Book by book: J. G. Ballard's bibliography

I'm only covering his novels here, even though I do think his shorter fiction is the greater achievement, especially the earliest ones from the late 50s/early 60s and Vermillion Sands.

Ballard is the British writer of greatest significance to me. He played a dominant role in my episode and was an idol at the time. He is the author whose books are of greatest quantity on my shelf. Now I will go through all the novels of the greatest literary prophet of the 20th century.

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The Drowned World (1962)

Ballard's prescient first novel envisions a 22nd century London inundated and ridden by primeval swamps, decades before 'Global Warming' was a common fact. It is a science fiction novel in the post-apocalyptic genre, although the characters aren't depressed nor negatively affected by their surroundings but enraptured and ravished by them. Ballard plays homage to surrealist painting, with the morass of plantation and trees representing the chaotic world those works envision. There is a scene that is an homage to a stunt Dali pulled off; the character Kerans plunges into the deep water in a water garment, which is what Dali did in the 20th century, claiming that he was "exploring the deepest recesses of the mind". Like these paintings, the surroundings have an effect on the unconscious mind; the characters are addled by dreams of their former ancestors. Indeed, the characters regress to a more primordial mind state and Ballard's setting prompts them to have recurring thoughts of people several centuries their senior. Ballard says that, with the more the world is in tatters, the more primitive and dehumanised we are. The characters are comprised of doctors who are recording data and statistics from the zone. The character, Kerans, instead of returning north to salvation, eventually sets off to the south and into self-annihilation.

The Drought (1964)

The second in Ballard's catastrophe trilogy. This is the The Drowned World in reverse; now the shortage, and the cause of distress for the characters, is water; and, to head to salvation, the central character heads south. This novel features all the hallmarks and quintessential aspects which are associated with Ballard: drained swimming pools, loose lions, quixotic characters, strangely attractive women. An underrated novel but not essential; recommended reading once you've read at least five or six of his other books.

The Crystal World (1966)

Haven't read this one yet.

The Atrocity Exhibition (1969)

A change of tack for Ballard and a book that confirmed him as an avant-garde voice. This is Ballard's attempt at trying to make sense out of a world that has become increasingly psychotic; indeed, the character is a doctor in a mental hospital suffering a mental breakdown. Its validity as a novel is disputable (Ballard called the miniatures a "condensed novels"); it is a collection of disparate miniatures with little or no narrative thread interconnecting them. This fragmentary approach was inspired by William Burroughs, a writer Ballard greatly admired. At the time of its conception, Ballard felt like capturing a transfiguration of reality he felt was undergoing at the time. With the mass media landscape, we live in a world of fiction and, conversely, the 'space inside our own heads' is false. The character's breakdown is ignited by several celebrities and events from the late sixties, from Kennedy's assassination to Marilyn Monroe's suicide. The protagonist name, in addition to other character's, changes in the course of the chapters and this is one of many aspects of the book that confounds and confuses many readers. Ballard didn't recommend reading the book linearly, but to simply read snippets here and there from different parts of the book until some sort of cohesion is formed. Martin Amis noted that it was unusual at the time to have chapters with names of like 'Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan' and 'Princess Margaret's Facelift' but concluded "That would be unusual at any time, perhaps." The current edition comes with footnotes from the author that elucidate any difficulties the reader may encounter.

Crash (1973)

The first in a trilogy of novels where Ballard centres catastrophe, not in a futuristic environmental disaster, but in the heralding of motorways and high-rise apartments. This work lavishly depicts a character (called 'Ballard') who, after crashing into a car and being in a state of shock, becomes aroused and pursues a peculiar form of fetishism in gaining sexual pleasure from car crashes. He finds that he is not alone and soon discovers an underworld of like-minded individuals, all led by the insatiably gruelling Vaughn. Vaughn is also obsessed with a sexual death with celebrity culture and the book culminates with him dying with actress Elizabeth Taylor. Like many Ballard novels, there is a coldness and the characters pursue the most gruesome sexual activities - like penetrating a woman's wound - with little regard to morality and affection. The book caused a minor stir upon publication, but when David Cronenberg chose to adapt the novel to film in 1996 it caused a frisson of scandal of unimagined proportions. Indeed, Ballard was aiming to shock the reader, to make the reader come to the realisation that many people enjoy pain and danger. A psychiatrist's wife read a manuscript of the novel and stated "This author is beyond psychiatric help: do not publish," which Ballard said "Is the greatest compliment one can be paid."

Concrete Island (1974)

A Robinson Crusoe for modern times, an architect crashes into an converging motorway and maroons himself in a small island lying beneath it. He rations food out for himself, finds ways of healing his wounds and, eventually, as you would expect from Ballard, ends up living in his own mind. The character finds two other people in the island: a woman, with whom he fornicates, and a simple-minded tramp. Although he is initially very keen in the idea of escaping the island, he decides against it and stays.

