![]() 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 med 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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