NTERVIEWER
So, how do you write, exactly?<\/p>\n
BALLARD
Actually, there\u2019s no secret. One
\n simply pulls the cork out of the bottle, waits three minutes, and two
\nthousand or more years of Scottish craftsmanship does the rest.<\/p>\n
INTERVIEWER
Let\u2019s
\n start with obsession. You seem to have an obsessive way of repeatedly
\nplaying out permutations of a certain set of emblems and concerns.
\nThings like the winding down of time, car crashes, birds and flying,
\ndrained swimming pools, airports, abandoned buildings, Ronald Reagan\u2026<\/p>\n
BALLARD
I
\n think you\u2019re completely right. I would say that I quite consciously
\nrely on my obsessions in all my work, that I deliberately set up an
\nobsessional frame of mind. In a paradoxical way, this leaves one free of
\n the subject of the obsession. It\u2019s like picking up an ashtray and
\nstaring so hard at it that one becomes obsessed by its contours, angles,
\n texture, et cetera, and forgets that it is an ashtray\u2014a glass dish for
\nstubbing out cigarettes. Presumably all obsessions are extreme metaphors waiting to be born.
\n That whole private mythology, in which I believe totally, is a
\ncollaboration between one\u2019s conscious mind and those obsessions that,
\none by one, present themselves as stepping-stones.<\/p>\n
INTERVIEWER
Your work also seems tremendously influenced by the visual arts.<\/p>\n
BALLARD
Yes, sometimes I think that all my writing is nothing more than the compensatory work of a frustrated painter.<\/p>\n
INTERVIEWER
How does a book take shape for you?<\/p>\n
BALLARD
That\u2019s
\n a vast topic, and, to be honest, one I barely understand. Even in the
\ncase of a naturalistic writer, who in a sense takes his subject matter
\ndirectly from the world around him, it\u2019s difficult enough to understand
\nhow a particular fiction imposes itself. But in the case of an
\nimaginative writer, especially one like myself with strong affinities to
\n the surrealists, I\u2019m barely aware of what is going on. Recurrent ideas
\nassemble themselves, obsessions solidify themselves, one generates a set
\n of working mythologies, like tales of gold invented to inspire a crew. I
\n assume one is dealing with a process very close to that of dreams, a
\nset of scenarios devised to make sense of apparently irreconcilable
\nideas. Just as the optical centers of the brain construct a wholly
\nartificial three-dimensional universe through which we can move
\neffectively, so the mind as a whole creates an imaginary world that
\nsatisfactorily explains everything, as long as it is constantly updated.<\/p>\n
INTERVIEWER
How many hours a day do you put in at the desk?<\/p>\n
BALLARD
Two hours in the late morning, two in the early afternoon, followed by a walk along the river to think over the next day. Then at six, Scotch and soda, and oblivion.<\/p>\n
INTERVIEWER
That sounds like the schedule of an efficient worker.<\/p>\n
INTERVIEWER
Aside
\n from your adolescent dream of becoming a psychiatrist, do you have any
\nother pet daydreams about other lives, other careers?<\/p>\n
BALLARD
I haven\u2019t really had any private fantasies about an alternative life, even in the daydream sense. I rather like the idea of ending my days drinking myself to death on a mountainside in Mexico.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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