High-Rise (1975)

Although it is not my favourite, I can confidently say that this is Ballard's best novel. Its setting, although the novel takes place in present day, looks to the future: an ultra-modern, state-of-the-art luxury building housing thousands and of people and even has its own supermarket, pool and school. This enables Ballard to deconstruct social codes and do what he does best: present humanity at a slant and depict human degenerance, where people act in a primal state. As soon as the building electricity power fails and many petty worries have been escalating progressively over a few weeks, the inhabitants separate themselves in three distinct groups, attacking one another and eventually resorting to cannibalism. Like his two previous novels, which along with this work form a trilogy, Ballard uses modern advances in technology as a way of putting forth a cautionary warning about humanity. Reading this, it comes as no surprise that Ballard was a literary favourite amongst underground anarchist groups and publications in the late 70s.

The Unlimited Dream Company (1979)

Although this is not his best novel, I can confidently say it is my favourite. Ballard's three previous novels, despite depicting strange occurrences and unravelling a world of perverted sexuality and violence, were firmly rooted in realism. Here he abandons it completely and undertakes a full-frontal assault of surrealism. In naming the protagonist of Crash after himself, Ballard has said in the past that that book was an effort at an 'internal autobiography', but this book bears features and recurring obsessions that make it abundantly clear that this is his 'internal autobiography'. The unsubtly named 'Blake' steals an aircraft (Ballard flew airplanes with the RAF) and crashes it into the thames of Shepperton (the small town Ballard settled in from the late 1950s until his death). The story is narrated in first person by a narrator who is not at all reliable, which suggests that the entire novel could be merely be delusions of a person in a constant psychotic state. Or it could be interpreted that, when he crashes the plane into the thames, he actually dies and that this is his afterlife. Blake has unusual superhuman powers: he can heal sick people, fly and, most notoriously, grow a variety of exotic plantation by spreading his semen around. Once more, Ballard grounds the novel on a common theme whose germination would soon become clear in Empire of the Sun: Blake is incapable of leaving the small suburb and, despite feeling an overwhelming urge to break free, stays. Although his plans are initially malevolent - he wants to absorb all the citizens of Shepperton that will give him power to fly away - he changes after another character, an owner of the zoo who frees vultures out of cages and they are prevailing presence in the novel, shoots him. The wound of the shot enables him to fly away from Shepperton with all its inhabitants and resurrect his deceased and enigmatic lover. Highly recommended reading.

Hello America (1981)

Haven't read this one yet.

Empire of the Sun (1984)

After been published, this novel surpassed the sales of all his other books combined within a few weeks. And after Steven Spielberg made a glossy, though impressive, Hollywood adaptation of it it catapulted Ballard into a fame that had, for the most part, previously evaded him. Ballard was raised in China and after Pearl Harbour and the second world war he was placed in an internment camp. This makes the origin of all the previous novels very clear and all his previous works could be seen as a reconstruction of the experiences described in this powerfully moving novel. The death of a Japanese soldier is described with a deadpan matter-of-fact style and the carnage described relentlessly is searing. Ballard, in essence, has been writing and rewriting these scenes time and time again. Jim moves from one escapade to another, all in the pursuit of going through "the university of life". At once a stunning departure and a recapitulation of all his former themes.

The Day of Creation (1987)

Haven't read this one yet.

Running Wild (1988)

This novella is something new for Ballard: a detective story. The parents of a whole street of middle-class children are murdered and they are missing, presumed to be kidnapped. Again, through this very readable and entertaining story, Ballard poses one of his most recurring themes: are we really as civilised as we think we are? All plotted out very well, with a revealing twist...

The Kindness of Women (1991)

The sequel to Empire of the Sun. We follow Jim into adult life, although now it is narrated in first person. Ballard chronicles his studies as a medical student, flying for the RAF in Canada, the discovery of Science Fiction in the 50s, the premature death of his wife, raising his children and the frantic 1960s where he describes his experiments with LSD. Like Empire, it is not all entirely true and many moments are fictionalised. It starts off in the Lunghua camp, surprisingly, it doesn't follow straight on from the end of Empire. The most poignant moments are from the women he meets and some of his sexual encounters, hence the title.

Rushing to Paradise (1994)

Haven't read this one yet.

Cocaine Nights (1996)

Ballard now writes detective fiction in novel form with Cocaine Nights, the first of a quadrology. Ballard's fiction, it seems, has darkened even more here; the sex scenes here are almost as lurid as those in Crash. The protagonist goes to a British resort in Spain called Estrella del Mar and the character's brother claims the guilt for setting a family's house on fire. Like much crime fiction, there are many twists and turns but they are far more depraved and darker. Riveting stuff, although it lacks a bit of the bite of the earlier work.

Super-Cannes (2000)

Haven't read this one yet.

Millennium People (2003)

Haven't read this one yet.

Kingdom Come (2006)

The opening paragraph is magnificent! The rest... Well, Ballard's strength had never been characterisation or dialogue and I've got no problem with that - I'm woeful with it in my own fiction. The problem is that it is just an entanglement of loose ideas with no interconnecting thread and it becomes quite jarring to read. This was his first most overtly political novel and tackled the topic of consumerism, and Ballard depicts it transforming it into fascism. Interesting ideas and concepts, but it doesn't come together as a novel.

The comics of my youth #6

Mampato and Ogú fighting for Chilean independence 200 years ago...

Click to enlarge.

