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A review by greatlibraryofalexandra
Empire of the Sun by J.G. Ballard
adventurous
dark
emotional
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
5.0
Despite how boring I often found this book, I also really, really loved it. This is an odd comparison, but it is an almost gruesome parallel to the 'Chronicles of Narnia' - on the Eastern front of WW2, Jim is a child who was not sequestered safely in the countryside, yet was exploring an entirely unknown world to him. Naïve and coming of age, we sit in his mind as he witnesses the conflagration of not only a deadly war, but the explosion of years of simmering tensions - between the Chinese and the Japanese, the Japanese and the West, the Chinese and the colonizing Westerners, and the Chinese internally (communists vs. nationalists). The complexities around him are darkly illustrated by his internment, and the way his mind copes with the trauma - I often got a skin-crawling, gory feeling in my spine as I muddled through Jim's hazy desire to stay a prisoner, because he had decided his Japanese jailers gave him the safest chance of staying alive.
The war through the eyes of a British boy born in Shanghai, used to the high life, and in awe of majestic Japanese war planes, is an interesting perspective. The disillusionment in those novel brings to mind For Whom the Bell Tolls, All Quiet on the Western Front, and other devastating WW2 fiction, but its unique for its almost effortless focus on the natural observing and unlearning of the world one knew, and the world that grows out of the smithereens left behind after the scorched earth of battle. I found it difficult and dark but really eye-opening, and I thought Ballard was astute in his repetition of the fact that the victory reels broadcasted in Shanghai after the allied victory were but a mere advertisement for the next wars to come.
The war through the eyes of a British boy born in Shanghai, used to the high life, and in awe of majestic Japanese war planes, is an interesting perspective. The disillusionment in those novel brings to mind For Whom the Bell Tolls, All Quiet on the Western Front, and other devastating WW2 fiction, but its unique for its almost effortless focus on the natural observing and unlearning of the world one knew, and the world that grows out of the smithereens left behind after the scorched earth of battle. I found it difficult and dark but really eye-opening, and I thought Ballard was astute in his repetition of the fact that the victory reels broadcasted in Shanghai after the allied victory were but a mere advertisement for the next wars to come.