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Mar 12, 2011

K.D. rated it:

I should have listened to my brother. He said last year that because Crash (1973 published) elicited strong, even if negative, reaction from me, then it meant J. G. Ballard (1930-2009) was a genius. That book was disgusting. I hated almost everything about the story. Up to now I cannot get over the characters that hurt themselves by crashing their cars and there is that part where the hole in the body is bleeding and to stop the blood from flowing, an erect penis has to be inserted. Holy cow. More...

11 comments like (18 people liked it)

Jun 05, 2009

Kim rated it:

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 ca More...

20 comments like (16 people liked it)

Jan 13, 2010

Manny rated it:

A few days ago, I learned a new Japanese word. Nijuuhibakusha means literally "twice radiation-sick individual", and refers to the few people who, through staggering bad luck, managed to be present both at Hiroshima on August 6, 1945, and then at Nagasaki three days later. The article I read was an obituary for Tsutomu Yamaguchi, the last surviving nijuuhibakusha. I was not surprised to discover that Mr. Yamaguchi was strongly opposed to nuclear weapons, and had spent a substantial par More...

4 comments like (20 people liked it)

Feb 16, 2008

Emily rated it:

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 More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Oct 03, 2007

Herrikias rated it:

The book resonated beyond being the key to unlocking the symbolism found in the rest of Ballard's works. In its own brutal way, it is the dawning of a sheltered european to the reality of the world. Thinking turned for idle fancy to centering on trade. How everyone needs something just like you, and how to obtain it with objects, skills, or favors. How everyone takes everyone else for granted. Not just the Americans using Jim, but in turn how Jim has no qualms exploiting those who take pity More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 24, 2007

Meirav rated it:

Oh, Steven Spielberg, how dare you kill this wonderful book's plot with a blunt instrument, burn it, trample it and then leave it to be raped by a horde of Cossacks, how?! Here's one book which was not for you to bring to the silver screen.
Unlike the film, this book managed to properly portray Jim's character, his experiences and to capture, complete and perfect, the lives of English citizens trapped behind Japanese lines in China. It's wonderfully written, the horrors laced gently with th More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 30, 2009

Bettie rated it:

"I learned a new word today - 'atom bomb'"

If there had been no hostilities, the entirely disturbing boy, Jim, would have been dubbed with many mental diagnoses of the kind that are only spoken of under heavy initial letters; as events unfolded his a-social traits made him for the most, effective as a survivor.

4 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 22, 2011

Becky rated it:

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 shelt More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 13, 2008

Leila rated it:

An enjoyable read, this semi-autobiographical story is told from the perspective of a boy (aged 11-14 in the book) witnessing WWII Shanghai, including internment by the Japanese from 1942-45. Haunting descriptive prose. I did feel myself get war fatigue by the end of the book, but in many ways that is the point. I learned while reading this book that Ballard is widely acclaimed as a Science Fiction writer and I could sense his aptitude for that genre even in this historical piece.

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1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Dec 04, 2011

Ron rated it:

Only after I'd finished did I learn that this novel is autobiographical (who knew the J of J.G. was James??), and that explains a lot.

Brilliantly well-written sentences, typically at the end of paragraphs or chapters, interspersed with descriptions of some of the most forlorn/decrepit/dispirited places/occurrences/people. A boy separated from his parents in Shanghai at the beginning and end of the Pacific side of World War II experiences hunger, deprivation, indignity and cruelty at More...

2 comments like

Jul 21, 2011

Lisa rated it:

I dislike books that claim to be autobiographies, but are actually fictionalized memoirs. I’m sure we can all think of a couple that have made headlines in recent years. In the forward to his book, the author, J.G. Ballard, writes:

Empire of the Sun describes my experiences in Shanghai, China, during the Second World War, and in Lunghua C.A.C (Civilian Assembly Center), where I was interned from 1942 to 1945. For the most part this novel is an eyewitness account of events I observed dur More...