Mampato

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Goodbye, Don Van Vliet.

The remote edges #16

As promised, here is the landscape that follows on from the path I posted last week.

When I photographed this area, I had an encounter with an aged man and we both agreed how truly incredible it is how scarcely visited this beautiful place is...

All top 10

Here is the premise of this post: to present my top 10 lists of books and films, which have slight alterations to the versions I have posted in the past. In order to give the uninitiated reader/viewer an inkling of what the book/film is like I won't write a small comment of what the work entails and what I like about it, but I will do something new and different.

For my Top 10 Books, I will take each work out of my bookshelf, open it at random and type up one paragraph from whichever moment in the book I happen to open it at. I read four of the books on this list in Spanish, so I will transcribe the texts in the original language. This list consitst of short story collections in addition to novels. I will also detail what language the book was written in, what country it is from and what year it was written in.

For my top 10 films, I will open up a Google image search and pick one still from a film that I feel captures the zest and vitality of it. I will detail the language it is spoken in, what country produced it and the year it was released.

Here goes....

Top 10 Books

#10 A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man - James Joyce

Language: English

Country: Ireland

Year: 1917

And while the friends were still standing in tears by the bedside the soul of the sinner was judged. At the last moment of consciousness the whole earthly life passed before the vision of the soul and, ere it had time to reflect, the body had died and the soul stood terrified before the judgement seat. God, who had long been merciful, would then be just. He had long been patient, pleading with the sinful soul, giving it time to repent, sparing it yet awhile. But that time had gone. Time was to sin and to enjoy, time was to scoff at God and at the warnings of His holy church, time was to defy His majesty, to disobey His commands, to hoodwink one's fellowmen, to commit sin after sin and to hide one's corruption from the sight of men. But that time was over. Now it was God's turn: and He was not to be hoodwinked or deceived. Every sin would then come forth from its lurkingplace, the most rebellious against the divine will and the most degrading to our poor corrupt nature, the tiniest imperfection and the most heinous atrocity. What did it avail then to have been a great emperor, a great general, a marvellous inventor the most learned of the learned? All were as one before the judgment seat of God. He would reward the good and punish the wicked. One single instant was enough for the trial of a man's soul. One single instant after the body's death, the soul had been weighed in the balance. The particular judgment was over and the soul had passed to the abode of bliss or to the prison of purgatory or had been hurled howling into hell.

#9 La vida breve (A Brief Life) - Juan Carlos Onetti

Language: Spanish

Country: Uruguay

Year: 1950

Me aparté y retrodecí; recordé que habíá alguien al otro lado de la pared, admití el deber de llamarlo para que viera lo que yo habíá mirado. "Ellos" ya no estaban; habían ocupado totalmente el cuerpo de la Queca en el momento decisivo, gotearon como un sudor después de la muerte, se disolvían ahora mezclados al polvo y la pelusa de los rincones. Pero el aire de la habitación, la libertad y la inocencia, se alzaban como un vapor en el alba, alegres y silenciosos reconocían la forma de mi rostro.

#8 The Unlimited Dream Company - J. G. Ballard


Language: English


Country: United Kingdom


Year: 1979


Later, while I rested in my bedroom above the river, I thought of my third vision that afternoon, of my lordships of the deer. Although I had not eaten for three days I felt gorged and pregnant, not by some false womb in my belly, but by a true pregnancy in which every cell of my flesh, every gland and nerve in my brain, every bone and muscle, was swelling with new life. The thousands of fish crowding the dark water, the lantern-like plumage of the birds in the park also seemed gorged, as if we were all taking part in an invisible reproductive orgy. I felt that we had abandoned our genital organs and were merging together, cell to cell, in the body of the night.

#7 The New York Trilogy - Paul Auster


Language: English


Country: United States


Year: 1987


Unfortunately, the woman's back is turned to Blue, so he can't watch her face as the meal progresses. As he sits there eating his Salisbury steak, he thinks that maybe his first hunch was the right one, that it's a marriage case after all. Blue is already imagining the kind of things he will write in his next report, and it gives him pleasure to contemplate the phrases he will use to describe what he is seeing now. By having another person in the case, he knows that certain decisions have to be made. For example: should he stick with Black or divert his attention to the woman? This could possibly accelerate matters a bit, but at the same time it could mean that Black could be given the chance to slip away from him, perhaps for good. In other words, is the meeting with the woman a smoke-screen or the real thing? Is it a part of the case or not, is it an essential or contingent fact. Blue ponders these questions for a while and concludes that it's too early to tell. Yes, it could be one thing, he tells himself. But it also could be another.

