J.G. Ballard's Millennium People 8-25-2015

I finally read J.G. Ballard. Not his Crash, but Millennium People.

I'm not sure what to of this novel - satire, prophecy? Both? The narrator meanders from sympathetic towards the middle class revolution to a feeling of having his tongue in his cheek. Strange.

Strange, too, that the first American edition did not appear till 2011, but the British edition seems to have been in 2005. Did the publisher think a Yuppie rebellion, middle class terrorism, was too much for sensitive American brains? By 2011, we well knew here in the States, the value of a middle class career had gone the way of real estate values.

I thought of Ferguson, Missouri and its riots. Which could not b e any further removed from Ballard's Chelsea Marian than if I were talking of the distance between Pluto and Mercury. Except for passages like this:

 `Sadly, life is worth nothing. Or next to nothing.' Undismayed by my anger, Gould took my arm. `The gods have died and we distrust our dreams. We emerge from the void, stare back at it for a short while, and then rejoin the void. A young woman lies dead on her doorstep. A pointless crime, but the world pauses. We listen and the universe has to nothing to say. There's silence, so we have to speak.'

p. 256 

Thriller, whodunit, social satire, philosophical exegesis - the novel covers a lot of territory. Continuing to quote from the dialog above.

`We?'

'You and I.' Gould was almost whispering, as if talking to one of his dying children. He held my arms, steadying me. `There's a lot to do, other actions to plan. I know you won't let me down.'

Nope, not going to spoil a major plot point!

Ballard, if the point is not clear enough, writes of people who find the world pointless and want the pointlessness. Or maybe not end. Other than continuing the absurdity of modern life, the revolution seems very pointless. But we do need first see the absurdity of our lives, see the dangers physical and spiritual in what we call good, before we can overthrow the absurdity and remove the dangers to our well-being. The English Revolution had to precede the French Revolution.

I wonder what the American middle-class would make of this novel. I also wonder what anyone of a satirical bent would make of its ideas and fine writing.

 Next to read is Caryl Churchill's Top Girls. Another play for the playwriting class. Which also allows me a break from Milton's Paradise Lost. I reached the halfway point last night. Which seems to my memory where I left off in 1978. I wish I could remember why I quit reading the poem. Maybe because all the action is in the first half. Do not ask how much of the details I recall. It feels massive in erudition as well as meter. Still, I do look forward to reading more of Milton.

Milton takes my mind off the problems here. Minor - I need to write a five page for the playwriting class; memories of choices not taken haunting me. Major - Unit 5751's sex offender room keeps getting harassed by Blacks breaking into the room at night (no locks on the doors - these were once military barracks and the one guard in the building who does not unnecessarily move from the guard's office on the first floor); and the status of my writing on the outside; and reversions to "Perversion: A Modern Morality Play". Compared to all that, Milton makes for an enjoyable read.

sch