![]() ![]() But Miriam's sudden accidental death, during a vacation in Spain, reawakens Jim's sense of dislocation-just in time for the "crazed" 1960's. So Jim instead forgets the past by settling into a cozy domestic present: marriage to earthy Miriam, three children, a quiet life in suburban Shepperton (near England's film studios). ![]() ![]() A short stint in the RAF-another attempt at confronting the violence within-is equally unsuccessful. As a reed student at Cambridge he tries to exorcise corpse-filled memories by calmly dissecting a cadaver. The opening chapters return to the horror of the Shanghai bombing and the Lunghua prison-camp worst of all, at war's end, 15-year-old Jim witnesses the torture-murder of a young Chinese prisoner-a monstrosity that will haunt him always. This episodic sequel begins again in Shanghai but quickly moves to England, as narrator "Jim" explores sex, marriage, fatherhood, and friendship through the Fifties, Sixties, and Seventies. In Empire of the Sun (1984), Ballard turned his searing childhood memories-of prison-camp experiences in WW II Shanghai-into fiercely effective autobiographical fiction. ![]()
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