What an interesting read is the first chapter - life in Shanghai before the Japanese invasion of 1937. Indeed, the whole book is a fascinating read, a glimpse into an aspect of life in wartime China, and Japanese occupation, unknown to me. One small correction is that ss Arrawa was ss Arawa (and sometime HMS Arawa when requisitioned).

What makes it particularly interesting for me is that my father served with the Far East Fleet in the cruiser HMS Cornwall and the destroyer HMS Wild Swan on the China Station from 1931-1933 (a year in each ship), so this first chapter is ideal for giving an overview of life ashore for the European community; the Royal Navy was mostly based at Wei Hai Wei (Liugong Island) from 1930-1940. ( )

An eminently readable autobiography from a man who's fiction can sometimes be enigmatic, sometimes deliberately intended to shock, showing numerous repeated themes and tropes. Where did those themes come from? Since the publication of Empire of the Sun it has been clear that the strongest and most overt of them relate to his childhood experiences of Shanghai during WWII. This book demonstrates that most of the others date back to the same period of his life - and most of the remainder to no later than when he left formal education behind.

Despite a frank description of the important events in his life, Ballard remains himself an enigma to me after reading this. I don't know or understand the character of the man a lot better than before I started. I usually find letters reveal character more readily than biography and it turns out this is no exception. Nevertheless, this is an interesting work for its childhood eyewitness account of 1930s Shanghai and wartime internment as well as the impressions of post-war Britain through the eyes of an ex-pat child going to the old country for the first time. ( )

This short, concise, brilliantly sharp commentary on Ballard's own life from childhood to the moments before his own death in his home is probably the most shocking and tear-jerking autobiographies I've ever read.

He doesn't embellish anything. He plainly tells us that his life as Jim in Empire of the Sun is true as far as it goes, made into a more fantastic story that is then later turned into the movie, but more than that, he briefly outlines the rest of his science-fiction career.

Not the what-if SF of his contemporaries, but the what-next.

I really appreciate the idea. I've read some of his novels and really enjoyed them. Very imaginative works. But, like the author himself, I'm surprised to have liked his closer-to-home work about his childhood in Shanghai during WWII best.

This is not to say I am going to stop here. I'm a big SF fan and I've just decided, after reading such a sharp history, that his writing should never be forgotten. I am going to read everything of his I can get my hands on.

It's important. He may be repeating the same themes in variations, but there is nothing about them that isn't NECESSARY. Rebirth, hope, dream-like calculation, intense connections between sexuality and violence, and, of course, WHAT COMES NEXT.

He was an author who should never be forgotten. ( )

Ballard wrote this after being diagnosed with the cancer that killed him. And, it shows. He is quite forthcoming and very frank with his remembrances: early life spent in Shanghai with its mini nationalistic enclaves, his family internment by the Japanese, his move to an England he really knew little of, attempts at finding a career, his seduction by science fiction, and his family (his love for his children inspired the title). His description of his introduction to and falling in love with science fiction encapsulates my own feelings. Bravo, Mr. Ballard! ( )

This proved to be an excellent follow-up to Empire of the Sun, documenting many additional details of young Jim's childhood in Shanghai and later in life. Frankly I wish the book was longer. Here Ballard gives us additional details before the Japanese takeover and the initial 1937 invasion and to me it was a fascinating picture in addition to giving me a broader look at this crucial period in Asia. It was also interesting to see where Ballard had rearranged and omitted experiences to craft the semi-true story of Empire of the Sun. What was most surprising to me was how much the internment camp material was fictionalized. Ballard assigned to himself many things that had happened to people around him. The biggest change, he notes here, is that he decided to fictionalize being in a different camp from his parents. This was actually a friend of his at the camp in that situation. To me the other big change was that in real life Ballard and his family (he had a sister also in real life who is not in Empire of the Sun) were among the last of the families interred and it was a very simple and orderly process, unlike the descriptions in the book which were incredibly horrific. I also really was moved by the passages here where Ballard revisits China and the internment camp about 45 years after he left, and some of the ghosts were finally able to rest.

Equally interesting here was Ballard trying to find his way in post-war Britain, a place he knew only from books since he had been born and lived in China his entire life. Ballard gave us glimpses of the various events and forces around his life that eventually shaped his writing.

Ballard wrote this while he was dying of prostate cancer - I think of it as gift to readers and history. Absolutely recommended for anyone who is a fan of Empire of the Sun or other Ballard novels. I was quite affected by this book. Now I need to get to his novel "The Kindness of Women" before too long.

