Masterful storytelling, challenging our perceptions of convention.After reading a literary disaster (The WallCreeper by Nell Zink) I was over-the-top relieved to be introduced to a true storyteller in reading The Kindness of Women by J.G. Ballard. As I understand, this is the sequel to Empire of the Sun, which I did not read. I'd usually read the first one beforehand, but in this case, I was too eager to read Kindness to bother. This book is so rich. Ballard leaves nothing bare, painting and building every detail until it's a rich impasto of color and sound. His writing is superb, the easy prose of a storyteller at home in his words.We begin with the protagonist as a young boy in Shanghai, living in colonial bliss with his parents and Russian immigrant Nanny, Olga. The boy, James, is fascinated by war, but the undercurrent we immediately begin to feel is his fascination with the women in his life. This fascination is not, however, one-dimensional. There are layers upon layers of intrigue. When James gets his wish and war breaks out, he is separated from his parents and placed into a Japanese internment camp. He meets, Peggy, the first of many women he meets throughout his life that gives him a dose of the kindness of women.When the war is over, he moves back to England and is lost for a time, searching for who he is and what he wants to be. But Shanghai has a hold on him, and the war, and he can't ever let that go, even as he settles in a small town in the countryside with his wife and three children.When tragedy strikes James on a vacation to Spain, he is left to care for his three children alone. One of the most poignant and beautiful scenes in the book occurs upon his return home, when in his despair and grief, a woman whom no one could suspect, comes to his aid using her body and love for him to salve his emptiness and feelings of loss.And this is the main theme of the story, these women who parade in and out of James's life, women who give him a piece of himself he didn't know he had lost so long ago in China. As he moves through the information age of television in the sixties and seventies, through strange dabblings with hallucinogenic drugs, his perceptions of reality get tested again and again, but the love he has for the various women in his life ground him, bring him back to the comfort of home and the juxtaposition of his wandering soul versus his craving for a provincial life.The end of the book brings him full circle, to where he'd began his adventures in China, and I was also brought full circle as he speaks of "the women he has known;" I was given a glimpse into his reverence for the female mind, body, soul that left me with a sense of reverence for the intricacies and variations in human relationships--how utterly complex and nuanced they are, how incredibly fragile yet resilient our existence is.Beautifully written, soulful and rich, this story takes "convention" and stretches our ideas of "morality" and causes them to groan with pleasure at the expansion. I'm eager to discover more of J.G. Ballard.
I was not overally into this book. All I wanted to do was finish it so as not to disrespect the author. I understand this is fiction based on a true story, but it felt more like an autobiography above anything else and had a boring tone to it.The one thing that put me off so greatly was the full detail of the sex scenes, which there was a few. This is totally unnecessary. I know he wanted to focus on the attachment he had to the female characters but it could have been done more subtely.However it was a good insight into Jim's life as an adult and liked the focus of all the women in his life. It is a shame that his mother does not seem to be one of those women really.if you would like to read this out of curiosity then do so, you never know you may have an entirely different opinion to myself.
What do You think about The Kindness Of Women (1993)?
The Kindness of Women was written in 1991 as a sequel to his popular Empire of the Sun. It scores an impressive 4 1/2 stars on Amazon, but is not a book I would recommend to anyone, and didn't do much for me.Parts of it were good. It's autobiographical fiction, and the-life he grew up in- Japan- controlled Shanghai concentration camp in WW2 is scarier than anything he (or anyone) could imagine.So, I haven't picked up Ballard since this and The Drowned World, though I may give him another try one of these days.
—Al Young
Insight into an author, and the insane changes since WWII I found his well-known, semi-autobiographic "Empire of the Sun" so interesting, I had to read this follow-up. What makes this novel stand out is that the main character is both very normal (a shy middle class middle aged father living in a UK suburb) and very weird (a man who is involved in one bizarre adventure after another, which are often significant artistic events, with very original creative people). This contrast gives the novel a kind of Gulliver's Travels flavor: instead of a novel by and about a swinger bragging about how swinging he was and all the important things he participated in, it's by and about a clueless misfit wondering why he is in the middle of all this excitement and social turmoil. Lots of fun, and highly recommended if you are interested in the contrast between the life of an author, his creations, and his beliefs, which are 3 different universes.
—Daniel Levin
So hit and miss, this one. Loved it in parts, but by the end I just thought it was a bit ridiculous. J. G. Ballard only has to meet a woman for her to want to sleep with him, even if it happens 40 years after that first meeting. His wife gives him permission to cheat with the living incarnation of the Swinging Sixties before promptly dying and allowing him to pursue the affair relatively guilt free. And for all the Kindness of the Women, he doesn't have it in him to reciprocate, displaying their facelifts, scars and even their piles for all to see. Really good when showing the inspirations that fed into his work, it is difficult to see this book as a sequel to Empire of the Sun, since it covers similar ground while dismantling some of that book's more powerful scenes. Definitely puts the semi in semi-autobiographical.
—J.C. Greenway
