Empire of the Sun
A fictionalized account of the author's experiences as a boy in Shanghai, China, during the Second World War, and in Lunghua C.A.C. (Civilian Assembly Centre), where he was interned from 1942 to 1945.
Stats for nerds
6recommend
9mentions
9people
2011–2026years
67% recommend22% neutral11% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- Agree with both.
If you like Vonnegut, perhaps try the fiction of J.G.Ballard.
Empire of the Sun is rightly famous, it is autobiography - but read that too. If you are American, you might not know that other things happened at the same time as the attack on Pearl Harbor [Yes, it was 8 December 1941 in Hong Kong, but across the dateline, so contemporaneous. IIRC 8am Honolulu to 6am HK is +4 hours].
- While Ballard is more popularly known for Crash and Empire of the Sun, I can't recommend his earlier works enough, especially his short stories.
Many of his writings were ahead of his time [1]. A particular favorite of mine is "Studio 5, the Stars"[2] which written in 1961, brings up a lot of the feelings around GenAI and art today [3].
1. https://www.newstatesman.com/uncategorized/2020/04/why-we-ar...
2. https://readerslibrary.org/wp-content/uploads/Studio-5-The-S...
3. https://aroundscifi.us/en/studio-5-the-stars-ballards-1961-s...
- Christopher Isherwood's Berlin stories (Mr Norris Changes Trains and Goodbye to Berlin). Not sure why it took me so long to find them as I've long been fascinated by the slightly end of days-type hedonistic atmosphere that late Weimar-era Berlin apparently had. From that perspective they really didn't disappoint.
In a similar vein, although it's been a while since I read it, I'd strongly recommend J G Ballard's semi-autobiographical Empire of the Sun - especially the earlier sections set in pre and post invasion Shanghai are also very evocative.
- >If adults enjoy his writing, in what sense are they children's novels?
In the sense that novels by people like Joseph Conrad or J. G. Ballard are not. 'Empire of the Sun' was one one of my favourite novels as a young teenager, but it was hard work in comparison to Pratchett. The difference in intended audience was utterly clear.
- High Rise is possibly his most readable. The Elements series (The Drowned World, The Crystal World, The Drought and The Wind From Nowhere) is very good, Drowned World being the best, IMO. Unlimited Dream Company is well worth reading, as is Crash. His short stories are generally excellent, and maybe the best intro: Vermilion Sands is brilliant, but the best value is the (two volume) Complete Short Stories collection.
Empire of the Sun is pretty much essential if you want to understand why he wrote the way he did; why his characters are drawn and act the way they do. There's also a short essay he did for the Guardian a few years before he died, on modernism and death, which is informative (http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2006/mar/20/architec...).
Also, this site is good: http://www.ballardian.com/
- And, yet again, a dystopian J G Ballard (late British sci-fi author and author of Empire Of The Sun) story becomes reality..
Ballard's High Rise (1975) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Rise - shares a lot of similarities with this outcome (though the tower in the book was in London) and is a fine read to boot. The eventual outcome is the formation of different "clans" of residents based on blocks of floors having intra-building "wars" with each other. I believe that, finally, a movie is being created of this film by the guy who created Cube.
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