I remember one Saturday afternoon during the winter of 1987/1988 when my friend Chuck and I decided that instead of hitting the mall we would take in a movie. Our choices weren’t great… Rent-a-Cop, Return of the Living Dead Part II , Braddock, Missing in Action Part III. Yeah, so, we opted for Empire of the Sun. I had no real inkling to see it. I really didn’t care. I remember that the movie had these big gaps of silence. Shots of Christian Bale running around an internment camp, flying a toy bomber, hunting for food. I think that’s mostly what I remember of it. That and Chuck’s reaction. You see, Chuck was the stereotypical ‘skateboarding stoner’, and I’m not joking or being flippant. He relished that label. He’d put Jeff Spicoli to shame, really… Yet, he was completely engrossed in this film. I mean, elbows on knees, leaning forward, shushing ME, kinda engrossed. It was… off-putting to say the least. I found out later, that he went back to see the film another half dozen times. This is a boy that worked at Wendy’s and spent all his money on pot. Go figure.So, now, 20 some odd years later, I’m reading this book and trying to use my adultified brain to figure out what exactly mesmerized Chuck so. The story is poignant, made more so when you read that it’s based on JG Ballard’s childhood experiences during WWII. From the get go, I was amazed at the detachment exhibited by Jim regarding death. It was constantly surrounding him and he could shrug it off and continue his make believe games of flying bombers and wounding the enemy. Of course, it’s hard to say who is the enemy while living in Shanghai in 1942. The book has much more power in that we get to hear Jim’s thoughts and observations, it fills those silences with awe striking clarity and numbing accounts of soldiers stacked along the roadside and how the skin of a sweet potato can taste like the best chocolate imaginable. It lends resonance when he’s confused about his sexual feelings towards a fellow prisoner and roommate, Mrs. Vincent, and the absolute dissolution when he watches fellow prisoners perish from disease and hunger. It’s achingly effective. There is a scene, towards the end, the war is over, he’s trying to get back to Shanghai to find his parents but he happens across a Japanese pilot that had offered him a mango days before. Jim has always felt a kinship to this pilot, a boy not much older than himself and has fantasies of a camaraderie that, of course, never comes to fruition. The pilot’s mouth opened in a noiseless grimace. His eyes were fixed in an unfocused way on the hot sky, but a lid quivered as a fly drank from his pupil. One of the bayonet wounds in his back had penetrated the front of his abdomen, and fresh blood leaked from the crotch of his overall. His narrow shoulders stirred against the crushed grass, trying to animate his useless arms. Jim gazed at the young pilot, doing his best to grasp the miracle that had taken place. by touching the Japanese he had brought him live; by prizing his teeth apart he had made a small space in his death and allowed his soul to return. Jim spread his feet on the damp slope and wiped his hands on his ragged trousers. The flies swarmed around him, stinging his lops, but Jim ignored them. He remembered how he had questioned Mrs. Philips and Mrs. Gilmour about the raising of Lazarus, and how they had insisted that far from being a marvel this was the most ordinary of events. Every day Dr. Ransome had brought people back from the dead by massaging their hearts. Jim looked at his hands, refusing to be overawed by them. He raised his palms to the light, letting the sun warm his skin. For the first time since the start of the war, he felt a surge of hope, If he could raise this dead Japanese pilot he could raise himself and the million of Chinese who had died during the war and were still dying in the fighting for Shanghai, for a booty as illusory as the treasury of the Olympic stadium. I have to admit that before this, I was clinging to the book, reading it like I was reading a diary of events. Because who am I, a woman who has no inkling what war is like except what I see on CNN, to be able to extract the emotion of this boy from a different time? Then I imagine this 15 year old boy playing Christ, trying to raise the souls of all the people, family, that he had watched perish… wow. I still wonder what attracted Chuck to this. Was it the ‘little boy lost’ theme? The growing up and discovering who you are amongst a war that was real or imagined? The detachment? I wish I knew where he was so I could ask him… it might shed light on what was behind the ‘skateboarding stoner’ that I thought I knew so well.