#6 Pedro Páramo - Juan Rulfo


Language: Spanish


Country: Mexico


Year: 1955


"Mi cuerpo se sentía a gusto sobre el calor de la arena. Tenía los ojos cerrados, los brazos abiertos, desdobladas las piernas a la brisa del mar. Y el mar allí enfrente, lejano, dejando apenas restos de espuma en mis pies al subir de la marea..."
- Ahora sí es ella la que habla, Juan Preciado. No se te olvide lo que dice.
"Era temprano. El mar corríá y bajaba en olas. Se desprendía de su espuma y se iba, limpio, con su agua verde, en ondas calladas.
"- En el mar sólo me sé banar desnuda -le dije. Y el me siguió el primer día, desnudo también, fosforescente al salir del mar. No había gaviotas; soló esos pájaros que les dicen 'picos feos', que grunen como si roncaran y que después de que sale el sol desaparecen. Él me siguió el primer díá y se sintió solo, a pesar de estar allí.
"- Es como si fueras un 'pico feo, uno más entre todos -me dijo-. Me gustas más en las noches, cuando estamos los dos en la misma almohada, bajo las sábanas, en la oscuridad.
"Y se fue.
"Volví yo. Volvería siempre. El mar moja mis tobillos y se va; moja mis rodillas, mis muslos; rodea mi cintura con su brazo suave, da vuelta sobre mis senos; se abraza de mi cuello; aprieta mis hombros. Entonces me hundo en él, entera. Me entrego a él en su fuerte batir, en su suave poseer, sin dejar pedazo.
"- Me gusta banarme en el mar - le dije.
"Pero él no le comprende.
"Y al otro día estaba otra vez en el mar, purificándose. Entregándome a sus olas."

#5 Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoyevsky



Language: Russian



Country: Russia



Year: 1866


As for Raskolnikov, during all this time he lay on his back, not saying a word, staring intently, though without any reason that was particularly apparent, at the man who had come in. His face, which he had now turned away from the interesting flower on the wallpaper, was extremely pale and displayed an expression of uncommon suffering, as though he had just undergone a painful operation or had, only a moment ago, been released from torture. Gradually, however, the newly arrived gentleman began to occupy more and more of his attention; this state of attention changed to bewilderment, then suspicion and fianlly something that resembled fear. Indeed, when Zosimov, pointing at him, said 'This is Raskolnikov,' he suddenly roused himself in a hurry, leapt upright, sat on the edge of the sofa and in a voice which was almost challenging, but none the less faint and broken, articulated:

#4 Bestiario (Bestiary) - Julio Cortázar



Language: Spanish



Country: Argentina



Year: 1951


De noche no es tanto, nos ayudan la fatiga y el silencio - porque el rondar de las macuspias escande dulcemente este silencio de la pampa - y a veces dormimos hasta el amanecer y nos despierta un esperanzado sentimiento de mejoríá. Si uno de nosotros salta de la cama antes que el otro, puede ocurrir con todo que asistamos consternados a la repetición de fenómeno Camphora monobromata, pues cree que marcha en una dirección cuando en realidad lo está haciendo en la opuesta. Es terrible, vamos con toda seguridad hacia el bano, y de improviso sentimos en la cara la piel desnuda del espejo alto. Casi siempre lo tomamos de broma, porque hay que pensar en el trabajo que espera y de nada serviría desanimarnos tan pronto. Se buscan los glóbulos, se cumplen sin comentaris ni desalientos las instrucciones del doctor Harbin. (Tal vez en secreto seamos un poco Natrum muriaticum. Tipicamente, un natrum llora, pero nadie debe observarlo. Es triste, es reservado; le gusta la sal).


#3 The Trial - Franz Kafka

Language: German

Country: Check Republic

Year: 1925

But this was not so. The priest examined the lamp instead, turned it up a bit, then turned slowly towards the balaustrade and gripped the squared edge in front with both hands. He stood like this for some time and looked round without moving his head. K. had retreated a considerable distance and was leaning on his elbow against the front row of pews. Dimly he could see somewhere, without being able to tell exactly where, the hunched back of the verger crouching peacefully as if conscious of a task accomplished. What silence in the cathedral now! But K. would have to break it; he had no intention of staying here. If it was the priest's duty to preach at a specified time without regard to circumstances, he could do so. It could be managed without K.'s support, just as K.'s presence would certainly not heighten the effect. So K. slowly put himself in motion, sidled along the pew on tiptoe, came to the centre aisle and walked along without hindrance, disturbed only by the ringing of his cautios steps on the stone floor and by the echo sounding faintly but continuously in regular multiple progression round the vaulted roof. K. felt a little exposed as he walked alone between the empty pews, perhaps observed by the priest; and the church seemed to him to border on the very limits of what was humanly endurable. When he reached the place where he had been sitting he did not stop but snatched at the album he had left there and picked it up. He had almost left the pew area and was almost approaching the open space between this and the entrance doors when he heard the priest's voice for the first time. A powerful, practised voice. How it pierced the expectant cathedral! But it was not directed at a congregation. It was unambiguous and there was no escape; he was calling 'Joseph K.!'

#2 Ficciones (Fictions) - Jorge Luis Borges

Language: Spanish

Country: Argentina

Year: 1944

Debo esa vanidad casi atroz a una institución que otras republicas ignoran o que obra en ellas de un modo imperfecto y secreto: la lotería. No he indagado su historia; sé que los magos no logran ponerse de acuerdo; sé de sus poderosos propósitos lo que puede saber de la luna el hombre no versadio en astrología. Soy de un país vertiginoso donde la lotería es parte principal de la realidad: hasta el día de hoy, he pensado tan poco en ella como la conducta de los dioses indescifrables o de mi corazón. Ahora, lejos de Babilonia y de sus queridas costrumbres, pienso con algún asombro en la lotería y en las conjeturas blasfemas que en el crepúsculo murmuran los hombres velados.