A thought that frequently came to me while reading this and 'Empire of the Sun' was how readable Ballard's prose was. I had read some of his short fiction decades ago and frequently disliked it.

Review written in 2016 ( )

Although, as the title suggests, Miracles of life. Shanghai to Shepperton. An autobiography is the autobiography of J.G. Ballard's whole life, and a large part of the book deals with various, later episodes of his life, the focal point of the book is on his earliest youth. One third of the book is devoted to Ballard's youth, growing up in Shanghai, and a large part of that is devoted to life in the concentration camp created by the Japanese occupation forces during the Second World War. This traumatic experience is described together with other traumatic events observed by the author at a young age, such as atrocities commited by Japanese soldiers in China. Together with the apparently random fate of people, and properties, these experiences may form the basis for Ballard's authorship. One such baffling experience is the young Ballard's walk from the liberated concentration camp to his former family home. On the way he witnesses how Japanese soldiers torture and murder a Chinese peasant. Arriving in his street he finds that the home of a neighbouring youth friends has been completely destroyed, however, his own family home has been completely preserved, so he can walk in, lie on his old bed and, as it were, walk from the horror of the day into the space-an-time capsule of his "untouched" bedroom of nearly two years before. An experience of miraculous proportions.

Although the short book, of about 300 pages deals with subsequent years and the author's life during the 1960s and 70s, the focus remains on the original influence of his life in China. The final chapter and photos document the author's recent visit to China, discovering what has become of the places he grew up.

With nearly 100 pages devoted to his youth growing up in pre-war and war-time Shanghai, Miracles of life. Shanghai to Shepperton. An autobiography is not only an autobiographical document about the author's life, but also an historical source about the modern history of China, and Shanghai in particular. ( )

http://nwhyte.livejournal.com/2117885.html

This is a brilliant book - passionate, opinionated, reflective, sometimes angry and occasionally self-critical; fascinating on the details of life in Shanghai before and during WW2 (a fifth of his life, which takes up almost half of the book).

Empire of the Sun comes back towards the end, with an account of how Spielberg made the film of Ballard's book about his wartime experiences, but apart from that there is a lot of interesting reflection on how he became a writer, why in particular he chose science fiction - shown as a fairly calculated choice rather than instinct - and the rewards of being a parent to three children. It's rare I would say this of a book, but I actually wished it had been twice as long. ( )

* added a bit more to my review;

Ballard was born the same year as my father and they couldn't be more different. My previous impressions of what Ballard was like have flown out the window with this memoir - I think I used to stick him in some kind of pop art/warhol category after reading Crash, and I couldn't have been more wrong...although on an artistic level Ballard's writing - particularly Crash and The Actrocity Exhibition go into groundbreaking realms of simulacra as Baudrillard likes to point out.

Miracles of Life was written after he was diagnosed with prostrate cancer & feels a little stiff and disjointed in places but he's forgiven that - anyone who can remember events back that long while being treated for cancer gets my vote. He reveals a whole other side..his growing up in Shanghai, the war years and interred in the Japanese camp, his university years and his later years as sole parent - very unusual in men of that generation. What I found most interesting was his attitude to the era was so unlike my parents..who could be compared to Ballard's grandparents in England with their Victorian sensibilities. In this short memoir I came to really like Ballard and it's a terrible shame that he's gone.

I forgot to mention that he talks a fair bit about where his imagery comes from and how he got the idea for Crash & many of this other short stories. He has always seen himself as a Science Fiction writer (of "Inner space") not future space which sets him leagues away from the likes of Star Trek etc. He also describes living through the 60's and while he was "there" he was more of a loner (partly due to being home with his children),- he didn't really go in for the 60's celeb hype and I admire that. Two of his most closest friends were Michael Moorcock whose books I cut my teenage teeth on, and the artist Eduardo Paolozzi who I had not heard of before and find most interesting & wish to peruse. Ballard recommends the writers Will Self, Martin Amis and Ian Sinclair as writers to watch in the future.

Sometimes you read about artists and writers you've admired for years for their works, and then something about them sets you on edge, something really rubs you the wrong way, you know you could never like them personally and the love affair is broken. Ballard however is a nice guy, the kind of guy you could go down the local pub with and have a few drinks with and chew the fat about everything and anything and still come home liking him. ( )

I am a big fan of Ballard's work, the adaptation of his book "Empire of the Sun" is one of the first films I really remember watching over and over that wasn't a cartoon, so you can imagine how excited I was to get my hands on his autobiography.

