The Unlimited Dream Company (2013) - Plot & Excerpts
It's Ballard who gives the best outline of this particular book: 'The Unlimited Dream Company is set in Shepperton where I live, and it's about a young pilot who steals a light aircraft and crashes into the Thames [river], and who, in a sense, dies. [He has] drowned in his aircraft, but frees himself by an enormous effort of the imagination, and through the effort of his imagination transforms Shepperton into a kind of Edenic paradise, full of exotic plants and animals.'I know I've given the book a three star rating (this may change "Bitches in Bookshops" style given time), which along with the majority of Russell Hoban books I've rated, doesn't mean to come off as complete indifference. Like Ballard's Crash and the aforementioned Hoban books, this book will stay with me for some time. Mostly due to the fact that The Unlimited Dream Company is quite esoteric in the overt symbolism throughout. The central figure is a drowned pilot who has dreams of turning into animals, which in turn, as quoted above, is the catalyst for the strange events which take place in Shepperton. There are characters and dialogue which were striking to read. It's more a Blakean poem than the other media generation apocalyptic novels Ballard is known for on a surface level. In this novel the culture presented isn't terrifically specific, more universal: man's inner paradise of imagination vs the deadness of reality/society which surrounds him.My favourite piece of dialogue from this book is when Blake tells Miriam he will make flowers from her various parts of her body, which called to memory the dialogue in Angela Carter's apocalyptic novella Heroes and Villains. In many ways this book also reminded me of Ted Hughes' Gaudete, going so far as acting as a key for better understanding Gaudete. Both contain a central figure who challenges the environment around them, both are held in two places at once: living and dead, hidden. The dualistic primitive yet spiritual nature of brutal, 'deviant' sexuality is presented as an act to birth an awakening of sorts, something which is positive in Ballard's novella and can be seen as more destructive in Hughes' poem. Both texts also complement each other in addressing the shamanistic role of the writer. There are probably countless interviews by Hughes on this, but Ballard sums it nicely:'In many ways I feel that, without realising it at the time, that I was writing a piece of my autobiography, that it's about the writers' imagination, and in particular, my own imagination. Transforming the humdrum reality that he occupies and turning it into an unlimited dream company.'(quoted J. G. Ballard comes from this interview with him that took place in 1993: http://vimeo.com/23066777)
The fact that I have finished this book makes me feel like drinking champagne, dancing in the rain, throwing a party, bouncing on a trampoline.... Why? Because I LOATHED this book and continuing to read it was worse than the time I got three detentions at school on my birthday, worse than waiting for the results of a medical test that might prove you have a horrible disease, worse than being trapped in a train compartment with an interminable bore. I just needed it to be OVER. So why did I continue to the end, and not throw the book in the dustbin, or flush it down the loo or donate it to the nearest organised Bonfire Night event? Because I was hoping that at some point I would discover some coherence or meaning to make the awfulness of wasting my life on this book worthwhile. This was a forlorn hope.When I was young, I devoured science fiction novels so fast that I had read almost all they had in my local library by the time I was about 15. And yet, I never read anything by J G Ballard, supposedly one of the giants of this genre. I know that there have been many attempts by many people, most of them cleverer than me, to define SF. I don't know what SF is, but I can say with certainty, this wasn't it. There was no science here, no logic. It was like the demented, rambling outpourings of a sex maniac on LSD.I have never thought that I was a prude, but I prefer my reading not to have semen on every page (if Ballard was paid for every time he used the word, he must have been very well paid). Other people's sex is boring and his vision of sex, paedophilia, incest, semen, shit, blood and pus was stomach churningly disgusting.I suspect this was intended to be some sort of Eden parable since the whole unclothed population of Shepperton "did not know they were naked". I was bored the second time this was mentioned, never mind the 3rd, 4th, 5th and nth.You might have gathered that I didn't much like this book! The best thing I can say about it is that it was not badly written, in fact, J G Ballard is probably quite a good writer. It's a pity, therefore, that he wasted his talent on this load of meaningless drivel.
What do You think about The Unlimited Dream Company (2013)?
I am giving up on this book at page 95. I don't care what happens, I really don't like the main character, and although I don't have a problem with wacky books, this just seems to be too wacky for... what? This the second Ballard book I've read, and to be honest, although I can see he's a very good writer, I don't know whether I'll be interested in reading any of his other books. Ok, so the first book I read was Crash, which I did finish, but that was uncomfortable reading. And his obsession with splashing male juices all over the place all the time is getting a bit tiresome.It's about this waste-of-space guy, Blake, who fancies himself a bit of a pilot. So he steals a little plane from the airport where he's working, flies off but soon crashes in the river at Shepperton, London. And here it gets wierd. I'm still not sure whether he's actually dead or alive - there's reference to him having been ressusitated, although all the witnesses swear he was in the plane alone, and swam out of it under his own steam. Yet he has bruises on his chest from heart compressions, and is sure there is a corpse in the plane at the bottom of the river. He is unable to get out of Shepperton, although he tries a few times before giving up. And the locals seem to be mesmorised by him. He struts about, and so far has had sex with the young doctor's mother, lusted after a little blind girl and thought about sleeping with pretty much every one else. Tropical birds seem to be moving into town. All very odd.Reading this has become a chore I'm not enjoying, and I have a lot of books I want to read, so I'm giving up.
—Ape
I picked this up on the basis of an unusual and interesting premise but until near the end I didn't know what to make of it. Full of Ballard's verbose and symbolic imagery, this story explores some very adult themes and is not for the easily offended. As the protagonist increasingly believes that the "sins of this world are metaphors for virtues in the next", he proceeds to break down taboos in the town of Shepperton as the reader is left to ponder the meaning of this idea.As we follow Blake's transformation into some kind of messianic figure, biblical metaphors abound and the town of Shepperton becomes a kind of garden of Eden until realisation of his and humanity's ultimate destiny finally dawns on him.My high rating of this book reflects more my intellectual appreciation of what the author was trying to do more than my emotional response and personal enjoyment which otherwise would have led me to rate this book lower. Take from that what you will.
—Simon
Highly imaginative and as enjoyable as any dystopia-comes-to-suburbia (I give you banyan trees in Shepperton high street. Who could argue with that?). It also (or at least this is how I'd read it) rather sticks it to Biblical creation myths - weaving its own rather gorgeous alternative in the unlikely setting of TW17. At times our Christ figure is rather moving (though other times he's creepily reminiscent of Michael in 'Stranger in a Strange Land'). Dublin has Bloom's Day. Come on Shepperton: loosen up, get naked and start celebrating Blake's Day.
—Jakey Gee
