Empire of the Sun

C

I read this in 5 days because I suddenly decided to go to a book club yesterday evening. After 3 years of waffling on alone on this blog I decided it might be good to discuss a book with a group. Last  week I found out about this Meet Up, signed up and bought the book.

Luckily I enjoyed reading it, but the evening was totally ruined by my eating a totally rank mussel chowder at the Jam Factory before the club started. I knew the soup was awful as I was eating it, but I stupidly carried on. My god, I was ill last night. Luckily now, about 18 hours later I feel a bit better. DO NOT EAT at the Jam Factory. Infact don't drink there either. Everything is over priced and rubbish. I have always disliked the Jam Factory, but now it's personal, the bastards poisoned me. 

Anyway, this book was great. I really enjoyed it. Jim is a priveliged 11 year old boy who lives a comfortable life with his English family in Shanghai. Suddenly , when the Japanese take over Shanghai in 1942, Jim's life is turned upside down. He is thrown into a world gone mad. He loses his parents, watches the Japaneese brutally kill most of the locals and he is left to roam around Shanghai under his own devices. He lives in various houses, living off cocktail biscuits and soda water and riding his bike through the big houses. He seems to have been totally forgotten about. I loved this opening third of the book. A weird, yet kind of fun, abandoned apocalyptic, playground for Jim. He has no idea what is going on. All he knows is that he is in awe of the Japanese and their lack of fear. Infact he wants to join the Japanese army and also thinks he is personally responsible for starting the war. 

Jim is then finally 'seen' and taken off to an internment camp. The book becomes highly strange and disconnected. You think Jim has travelled for days but the camp is just up the road .  He seems a brave little urchin ,whereas the adults around him are obviously totally disturbed by the war experience. Jim is the only person in the group brave enough to ask the Japanese guards for water. The Internment section is disturbing, this book is all about what people will do to survive and how Jim begins to view death and mutilation as normal. He is addicted to the planes and trucks, these machines are his only real friends. He does ask an old woman about when souls leave the body and he suddenly believes that he can bring dead people's souls back to them. This belief gives him great comfort. This section was very beautiful and so well written. This talk of souls was like a shining diamond in a pretty rough, relentless story.  

It all sounds pretty grim and to be honest it is, but Jim's positivity and desire to see only the good, (as only an innocent young lad can) is what keeps this book going.  People are treated so badly,especially the Chinese, and by the end of the book you understand that the Chinese were treated so appallingly by both the British overlords and then by the Japanese. They were treated as nothing more than dogs. 

 The death marches are again rather surreal, but I think that is because Jim is starving and he can't clearly see or interpret anything. The moments when one or two adults suddenly appear to care for Jim  are really moving because these times are so infrequent.  Every adult seems totally wrapped up in themselves. This book is totally devoid of sentimentality and even though the subject is grim,by the end you feel totally in awe of the human desire to stay alive.  (especially such a vulnerable lad) 

Ballard wrote this book from his own memories as a teenager in a Prisoner  of war camp in Shanghai. But this book is more fiction than truth because Ballard was interned with his family throughout and never became a feral child , living off his wits.

This 'made up 'section didn't bother me but many people at the book club were annoyed that Ballard had cheated the readers by making a ' Boy's Own adventure' out of events. I kind of agreed but hey, it's a novel and Ballard wanted to get across the isolation. Plus seeing all this destruction from the perspective of a naive , 11 year old abandoned child makes the war events even more chilling.

Now I need to watch the movie. I've heard it's far, far, less hard hitting than the book .  I will see!