Ballard was born in Shanghai in 1930 and was interned in a camp with other foreign nationals by the Japanese. Understandably, for the adults, being interned is very difficult. Being locked in, dwindling rations, squabbles and rivalries were problems that had to be faced. For the children in the camp, however, it is quite an adventure, games to be played and lots of exploring to be done, though there were enough adults willing to take classes.

After the war, the Ballards move back to the U.K., a move hastened by the change happening in China. It is no easy transition, even though they are going home, post-war Britain is a dreary place after the glamour and excitement of the International Concession in Shanghai. There is more travelling in store for the author after he moves to Canada with the R.A.F.

The second part of the book deals with his relationships, his children and his writing career. As a stay at home dad, Ballard is able to write, but his career has ups and downs, especially with the publication of his more controversial books. Seeing the author "at home" so to speak is a bit like peeping behind the wizard's curtain, but having read quite a few of his books it was interesting to see them in the context of his life. The final part of the book follows Ballard being diagnosed with cancer and his reflections on his life.

For those of you who have read his books Empire of the Sun and The Kindness of Women (or seen the film of the former), there are many episodes that you will recognise, though as the author writes, not all of them happened to himself. The tone is engaging, he shares with the readers, on his terms, a life that was lived to the full. Highly recommended. ( )

Ballard's final book, alas. Quite a bit different than his fictional autobiography, Empire of the Sun and The Kindness of Women. Some details that stick out in my mind: He was the most radical of the New Wavers but didn't partake of 1960s craziness because he was raising 3 kids as a single dad. He did indeed have a grand old time in the Japanese interment camp, where one of the other kids was future cult TV actor Peter Wyngarde. ( )

Ballard was a brilliant observer and fluid writer, it's very sad to think there won't be any more of his books. ( )

A lovely interesting autobiography. I felt the final third a bit less interesting (though there is a kicker) but the beginning sections, from his childhood in Shanghai and in the Japanese war camp, through his return to England and school, through the death of his wife, are all absorbing, whether or not the reader is familiar with Ballard's fiction. The reader of Ballard's fiction might be surprised by the simplicity and calm of this tale (though that isn't true of the elements of the tale) but will spot the origins of many of the tropes, images and themes of Ballard's fiction.

Modest and sparing, I found this telling of his remarkable life even more powerful and moving than his fictionalised accounts – Empire of the Sun and The Kindness of Women. A great deal of the material is already familiar from those novels, but one of the fascinating aspects of this book is his willingness to discuss his inspiration and techniques for writing.

His training as a doctor at Cambridge (where he was fascinated by dissection), his early working life selling encyclopedias, training in the RAF and as deputy editor at Chemistry & Industry along with his interest in psychoanalysis all led him to create a unique genre of writing in which the characters 'inner-spaces' are the focus instead of science fiction's usual preoccupations at that time.

I loved his delightful inversion of Cyril Connolly's quote – "my greatest ally was the pram in the hall" – and his belief in the importance of providing a happy and stable childhood for his family after his wife died suddenly in 1964. It is quite a leap of imagination to go from writing books like The Atrocity Exhibition during the day to picking the kids up from school, watching Blue Peter and preparing dinner. As he admits himself 'my children brought me up, perhaps as an incidental activity to rearing themselves', but also rightly points out he was incredibly lucky to be able to observe the process of his children growing from infancy into fully formed human beings so closely and how often fathers miss out on this. His joy in being a parent, the time spent as the sole parent of young children and the 'miracles of life' that he observed all added much to my understanding of him and his books.

It saddened me greatly to learn in the final chapter that he is suffering from advanced prostate cancer and that this may be the last thing he writes. It would be sad if this is the case, but when you look at the life he has led and the work he will leave behind I can't help but feeling that there isn't really any need to say anything else. ( )

This is an interesting, well-written and thoughtful autobiography starting with Ballard’s life in Shanghai (he was born there in 1930), through his experience in the Japanese internment camp (outside Shanghai at Lunghua….at least, outside 1943-1945, but now well within the city of Shanghai) with his parents, sister and other foreigners (the Shanghai experiences recounted in his novel Empire of the Sun), through to his return to a post-war England that he could never quite grasp with its strata of haves and have-nots (more important, in his view than any “class” distinctions), worn out from the war but with too many trying to hang on to faded and exhausted glories of the British empire, through his brief stint as a medical student, his early efforts as a writer, trying to find his voice and his genre, his brief experience in Canada as an RAF pilot in training, his return to England and the beginnings of a writing career always on the edge of “mainstream” literature with his own particular type of science fiction.

