SOURCE: “J. G. Ballard and the Transformation of Utopia,” in Science-Fiction Studies, Vol. 18, No. 1, March, 1991, pp. 53–70.

In the following essay, Wagar discerns underlying elements of idealism and a longing for psychic transformation and transcendence in Ballard's fiction. According to Wagar, Ballard's work, despite its dark glorifications of nihilistic or amoral behavior, embodies a positive contribution to anti-capitalist utopian aspirations.

1. Topography and Utopography.

As the work of J. G. Ballard unfolds, it becomes more and more evident that his fictions are fundamentally topographic: explorations of landscape, both external and internal. In 1974, speaking to Robert Louit, Ballard divided his work, down to that time, into two halves. In the first half, through The Crystal World (1966), he had offered descriptions of “imaginary places,” under the direct inspiration of the surrealist painters; in the second half, beginning with The Atrocity Exhibition (1970), his attention shifted to “the landscape of technology and the communications...