#1 The Sound and the Fury - William Faulkner

Language: English

Country: United States

Year: 1929

I laid out two suits of underwear, with socks, shirts, collars and ties, and placed my trunk. I put in everything except my new suit and an old one and two pairs of shoes and two hats, and my books. I carried the books into the sitting-room and stacked them onto the table, the ones I had brought from home and the ones Father said it used to be a gentleman was known by his books; nowadays he is known by the ones he had not returned and locked the trunk and addressed it. The quarter hour sounded. I stopped and listened to it until the chimes ceased.

5 Runners-up: Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov; Gravity's Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon; Absalom, Absalom! by William Faulkner; Hopscotch by Julio Cortázar; The Obscene Bird of Night by José Donoso.

Top 10 Films

#10 Andrei Rublev - Andrei Tarkovsky

Language: Russian

Country: Russia

Year: 1966

#9 The Producers - Mel Brooks

Language: English

Country: United States

Year: 1968

#8 The Second Heimat - Edgar Reitz

Language: German

Country: Germany

Year: 1992
#7 The Big Lebowski - Coen Brothers

Language: English

Country: United States

Year: 1998

#6 The Seventh Seal - Ingmar Bergman

Language: Swedish

Country: Sweden

Year: 1957
#5 A Man Escaped - Robert Bresson

Language: French

Country: France

Year: 1956
#4 Aguirre, the Wrath of God - Werner Herzog

Language: English

Country: Germany

Year: 1971

#3 Alphaville - Jean-Luc Godard

Language: French

Country: France

Year: 1965
#2 Blue Velvet - David Lynch

Language: English

Country: United States

Year: 1986
#1 2001: a Space Odyssey - Stanley Kubrick

Language: English

Country: United States

Year: 1969



5 Runners-up: The Passion of Joan of Arc by Carl Theodor Dreyer; Dr. Strangelove by Stanley Kubrick; La grand illusion by Jean Renoir; Bicycle Theives by Vittorio De Sica; Metropolis by Fritz Lang.

The Unconscious Forces in Julio Cortázar's House Taken Over

Here is a small essay I wrote. Most of it was written, sporadically, over the last few hours, although I had started it a couple of weeks ago.

To read 'House Taken Over' in English click here.

If you think you can have a stab at reading it in Spanish, or if you are bilingual, click here.

I make mention of another story called 'Letter to a Young Lady in Paris', but I could not find the text on the internet.

This essay, I must stress, was written purely for entertainment value and was not submitted for any academic course. I have not proof-read it, nor has a lecturer made modifications to it, so it is a bit rough on the edges.

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When writing a screenplay for an A2 Film Studies assignment, I chose to make an adaptation of Julio Cortázar’s short story House Taken Over. Prior to commencing writing it, a teaching assistant read the story and said (I am paraphrasing here): “The story is open-ended; you could choose to show what it is that throws them out of the house and what happens when they leave it.”

I think that this completely misses out on the point of the story. What expunges the brother and sister out of their own house is their own dreams, fears and obsessions. In the screenplay I wrote I chose to merge it with another story in the collection Bestiary (1951) entitled Letter to a Young Lady in Paris. The story concerns a young Argentine who is looking after an apartment for a woman who has gone away to Paris; he vomits rabbits when he gets anxious and they mutilate the entire apartment. I added it in as a dream sequence (which was re-titled Letter to a Young Lady Who is Also Asleep) to make more explicit the fact that what throws the brother and sister out of their house are unconscious forces that are latent in the house, and they manifest themselves through these muffled sounds and voices.

After I sent my screenplay to a family relative in Chile, who is a university professor and a Cortázar fanatic, he said that implementing the second story into the script makes it clearer that what throws the brother and sister out the house is indeed their collective unconscious. He also said that it is a symbolic and ambiguous representation of the mysterious forces that inhabit the house. The destruction of the vomiting rabbits, he said, is liberation against a reality that has turned oppressive.

Julio Cortázar was a middle-class Argentine, who came to be a prominent figure in what was to be called el boom, a new wave of Latin-American fiction that erupted in the early 1960s. These texts were characterised by their objective realism; ordinary people find themselves in situations which can be surrealistic or uncanny. This genre was soon to be christened magic realism and it led to re-evaluation of previous generation of novelists soon to be heralded as masters, including Jorge Luis Borges, Juan Rulfo and Juan Carlos Onetti.

Cortázar’s role in the Boom was fundamental. The publication of his ambitious novel Hopscotch in 1962 revitalised the literary scene, and the youth of Latin-America became enraptured by it. If 1960s literature was led by the beats in the United States, it was Julio Cortázar who was the most read, admired and discussed author in Latin-America. The popularity of his novel led to an interest in three collections of short stories published in the ‘50s, which had fallen to a silence upon publication: Bestiary (1951), End of the Game (1956) and The Secret Weapons (1959).