The book is interesting for Ballard’s views on society, for his thoughts on literature and what is important in writing, and what led him to develop his writing in the field of science fiction. In the latter, he was greatly influenced by psychoanalysis (particularly Freud) and surrealism: “I strongly felt, and still do, that psychoanalysis and surrealism were the key to the truth about existence and human personality, and also a key to myself”. His search for a new style and content of ficiton was very much driven by a desire to explore these “truths” through writing. As he says: “…surrealism and psychoanalysis offered an escape route, a secret corridor into a more real and more meaningful world, where shifting psychological roles are more important than the ‘character’ so admired by English school-masters and literary critics, and where the deep revolutions of the psyche matter more than the social dramas of everyday life, as trivial as a tempest in a tea cosy.”

Ballard’s experiences in Shanghai strongly shaped his life and approach to his writing, or what he considered should be important and explored in writing. He describes wandering through a deserted casino in the late 1930s when Shanghai was under Japanese occupation:

“Everywhere gold glimmered in the half-light, transforming this derelict casino into a magical cavern from the Arabian Nights tales. But it held a deeper meaning for me, the sense that reality itself was a stage set that could be dismantled at any moment, and that no matter how magnificent anything appeared, it could be swept aside into the debris of the past.
I also felt that the ruined casino, like the city and the world beyond it, was more real and more meaningful than it had been when it was thronged with gambles and dancers. Abandoned houses and office buildings held a special magic and on my way home from school I often paused outside an empty apartment block. Seeing everything displaced and rearranged in a haphazard way gave me my first taste of the surrealism of everyday life, hough Shanghai was already surrealist enough.”

I think this sums up nicely Ballard’s approaches in his novels, his eye for extrapolating from the ordinary into the extraordinary and even the horrific, inventiveness firmly rooted in elements of present social and economic “realities” as we understand them, everyday connections that seem commonplace until they are explored or stood on their heads, and with social commentaries and criticisms swathed in the extreme. The quote above about the ruined casino resonates perfectly with his description of the mad world of an artificially maintained Las Vegas in the midst of an abandoned USA in Hello America ( )

I read this in one sitting. This is a superb memoir as Ballard recollects aspects of his life The passage about the death of his wife is moving without being sentimental and what is particularly lovely is that as much as Ballard reveals he conceals - it is clear that his children are important to him, but he doesn't feel the need to reveal all about them. ( )

J.G. Ballard is one of the great imaginative writers, on a par with Franz Kafka and Jorge Louis Borges in his orginality. His writing career began in the science fiction magazines of the 50's, moved on to surreal disaster novels in the mid-60's and evolved into the avant-garde and transgressive works of the Atrocity Exhibition and Crash in the late 60's and early 70's. He is most famous for Empire of the Sun, a fictionalised account of his boyhood experiences in wartime Shanghai, bringing him to the attention of the literary establishment and filmed by Steven Spielberg. He has gone on to write four detective novels, far more concerned with the psychopathologies of late capitalism then the cliches of the genre. His themes and obsessions have been constant over the years coming to define the term Ballardian; the psychological effect of the landscapes of the modern world-the media, high-rise buidings, car crashes, consumer society-on their isolated inhabitants. All this filtered through the unique alchemy of J.G. Ballard's visionary imagination.

The Miracles of Life will be his last book. He was diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer in 2006 which prompted him to write his autobiography. It's a slim volume written in a straightforward conversational style but with flashes of Ballardian brilliance, the largest part dealing with his childhood in China. Of course for the enthusiasts this will be a must-read (although the story told will be familiar) but others will enjoy this account of his life and maybe encourage them to read more of the author's work. You come away with the feeling that not only is Ballard a literary genius but a decent human being; genuinely modest and with the right priorities.

On a personal level I felt a great sense of loss when I finished the last chapter , Homeward Bound. J.G. Ballard is my favourite writer, someone I have been reading since my late teens, so the thought he will no longer be there in his small and ordinary Shepperton house (only a 15 minute drive from my own) shining a vivid light on the hidden strangeness of my everyday world, is a very sad one. ( )

This book tells the life story of the author of "Empire of the Sun". JG Ballard now has cancer of the prostate and does not have much time left.

http://gcoupe.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!6AA39937A982345B!5230.entry ( )