This was a very interesting book. Probably like most people, when I think of WWII, I think of a few historical "touchpoints": Nazi Germany, Pearl Harbor, Iwo Jima, Hiroshima. The biggies. This book isn't about any of them. Well, not directly. This book is personal and intimate and shows the gritty underbelly of a war that people like to romanticize. Heck, even the main character romanticized the war, and he was living it! Quickie synopsis: Jim is happy and sheltered living in Shanghai with his parents. War starts. Jim is separated from parents and then begins a crazy messed up survivor-journey through Japanese invaded and war-torn China to try to find them. Now I like gritty and realistic coming of age type stories. This one was an interesting look at what happens when you have to come of age not only while a war is taking place, but smack-dab in the middle of it, suffering and starving and unsure of tomorrow, even while seeing the world through a child's eyes. The fascination with both cars and planes got a bit tiresome, but what the heck else did he have to entertain himself with?Two things did get rather on my nerves: First, the dialogue felt very fake and unnatural. Yes, I do realize that this is a well-mannered and enthusiastic 11 year old doing his best to survive, and if that means ingratiating himself to anyone and everyone he meets, then so be it. But, is it REALLY necessary to repeat everything that is said to him? Is he a boy or a parrot?Example- Basie says: "I took good care of you, Jim."Jim says: "You took good care of me, Basie."Second, twice during the course of the book, Ballard used the phrase "Two years ago, when Jim was younger...". This just annoys me for some reason. Two years ago, obviously Jim was younger. Why say it? We're not dumb. Actually, I'm being picky. No we're not dumb readers, but I don't really think that Ballard meant it that way. I think he was trying to say that Jim has matured in a very short time, but just chose a really bad way of saying it. Anyway, those are nit-picky things, but they were distracting to me. Overall, the story was interesting and gave a different insight to a situation that I hope I never find myself in.
What do You think about Empire Of The Sun (1985)?
I read this book because the movie version is one of my all-time favorites. I was intrigued by the fact that this is semi-autobiographical and to see how true the movie was to the book. I was relieved to see that the general structure of the story is carried into the movie and that some movie dialogue comes directly from the book. But there are major differences between the two. While I wasn't a total fan of Ballard's writing style, I am so glad I read this classic and really enjoyed the process.Perhaps the starkest contrast is Jim's experience in the Lunghua camp. The books description of that time, which was considerable, is so much more dire than what is portrayed in the movie. I also found it interesting that many of the internees felt so at-home in the camp that they returned in droves after the war ended because they had nowhere else to go. In the movie, it is really only Jim who returns to an empty camp. In the book I found Basie to be a much more devious and even creepy figure than John Malkovich portrays in the movie. You never really know what to think about him in the movie, but in reading the book, it pained me to see how much trust Jim gave him. Overall, though, my impression is that the human spirit is so incredible. Through the most awful circumstances, Jim never gives up the will to live, even though he has no idea what awaits him or where he will go. As others around him give up, die, go made, he perseveres. Maybe it's the naivete of childhood that keeps him going, but I think it is something more than that.
—Elissa
would classify Empire of the Sun as an adventure novel about a boy’s life during the Japanese occupation of Shanghai in WWII.The book is graphic and spares no details about how people die, but it wasn’t graphic to the point where I had to put it down. Halfway through reading this, I realized that it was not fiction and was actually an autobiography, which made it a bit more difficult to read the particularly gruesome parts.Empire of the Sun not only has an accurate portrayal of how a teenage boy would act during internment, but also the thoughts that would run through his head. There are parts in the book which had me on the edge of my seat because I was sure the boy was about to die, but knew that it couldn’t happen logically since it’s a biography.Ballard not only provides an exciting adventure story, but also great insight into the human condition. While I wouldn’t exactly call this an uplifting book, I did feel better after reading it. I feel the same way about it as I feel about Schindler’s List: I wouldn't call it enjoyable, but it's definitely something that people should read.
—Louise
Don't let the Spielberg connection turn you off. This is a devastating slow burn of a book, one that I picked up fairly randomly, and have been reeling from ever since. The prose is scrupulously plain, but the psychological detail as strange and transporting as anything more self-consciously lyrical. It chronicles the author's childhood experiences as a prisoner-of-war in WWII Japan, but this isn't a typical novel-memoir; there's a traumatized shimmer to the third-person narration (there's no "I" here; just "Jim") and the lack of sentiment is unnerving and, strange to say, honorable. I really loved this book.
—Emily