The first story in Bestiary is House Taken Over. In this story a brother and a sister live in a large, spacious house and they have an income from a farm, permitting them to wallow in leisure activities. However, menacing sounds appear to emanate from distant rooms and corridors of the house. Eventually, these forces take up the entire house and the unnamed protagonist and his sister Irene are evicted, leaving it in lieu of a new destination.

There is an ambiguity as to what exactly it is that raids their house and evicts them. What is more peculiar is that the characters seem to accept this as it were completely normal; they acquiesce to it, without ever questioning the unusual events.

How is it possible to disentangle this morass of ambiguity and reach an interpretation? Cortázar does imply a great deal in this story, and there is a certain atmosphere that permeates in it which leads me to believe that the raiders of this house aren’t, in fact, people but forces that are implanted in both the house and the characters, alienating them, cornering them and eventually evicting them.

The genesis of the story all the more backs up this viewpoint: its idea came to the author in a dream. Cortázar, in his dream, found himself in a large mansion and was pushed aside from one room to the next until he was evicted from it. He woke up and wrote the story in a single sitting.

Initially, Cortázar sets the story by briefly describing the characters and the house they inhabit. The unnamed narrator and his sister Irene have reached middle age and have never had relationships that have led to marriage: “We ended up thinking, at times, that that [the house] was what had kept us from marrying.” The rest of the house is described and the narrator comments how the ornaments and furniture are covered in dust and that they have neglected this considerable space of the house.

Soon enough, these ‘forces’ make themselves present and the characters huddle to the part of the house they usually frequent. Yes, they are overtaken and disturbed, but try making the situation more tolerable by setting up a new routine. The narrator, with his collection of French literature stranded on the other side of the house, orders a stamp collection, while Irene makes up new patterns for her knitting. The narrator says “It is possible to live without thinking.” However, they are soon so discomforted that these forces that are within them manifest themselves through their dreams.

Cortázar describes in detail the brother and sister’s discomfort while they sleep: “Whenever Irene talked in her sleep, I woke up immediately and stayed awake. I could never get used to this voice from a statue or parrot, a voice that came out of the dreams, not from the throat.” The forces that are present in the house intersect into their dreams or, alternatively, the forces within them intersect into the house. They are clearly anguished by these latent powers, unable to sleep or think clearly.

The collective past of the brother’s and sister’s lives are encapsulated within the house, even to the extent that their belongings, furniture and ornaments come to represent the lives of their ancestors: “It kept the memories of our great-grandparents, our paternal grandfather and the whole of childhood.” Everything about their past life surrounds them, which ultimately leaves them oblivious towards it and they find respite in the quotidian and the mundane: the anonymous character (who shares similarities with the author) spends his days reading French novels while his sister, Irene, knits.

Ultimately, these forces are so overpowering that they appropriate the entire house and the brother and sister are forced to leave. These sounds, even when they come to a closer proximity of the characters, remain indistinct: “You could hear the noises, still muffled but louder, just behind us.” These sounds increase in volume, but cannot be easily distinguished. They take over the part of the house the characters had insulated themselves, and they have no choice but to leave.

Following House Taken Over in Bestiary there is an equally enigmatic and cryptic story, Letter to a Young Lady in Paris. I inserted this story as a dream sequence in my screenplay, which acts as an interconnecting interlude. This epistolary story is a letter to a woman whose house the narrator is looking after. Like the brother and sister in House Taken Over, he is deeply depressed and anguished, resulting in an oppressive manifestation. He vomits rabbits, which then mutilate and deface the entire apartment. In my screenplay, this dream sequence acts as a suggestion of these inner forces within the characters.

Another interpretation of these stories is they are a political allegory of the climate in Argentina at the time of its publication. Peron’s dictatorship was very powerful and had already oppressed many groups and minorities. Cortázar didn’t discard this viewpoint, saying that this political aspect could have had a psychological influence on his dream, although he wasn’t aware of it at the time of writing. His writing, and his political views, in the late 1960s would veer to out-and-out socialism and he would dedicate himself to political activism in the later stages of his life.

The erupting rabbits and the muffled sounds are repressed desires which are, in a warped way, liberations which in turn oppress the characters and leave their surroundings in a state of disfiguration and dilapidation. These forces could stem from political repression, although this is of course entirely ambiguous and entirely up to the reader to decide for him or herself.

Ipod shuffle #5

1. Miss Ann - Eric Dolphy

Dolphy borders between the most 'far out' possible jazz and the more straightforward free-bob. This track is from the album Far Cry. They play a melody, which is harmonious enough, but the solo, while playing off the melody, isn't in the same key (I don't think). Following Dolphy's saxophone solo, Freddy Hubbard comes in on trumpet, then a piano solo until all the band members solo and play off one another simultaneousl, eventually returning to the title melody again.

2. Speedfreaks - Naked City

Zorn has said in the past that he has a "short attention span". And here, never maintaining any style of music for more than a few milliseconds, he rushes past an unlimited array of music genres, all in the grind style of Napalm Death.

3. The Firebird Suite VI - Igor Stravinsky

This is the final movement of Stravinsky's renowned Firebird piece; here it is part of a smaller and compressed suite. This piece of music is truly beautiful and it has never ceased to exhilarate me. It is the perfect finale for one of the most substantial pieces ever composed. This was his first major work and remains as the Stravinsky work that's most frequently performed. It is also his only piece that is in the 'Romantic' genre, although his concept of 'organised sound' is already present here from the outset in its arrangements.

