Absolutely fascinating

[gerisullivan]

This afternoon, apostle_of_eris posted a link to JG Ballard in Shanghai, today's post from James Fallows in the Atlantic. That column led me to Ballardian Rick McGrath's Empire Of The Son: Exploring JG Ballard's Shanghai Home & Haunts. Rick wrote a detailed report of visiting JG Ballard's childhood home and neighborhood in September, 2007, decades after Ballard lived there. The report includes pictures, video, letters, maps, and a floor plan drawn from memory by Ballard himself, and I found the entire thing absolutely fascinating.

It's the journey, the story, the caught me rather than it being about Ballard Himself. I'm not all that familiar with the man or the writer; in fact, I'm woefully ignorant of both. That's another artifact of having come to SF around the time I turned 30 rather than getting hooked in my high school or college years when Ballard's dystopias might have resonated with my concerns and outlook a bit better than they have since. I have a vague recollection of picking out one of his short story collections from galaticvoyeur's extensive library and having a go at it, but I either bounced off it hard or knew after reading the one that his style wasn't my cup of tea in the 1990s. I suspect I'll be far more interested in his autobiographical works. After reading about his home, I intend to find out.

I don't have nearly the material or memory, but the entire time I was reading and savoring every detail of Rick's long article, I was mentally writing the equivalent piece about Oblique House, home of Walter and Madeleine Willis until the mid-1960s when they moved from Belfast to Strathclyde at 32 Warren Road in Donaghadee, Norn Iron.

It is quite likely that I was the last fan to visit 170 Upper Newtownards Road; I'm all but 110% certain I was the last to do so with Walter Himself. The house was on the market when I first visited Northern Ireland in November, 1989, and Walter arranged for a tour with the estate agent. We drove there immediately after he picked me up at Belfast City Airport. Neither he nor Madeleine had been in the house in the 20+ years since they'd moved out, and he didn't reveal the true purpose of our visit to the agent. I posed as a representative of an American investor, sandial, who was interested in using it for a B&B.

It was a credible-enough tale -- I'm amused to find an online account of a 2005 planning appeals commission order regarding a plan to tear down the guest house directly across the street from Oblique House and build a 7-unit apartment building there. More importantly, it opened the way to my taking photographs of the house throughout the tour. The agent no doubt wondered just why I went shutter crazy when we got up to the attic, but I treasure my pictures of the site of Irish fandom's fanzine publishing, ghoodminton games, and other escapades of yore. "Hyperspace is out!"

While in what is arguably fandom's most famous attic with Walter and the estate agent, I discreetly pointed to one of the front windows and silently mouthed "Berry-cade?" Walter nodded -- yes, that was the window broken by John Berry's posterior while rushing to volley a ghoodminton shuttlecock. When replacing the glass, they also built the Berry-cade to prevent it happening again. I quickly snapped a few pictures of the 1989 window and frame, which offered no such protection for fen or the glass. It's a good thing Walter didn't have a shuttlecock in his pocket.

Between all of the stories in Hyphen, various fannish photo archives, and my own pictures and memories from that 1989 visit, there's plenty of material to get started. There are also still at least a few fans around who visited Oblique House back in the day, Ted White among them.

Just what I need: another fanwriting project crammed into my hindbrain along with all the rest. While I disagree with Ballard, who wrote "Still, this is of little interest to anyone but myself," the similar tale of Oblique House is a minor sidenote compared to the attention I still need to give to "He Preferred to Stroll." That's my incomplete account of the remarkable friendship and adventures I shared with Walter, Chuch Harris, James White, and Vin¢ Clarke during what turned out to be the last dozen years of their lives. Woven in there somewhere, or perhaps all along the way are various musings about British and American fandom, all sparked by a drunken 3am conversation with Greg Pickersgill and Pam Wells in the Residents' Bar at the Central Hotel, Glasgow during Intersection. I made a 5,000-word start on it most of a decade ago; one of these days I really do need to pick it up and keep going. It's been long enough that I finally think I can do it taking more comfort and delight in the treasure that was than in reliving the agony of the loss, much though the latter will always be a piece of the landscape.

Comments

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

"He Preferred to Stroll" sounds like a wonderful article. I hope you find the time to finish it, because I want to read it.

[patty1943.livejournal.com]

I can hardly wait to read yours, and thanks for the links on JG Ballard. I read his books as they came out, totally dazzled by the insanity of them. I wondered what had happened to him to create that view of the world, that nothing can stop destruction. I found out when I began learning about trauma and PTSD... especially in kids.

[orangemike.livejournal.com]

Have you read the New York Times obit? Ballard's American editor helpfully explains that Ballard wrote good books that were sometimes mistaken for that sci-fi crap; but that anybody who'd mistake his fine work for sci-fi would be stupid enough to think that 1984 and Brave New World were sci-fi, ha-ha, who would be so dumb as to think that!

[lesliet-ma.livejournal.com]

I didn't read too much Ballard back in the day because it was just too depressing. But the movie of Empire of the Sun was quite fascinating, especially the opening scenes. To be a child living a protected life, and then to suddenly have your world turned upside down... it's hard to imagine how traumatic that would be, but the movie does a good job of trying to put you in that place and time. I'm sure the book would be fascinating as well, although it's never come my way.

[lesliet-ma.livejournal.com]

I followed the link at the bottom of the Fallows piece you noted and read the detailed account of the visit to the Shanghai home. Wow - well worth reading. This bit particularly made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

"The Ballard house is at the very end of the lane, and as we approached the terminus the city’s air raid sirens suddenly began to sound. The humidity shook with a series of long, anxious blasts. I searched the skies, unsure whether to look for Japanese or American bombers

“Do you believe in synchronicity?” Andy asked. “That’s the 10 o’clock signal for today’s national anniversary. Sirens are blowing all over the country right now.” He leaned in, conspiratorially. “It was precisely 70 years ago today the Japanese attacked China and bombed the crap outta Shanghia. Tuesday, September 18, 1937. The beginning of the end for everyone living around here. And Jim’s childhood.”

I was dumbfounded. No, gobsmacked. What were the odds of this happening on the one day I was here? It was like some temporal shift was taking place, and I was being swept along in a sort of dual timeline. The walls were coming together to form an angle."

I've been inspired by all this to read Empire of the Sun. Luckily, it's easily available on paperbackswap.com.

[bibliofile.livejournal.com]

That movie was very good and holds up to multiple viewings. (I watched it again recently, after realizing that the kid lead was Christian Bale.)

(BTW, G, did you mean apostle_of_eris?)

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Fixed now.

(I'd typed apostle of eris without the underscores in the tag, then didn't notice when the tag showed up just as apostle.)

[the-maenad.livejournal.com]

If you ever do finish this, and if you don't then publish it yourself in IDEA, the pages of QUASIQUOTE are wiiiide open for ya.

[apostle-of-eris.livejournal.com]

When I ran into the item, the desire to propagate it through fandom was a no-brainer. (The most interesting thing about the mainstream obits was whether they admitted he was a science fiction writer or not. No news there for us.) But with the profusion of channels, the most effective venue might be non-obvious.
I figured that if I posted the way I did, it would get seen and forwarded enough to assure its getting to the places it ought to, whether I knew them or not.
So thanks for your help!

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

You're entirely welcome! Thank you.

I've just fixed the tag crediting you, too.

He Preferred to Stroll

[spikeiowa.livejournal.com]

Oh oh oh! PLEASE.

(sorry, doing a little LJ catch up reading)

but I MEAN IT.

Re: He Preferred to Stroll

[gerisullivan.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the encouragement -- it remains timely until "He Preferred to Stroll" actually exists and is published.