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{{infoboxinfobox1
|title=Empire of the Sun
|author=J G Ballard
|reviewer=Jill Murphy
|genre=Literary Fiction
|summary=It's not really possible to sum up ''Empire of the Sun '' in just a few words if not to simply say, "''Don't miss it." '' It's a book about war. It's about more than just the fighting. In fact, there isn't any fighting. It's beautifully written. It's mesmerising. It provides a revealing background to Ballard's later novels. It's a great definition of that made-up word, "''dystopia"''. Oh, just don't miss it. Ok?
|rating=5
|buy=Yes
|borrow=Yes
|pages=352
|publisher=HarperPerennial
|date=February 2006
|isbn=0007221525
|amazonukcover=<amazonuk>0007221525</amazonuk>|amazonusaznuk=0007221525|aznus=<amazonus>0007221525</amazonus>
}}
Sometimes, re-reading a favourite book, one suddenly makes a new connection, gains a new insight and this will add another piece to the jigsaw in one's mind. A little bit more of the overall pattern, the big picture slips into place. What one thinks, how one sees things, becomes just a little clearer. Do you know what I mean? When it happens to me, it makes me smile.
Always hungry, often ill, Jim spends the war in a haze. Sometimes, it is the haze of a small child separated from its parents, in the midst of great events and understanding little. Sometimes, it is the haze of malarial or starvation euphoria. And sometimes, it is the haze the mind makes when to see in sharp focus would be more than the mind could bear. For the most part, Jim still admires the Japanese - despite his fear - because small boys always admire the winning side, do they not? Used by some, abused by others and protected by a few, Jim's memories of his home, his previous life and his parents begin to fade, replaced by a swimming mirage of hunger and disease. As he looks out at the Lunghua Airfield, at the runway the Chinese prisoners are building, and that the English prisoners will help to build, these are his thoughts:
Heartbreaking.
{{amazontext|amazon=0007221525}}
{{amazonUStext|amazon=0007221525}}
{{commenthead}}
|name=lechateau1962
|verb=said
|comment= I trawled through this book all the time thinking it must get better but unfortunately it never did.Then I watched the film and that was just as bad.
}}
[[Category:Autobiography]]
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