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Apr 01, 2011

Jane rated it:

I was a little overwhelmed by the suffering of all the civilians caught up in this horrendous war. Jim, the 11 year old somewhat pampered British boy who is the main character in this novel, weeziled his way into my heart by his steadfast determination to stay alive by any means available. A couple of times I thought about not finishing the book, because his descent into a nightmare existence was almost numbing. The other characters are all selfish, callous and uncaring, even though he is a chi More...

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Feb 06, 2011

Paul rated it:

Most Americans my age know a lot about World War II, if by "a lot" one means the war in Europe as experienced by Americans, Britons, Germans, and Jews (the Russians, eh, not so much). When it comes to the war in the Pacific, our knowledge is confined to our own country's participation. We know almost nothing of the war as experienced by Asians: the Japanese, Chinese, Indonesians, Malaysians, Koreans, Filipinos, and Pacific Islanders. And there is much to learn. J.G. Ballard writes o More...

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Jul 15, 2010

Marvin rated it:

J. G. Ballard's novels often perplexes me. He has a stunningly powerful style of writing yet it often feels emotionally detached. Empire of The Sun is not only his best novel but goes a long way to explain the author's somewhat schizoid style of writing. The autobiographical novel is based on his internment as a child in a Japanese prisoner of war camp in China during World War II. Even though it is called a novel, I would not be surprised to find that very little is actually fictional. For Ball More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 24, 2009

Louise rated it:

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 portra More...

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Apr 27, 2009

Visha rated it:

Honestly, I read this book a few years ago; however, what reminded me of it was the recent death of its author, JG Ballard. Tt is essentially fiction but draws extensively on Ballard's experiences in World War II, when he was a young boy living with his parents in Shanghai at the time of the Japanese invasion of that city. All of the foreign nationals who did not escape China were interred at prison/work-camps. While Ballad (called Jim Graham in the book; JG Ballard = James Graham Ballard) was More...

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Dec 04, 2009

F.R. rated it:

I honestly don’t know what’s the matter with me. Despite being a big Ballard fan, I'd never actually read this until now. The fuzzy reason I gave myself was that this was the mainstream book that Spielberg adapted, and so didn't chime in with the Ballard I generally deal with. However I’m glad I put my absurd prejudices aside, as this is brilliant!

Even though Ballard is dealing with the past rather than future, he does evoke this other world – which to Western eyes at least – is comp More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 04, 2010

Jade rated it:

This book is true literary genius. I give this a 5 for the beauty and feel of the writing, however, as I found it tragic and harrowing have had to give it a 4 based on my own wish to plough through.

This book tells the story of Jim an English boy whose survival in China through the second world war is based upon the childhood memories of J G Ballard's own ordeal. Although Jim is parentless through his journey, I think that the Vincents paint a picture of his own family.

Pai More...

0 comments like

Aug 26, 2009

Chris rated it:

A powerful book, which should be on the syllabi of many English Literature courses, as well as courses about modern warfare or WWII. I haven't seen the movie adaptation (nor do I plan to) and was unaware as to what the book was about, but chose Empire of the Sun based on the name recognition given to J.G. Ballard, and an article which discusses his career http://www.nybooks.com/articles/article-...

This is a beautifully written book about an awful topic, but Ballard's style and cinemat More...

1 comment like

Jun 04, 2011

Mia Claire rated it:

I watched the movie of this book first before reading it so even before I open the book and skim its pages, I already have the grasp of the general idea and the plot line of the book. The movie was good. In fact, it made me cry so hard so when I learned that it's based on a novel by J.G. Ballard, I decided to read the book. I thought the book would be "just like the movie" but when I started reading… from the first chapter, "The Eve of Pearl Harbor", it hit me that it's diffe More...

0 comments like

Aug 31, 2010

David rated it:

I must have drifted out at crucial points because I found the geography very confusing. How far was the airfield from the camp? And the Olympic stadium? The Bund? That ceramic factory? The French Concession? How did the Japanese drivers get lost, when Jim can almost always see all these places? The map at the front of the book is crap and doesn't include many of the locations.

I thought that the action was confusing at times. I’d have an image of what was happening and suddenl More...

