Empire of the Sun - J.G. Ballard

Ballard is one of those authors who I would like to like more than I do. He has a penchant for placing characters and the reader in nightmarish and inextricable situations that fail to acquire depth or redemptive truth. I find fault with his style which can be stilted and repeat identical images and even vocabulary. The narratives are disturbing without being rewarding. There’s no reason why they should be, of course: Ballard, the writer, owes me nothing, but I am left wanting more.
 
Empire of the Sun is different and there is no doubt that it lies in the strong connection with Ballard’s childhood, when during the Second World War he was in an internment camp in Japanese-occupied Shanghai. In later novels, he will concoct scenarios in which his sense of displacement and alienation is acted out. Here, he is remembering. It is real and grounded, if fictionalized. The plot and its visual representation are engrossing.
 
The book is run through with a terrible honesty that holds it together and guarantees it power and poignancy. Boys are fascinated by war. In the midst of it all, he is excited by the Japanese soldiers and planes and “happy in the detention centre.” Jim is just at that age when he perceives uncomfortable facts without being appalled by the insight. The boy realizes that Dr Ransome “resented Jim for revealing an obvious truth about the war, that people were only too able to adapt to it.”
 
Even when Jim is separated from his parents, alone and in danger, attempting to survive and starving, Ballard resists a sentimental treatment that would undermine the integrity of the boy’s character and the book is more moving for it.