yet the world of his characters is anything but benign. They are affectionless individuals who insist on the meaninglessness of life.
J. G. Ballard
The Pennsylvania legislature, who, on a proposition to make the belief in God a necessary qualification for office, rejected it by a great majority, although assuredly there was not a single atheist in their body. And you remember to have heard, that when the act for religious freedom was before the Virginia Assembly, a motion to insert the name of Jesus Christ before the phrase, "the author of our holy religion," which stood in the bill, was rejected, although that was the creed of a great majority of them.
Thomas Jefferson
The Pennsylvania legislature, who, on a proposition to make the belief in God a necessary qualification for office, rejected it by a great majority, although assuredly there was not a single atheist in their body. And you remember to have heard, that when the act for religious freedom was before the Virginia Assembly, a motion to insert the name of Jesus Christ before the phrase, "the author of our holy religion," which stood in the bill, was rejected, although that was the creed of a great majority of them.
Jesus Christ
Ballard, J. G.
Ballmer, Steve
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