The author of "Empire of the Sun" is dead: http://www.cnn.com/2009/SHOWBIZ/books/04/20/ballard.obit/index.html?iref=werecommend. I never read Ballard's largely autobiographical book of his life as a youth in a Japanese POW camp, or anything else he wrote but Martin Amis said that Ballard challenged readers to think with "another part of their brain" or something along those lines. Ballard also confessed that the "micro climate" created by Johnnie Walker allowed him to engage his creative genius (yes, he was an Amis man, through and through). Maybe I'll get around to reading him. I have seen Spielberg's movie treatment several times, largely for his portrait of Hong Kong just before and just after the fall to the Japanese. Of course, also later in the film for the footage of the P-51s tear-assing through the POW camp as the allies are closing in. Christian Bale plays the young Ballard in what has always been to me in a thoroughly annoying performance--precociousness unbound. If Ballard really did behave like that, I'm shocked the Japanese didn't bayonet the little shit outright--Bale is entirely grating in the role. Now, I think the guy is one of the more interesting actors out there and usually enjoy watching him.
Unlike Ballard's internment as a child, James Clavell was a British POW of the Japanese and later spent his career writing some great, great novels inspired by knowledge acquired while he was a guest of the Empire. All are ripping, but "Shogun" stands out as one of the greatest of all page turners.
3 comments:
Shogun was another well done tv mini series. It's the only one besides Lonesome Dove that I have watched.
I had read both books before the tv versions came out. High expectations were mostly fulfilled for both.
I thought "Lonesome Dove" was the best mini-series treatment of a great book that I can recall. Still, they had to truncate some stuff. The Deets character is very interesting in the book, but doesn't get fleshed out much in the TV series. Also, Lorena's fate at the hand of her captors is much more gruesome in the book. Minor quibbles, though.
I guess almost everyone remembers where they were when certain events happened. Kennedy's assasination, the shooting of Reagan, etc.
I was on a plane from SF to Dallas when I read the scene in Lonesome Dove when Gus dies. I cried somewhere over Utah. I was young and suddenly no longer invincible.
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