Kingdom Come - Rilegato

Ballard, J. G.

Rilegato

ISBN 10: 0007232462 ISBN 13: 9780007232468

Casa editrice: Fourth Estate, 2006

Riassunto

A masterpiece of fiction from J. G. Ballard which asks, could consumerism turn into Facism?

Richard Pearson, unemployed advertising executive and life-long rebel, is driving out to Brooklands, a motorway town on the M25. A few weeks earlier his father was fatally wounded at the Metro-Centre, a vast shopping mall in the centre of this apparently peaceful town, when a deranged mental patient opened fire on a crowd of shoppers.

When the main suspect is released without charge thanks to the dubious testimony of self-styled pillars of the community - including Julia Goodwin, the doctor who treated his father on his deathbed - Richard suspects that there is more to his father's death than meets the eye, a more sinister element lurking behind the pristine facades of the labyrinthine mall.

Determined to unravel the mystery, Richard soon realises that the Metro-Centre, with its round-the-clock cable channel and sports clubs, lies at the very heart of his father's death. Consumerism rules the lives of everyone in the motorway towns and feeds the cravings of this bored community with its desperate need for something new, whatever the cost. Riots frequently terrorise the streets, immigrant communities are set upon by roving bands of hooligans and sports events mushroom into jingoistic political rallies. Gradually, Richard finds himself drawn into this world, caught up in the workings of the mall, exposed to the insides of the consumer dream, and starts upon dismantling this wayward vision his advertising career helped to found...

In this gripping, dystopian tour de force, J.G. Ballard holds up a mirror to middle England, reflecting an unsettling image of suburbia and revealing the darker forces at work beneath the gloss of consumerism and flag-waving patriotism.

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Recensione:

‘Dystopias are Ballard’s stock-in-trade and, when on song, he animates them better than anyone else...it takes a master novelist to pick out the small details...fascinating.’ Sunday Telegraph

‘It is his ability to summon a deteriorated but recognisable modern world into being that makes him among the finest dystopians at work.’ Sunday Times

‘We’re in Ballard-land, his old archetypes at war in a familiar-yet-strange terrain, and that should be compelling enough for any reader...Ballard, paradoxically, with all his characters gripped by obsession and necessity, is one of the great novelists of freedom.’ Financial Times

‘“Kingdom Come” looks like a report on the state of modern Britain, but it’s really a report on the state of J.G. Ballard’s head, and the good news is that it’s as fertile as ever...“Kingdom Come” is impressively packed with brilliant apercus.’ Observer

‘The Magus of Shepperton is on tip-top form. No-one else writes with such enchanted clarity or strange power as James Graham Ballard.’Evening Standard

‘Ballard's nightmare of consumerism-turned-fascism has enough truth among the fantasy to turn outings to B&Q and IKEA into decidedly sinister operations.’ Dazed & Confused

‘If anger is the rocket-fuel of satire, then J.G. Ballard is a one-man danger zone...exhilarating...important, challenging, (a) justly furious novel.’ The Independent

‘“Kingdom Come”, his latest novel, demonstrates that he is still in his eight decade, as outre as ever, and still as keen to understand the national psyche...Ballard still retains a clear-sighted, almost vatic quality, which makes him telepathically linked to the subconscious mind of Middle England.’ The Spectator

'Ballard retains the terrifying, satirical, self-possessedness that makes him never less than worth reading.' Independent on Sunday

'Funny, chilling and prescient, this is certainly a novel whose message no one can afford to ignore.' The Times

L'autore:

J. G. Ballard was born in 1930 in Shanghai, where his father was a businessman. After internment in a civilian prison camp, he and his family returned to England in 1946. His 1984 bestseller ‘Empire of the Sun’ won the Guardian Fiction Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. It was later filmed by Steven Spielberg. His most recent novel was ‘Kingdom Come’, published in 2006.

Su questa edizione

• Editore: Fourth Estate
• Data di pubblicazione: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0007232462
• ISBN 13: 9780007232468
• Rilegatura: Copertina rigida
• Numero di pagine: 304