1 comment like

Dec 09, 2010

Nurshafiqa rated it:

this is the first book i have ever read in my life that is related to history and war. and since it was my first time, i was pretty clueless at first but as the story progresses, i find myself getting more immersed. now i know why steven spielberg made this into a movie!

for the first few chapters, i had to read some sentences and paragraphs a few times before i got the gist of it. the author's way describing was perhaps too good for my limited vocabulary. i had to check the dictionary More...

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Oct 24, 2010

Julie at All Ears rated it:

Author J.G. Ballard was a British schoolboy living in Shanghai during WWII. He was placed with his family in a Japanese civilian prison camp after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. His novel, Empire of the Sun is based on his experiences. The book is told through the eyes of British schoolboy Jim and is very disturbing in his matter of fact narration of his life in the Japanese prison camps. From gruesome details, such as how the prisoners saved the maggots in their rations to supplement their di More...

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Nov 07, 2011

4evagreen rated it:

What a glorious book that just oozes class and the film does justice to. But then do they ever?

This book is written from the viewpoint of a teenage boy,Jim,interned in a prison camp just outside Shanghai during WWII along with other western foreign nationals. Jim goes from a spoilt and luxurious lifestyle to a struggle for mere existance in a fairly rapid passage of time. Yet he manages to display a remarkable resilience, an un-dying spirit and very little malice throughout his terri More...

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Jan 24, 2010

Mike rated it:

J.G. Ballard's 1984 historic novel, which won the James Tait Black Memorial prize for fiction. This is a harrowing, loosely autobiographical adventure of pre-adolescent Jim Graham after the Japanese takeover of Shanghai in the immediate wake of the Pearl Harbor attack.

Told in third-person but entirely from Jim's standpoint, this story is constant action/movement. His privileged life as the son of a British chemical company owner, complete with "amahs" to serve them, is rupt More...

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Sep 20, 2009

Bob rated it:

I have always liked J.G. Ballard - not sure why I postponed this one, but perhaps the Stephen Spielberg movie association had something to do with it - now I want to see the film to see how they changed it because I bet they did.
More than the triumph of the human spirit over adversity and all that, what's fascinating is how quickly situational morality and ethics takes over. Even more, early adolescent kids in extremis (c.f. "Lord of the Flies" and Richard Hughes "High Wind More...

2 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 22, 2009

Jackie rated it:

I give this one 3.5 stars but alas because no half stars are allowed 4 stars it is.

Jim is suddenly separated from his parents during WWII in China. Young Jim is then forced to survive the horrors of war on his own. Without any adults willing to help him and because of his European descent Jim is sent off to a Japanese concentration camp until the end of the war.

This book was a bit hard for me to read because it is written through the eyes of a young child experiencing More...

1 comment like

Apr 06, 2011

Dennis rated it:

War transforms everything it touches and no person who has lived through it can be unchanged from having survived. So it was surprising to read the detailed account of an upper-class English boy who undergoes very little discernible character development despite outlasting nearly four horrendous years as a World War II prisoner.

Young Jamie Ballard is the only child of wealthy British expatriates living in 1941 Shanghai whose exclusive country club world is the French Concession neig More...

0 comments like

May 17, 2011

Ruth rated it:

I felt that this book educated me, and gave me a better grounding of the war in the East. So much of our attention in the UK is on the European angle, that I felt this book is needed to re-dress the balance.
I thoroughly enjoyed the novel, which unfolds in stages: Jim in the deserted homes of the ex-pat community; Jim in the camp; out of the camp and then a very fleeting reunion with his parents. As a group we were intersted in Jim’s `detached` personality and wondered if this was what mad More...

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Jan 02, 2012

04danielw rated it:

Empire of the sun is one of the greatest world war 2 books ive ever read. the book starts off with a jim talking about his life in Shanghai. Hitler was taking of germany japan joined in with hitler and the nazis. Then aircraft carriers from japan start coming started taking over shanghai, and there were planes flying everywhere and bombs coming down. jim got seprated by his parents and was stranded in shangai, he would explore the empty house and he got caught and taken away by the japanese troo More...

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