4. SGNL > 02 - Isis

This Isis track is basically an intermediary track on the album Celestial, connecting the 'proper' songs together. It is an ambient sound that comes across as highly menacing.

5. Scavenger, Invader - The Locust

Also something of an intermediary track. A hideous sound is played on the keyboard again, as the bass stomps in and the incomprehensible vocals shout over them. Again, this acts as a segue between the tracks in the album New Erections, which include the full band playing.

The comics of my youth #5

Máximo Chambonez

The remote edges #15

These photographs are of a pathway leading to an immense landscape overlooking hills. This landscape will come next month - it is truly beautiful. To be more economic I didn't include it this month, so the quantity of photos has been reduced to 11.

To those who find the phrase 'remote edges' dubiously odd, then your feeble brain can't cope with my creative neologisms. I came up with the phrase while my mind was addled from a mental illness... Besides, these are remote edges - the places on the fringe of society, the beautiful places no-one ever visits.

Great art cinema

Two or Three Things I Know about Her (1966) - Jean-Luc Godard



Solaris (1972) - Andrei Tarkovsky



Branded to Kill (1967) - Seijun Suzuki



The White Ribbon (2009) - Michael Haneke



Heimat (1984, 1992, 2004) - Edgar Reitz



A Man Escaped (1956) - Robert Bresson



Hiroshima mon amour (1959) - Alain Resnais



The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928) - Carl Theodor Dreyer



The Seventh Seal (1957) - Ingmar Bergman



Metropolis (1927) - Frtiz Lang



Prenom Carmen (1983) - Jean-Luc Godard

Album by album: Captain Beefheart's discography

Safe as Milk (1967)

Beefheart had already made his presence felt in the scene with a couple of blues covers, but he truly broke new mould with debut album, Safe as Milk. With arrangements and guitar playing from Ry Cooder, these are blues songs with frequent tempo changes that diverge from continuity, but they can still be followed and understood on first listen. There are a couple of numbers that hint at what to come, but overall this release is charged with rough R&B. For some reason, these songs evoke feelings of nostalgia within me. Often, the music will be at a steady 4/4 beat but will go off at a tangent. This was not the most 'far out' release from 1967 (some consider it to be his best), but it announced an audacious new voice in rock music.

Stand-out track: Autumn's Child

Mirror Man (1967)

This is basically an extensive jam session and perhaps the only Beefheart album that includes extensive improvisation and ad-libbing from The Magic Band. While Safe as Milk included snippets of his signature drumming, Drumbo's inside-out playing is more pronounced here. Apart from the two 1974 albums, this is the Beefheart record I return to the least; I get a little impatient when I hear it. Still, it is a fascinating document of a major development in Beefheart's career.

Stand-out track: Tarotplane

Strictly Personal (1968)

This is what many Beefheart followers have dubbed a 'ruined masterpiece'. Though Beefheart approved of its re-mixing, he claimed that it was done without without his awareness when he heard it criticised! Producer Bob Krosnow added many clichéd psychedelic sound effects that sometimes stifle the actual music. But people do tend to overlook the excellent song-writing, perhaps featuring one of the few 'progressive' and 'extensive' pieces of Beefheart music. It also has his best vocals, especially in his acapella opener 'Ah Feel Like Acid'. While Safe as Milk definitely had its eccentricities, there is some out-and-out attempts at weirdness here, most pronounced on 'Beatle Bones and Smoking Stones'.

Stand-out track: Trust Us

Trout Mask Replica (1969)

This is equally (or even more so) renowned for its conception than its actual content. Now having a recruited a much younger band, he ensnared them in a small house for a whole year, tormenting them psychologically and subjecting them to never-ending rehearsals. The process for composition had now changed; the music was now written on piano, an instrument Beefheart couldn't play. It was transcribed by Drumbo, who then arranged it all accordingly. The 21 pieces they constantly rehearsed (in addition to 7 other tracks that were recorded from different sessions) were intricately assembled, skewed and frenetic music that had never really been heard before and hasn't been heard since. The tracks are strangely disjointed yet somehow complementary. Beefheart never rehearsed with the band, so his vocals bear no resemblance to the rest of the music (which was conceived instrumentally), but by now there is an increasing amount of playful word-play and surrealist lyrics. It seemed as if he was approaching it as the painter/sculptor he claimed to be, rather than as a blues singer. This album has stood the test of time and is rightly cited as one of the best rock albums ever made, but it is understandable why it receives so much contempt and befuddlement. There is so much going on here that it goes over people's ears.

Stand-out track: Neon Meat Dream of an Octafish

Lick My Decals Off, Baby (1970)

Perhaps because of featuring just one guitar, this is marginally more accessible than Trout Mask. Though now the complementary interplay is percussive, now featuring an additional drummer and marimba player. This album is equally compelling as Trout and even has moments that surpass it, but nowadays it is sadly overlooked and is not available on CD due to copyright issues. The Magic Band now had a flair for this kind of music and had got to grips with it. The polytonal mastery of tracks like 'Doctor Dark' and 'Bellerin' Plain' is truly mind-blowing. Beefheart's lyrics had now darkened, dealing less with a life-affirming view of the world than with apocalyptic visions and messages in tracks like 'Petrified Forest' and 'Space Age Couple'. The detractive aspect of the album is the cacophonous saxophone playing, which obscures quite a lot of the music.

Stand-out track: Bellerin' Plain

The Spotlight Kid (1972)

After the intense experimentation of his previous two releases, Beefheart now wanted to return to a simpler sound, producing an album consisting of simpler blues songs. The songs now were constructed by the band jamming with Beefheart's supervision. This album has many detractors because of its production; the songs are very slowed-down and zombie-like, but the song-writing is superb and better than in Clear Spot. Guitarist Zoot Horn Rollo isn't too fond of this album, and the tracks are meant to sound speedier as their live version incarnations attest. In 'click clack' the whole band emulates a speeding locomotive - stunning stuff. One can definitely sympathise with The Magic Band's frustration, Beefheart posing in the cover sans the band's name is selfish and a tad bit narcissistic.

Stand-out track: Click-Clack

Clear Spot (1972)

This is Beefheart going commercial without suffering a heart attack and without impinging on the music. Like all dictatorships, Beefheart's tyrannical rule had now softened and The Magic Band were given more latitude. Zoot Horn Rollo is on fire on this album, the slide guitar rollicking along and driving the music forward. For the first time, this is a Beefheart album with good production - clean, crisp and clear. There are moments when you get the impression where Beefheart is being pushed into commercial pop, like 'Too Much Time', but overall this album is one hell of a blast and very, very entertaining.

Stand-out track: Big Eyed Beans from Venus

Unconditionally Guaranteed (1974)

Wretchedly awful. Here Beefheart is self-consciously selling out, even appearing on the cover gripping money. Apart from Zoot Horn Rollo's guitar playing, The Magic Band sound nothing like they should and they would shortly leave Beefheart. Soppy music and soppy love lyrics co-written with his wife which don't sound at all genuine. Beefheart's worst.

Stand-out track: Peaches

Bluejeans and Moonbeams (1974)

Marginally better than Guaranteed, but still wretched. This group was nicknamed 'The Tragic Band' and consisted of session musicians. It has a few good bluesy numbers, but overall this simply doesn't work. Something that redeems the album very slightly is Beefheart's impressive vocals which would soon crack.

Stand-out track: The Party of Special Things to do

Bat Chain Puller (1976)

To this day, this album remains unreleased and can only be heard in bootleg form. Which is a huge shame. Beefheart got entangled in an assortment of contractual difficulties and couldn't release this, his best work since Decals. This is quite possibly Beefheart's most eclectic album; every facet of his musicality is featured here. There is a return to more atonally constructed music, but it is far more relaxed and nowhere near as frenetic. Now the guitars seem to cohere with the drum parts more, but they still remain idiosyncratic. The highlight of the album, and one of the highlights of Beefheart's entire career, is 'The Thousandth and Tenth Day of the Human Totem Pole', an immensely angular and obtuse track which sounds like what would have happened if Stravinsky had written a rock song. Ten of the twelve songs of the album would be reworked in his next three releases.

Stand-out track: The Thousandth and Tenth Day of the Human Totem Pole

Shiny Beast (1978)

This album is usually seen as a re-recording of Bat Chain Puller, but it should really be seen as an entirely different album in its own right. Five of the tracks from that album appear here, but they are re-worked. This album was a godsend to those who thought Beefheart had lost it with his '74 recordings. This is a very colourful recording and the album by Beefheart that comes the closest to sounding like Zappa. Playful, fun and intelligent with a melange of sounds including trombone, slide guitars and marimba.

Stand-out track: Bat Chain Puller

Doc at the Radar Station (1980)

By far Beefheart's harshest, aggressive and abrasive record. He sounds like he's really pissed off here. And it's probably the best of his later work! The guitars intersect and clash one another like shafts of glass and, even if you're familiar with Trout Mask, it demands a couple of listens to get familiarised with. Even if Beefheart disliked punk, its spirit is very present here as he rants against everything he hates and has ripped him off ("I hate all those people who have been riding on my bones", "Open up another case of the punks"). There is even a little oriental feel in this album, featuring Chinese gongs, a little oriental guitar piece and a mellotron interlude.

Stand-out track: Best Batch Yet

Ice Cream for Crow (1982)

After the glossy production of his two previous releases, here Van Vliet wanted a 'two dimensional' sound, "like a painting". Initially, the album was going to consist of half of new material and the other half of the unreleased Bat Chain Puller but, due to Zappa's negligence at handing over the tapes, they had to produce new material in just a few weeks. And some of the material here feels a little rushed, but there is some spectacular stuff here nonetheless. Lyrically, this is Van Vliet's best, conjuring word play and narratives that are unmatched by any other of his albums. The ending track 'Skeleton Makes Good' ends with Beefheart bashing Chinese gongs, an adieu to his entire career.

Stand-out track: The Host The Ghost The Most Holy-O