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JG Ballard's Cocaine Nights: a Time-Space Configured Society

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JG Ballard's Cocaine Nights: a Time-Space Configured Society JG Ballard’s Cocaine Nights: A Time-Space Configured Society Nagaraju Rottela Lecturer in English, S.K.P Government Degree College, Guntakal ([email protected]) Abstract: J. G Ballard is a name that changed the direction of science of the writer in the history of contemporary literature, fiction from outer space to inner space. He says the true Iain Sinclair says, “In the pantheon of writers of the alien planet is the Earth. A novelist, short story writer, and an essayist Ballard, associated himself with the New Wave late 20th century I think he’d be right at the top.” The movement in science fiction. He writes about bleak man- Wind from Nowhere (1961), The Drowned World made landscapes, the effects of technology on the human (1962), The Burning World (1964), and The psyche as well as apocalyptic and post-apocalyptic novels. Crystal World (1966) : his initial works have dealt His works tend to focus on themes like dystopia, social decay, and dehumanization. He keeps time and space at with natural disasters as their subject while his the center of the fictional world of his novels and due to works written in his mid-career deal with the effects his literary distinctiveness his kind of fictional works have of technology on man -as in Crash (1973), Concrete earned the epithet: ‘Ballardian”. His novels bring up Island (1974), and High Rise (1975). Novels written ecological imbalanced landscapes caused by the technological advances while also dealing with the by him latter are concerned with urbanization, gated constructed Spatio-temporalities in the contemporary communities and constructed realities- as in Cocaine western world and present how they affect the lives of Nights (1996), Super-Cannes (2000), Millennium people in the post-modern world regulated by capitalistic People (2003), and Kingdom Come (2006). economy. In the present paper, a study is made on J G Ballard’s novel Cocaine Nights (1996) that explores the construction of a time-space configured society (Beckman David Harvey delivering a lecture on the concept of 273) in the contemporary western urban. It speaks about space states that “it is very difficult to speak without how time and space are designed for comfort of man while invoking the concept time” (Harvey 127). According bringing about the dark realities behind the veneer of such comforts and luxuries. It is a visionary work about realities, to him “different societies produce qualitatively kinds of which are organized and regulated by the different conceptions of space and time [therefore] contemporary western capitalists. The novel fictionalizes … each social formation constructs objective the complexities of the social setup. It is contextual and conceptions of space and time sufficient unto its own relevant in the light of the increasing technologization and construction of time and space and man’s yielding to this needs and purposes of material social reproduction design. Through this novel, J.G. Ballard projects the future and organizes its material practices in accordance with which is going to take place on this earth soon and shows those conceptions” (qtd. in Zieleniec Ch. 4). So there how man’s activities are overtly and covertly constructed, are multiple Spatio-temporalities existed in the world. regulated, and managed by the capitalists. Then, how does a particular Spatio-temporality get Keywords: Time, Space, Boredom, Leisure, Capitalism, and determined? Harvey explains that “it is very closely Crime bound up with the power structures and social relations, In the history of science fiction (New Wave particular modes of production and consumption, movement) and British literature, J. G Ballard occupies existing in a given society. Therefore the determination a significant place. J.G. Ballard has changed the of what is space and what is time is not politically direction of science fiction from outer space to inner neutral but is politically embedded in a certain structure space. He writes about the bleakness of man-made of power relations” (127). Thus we can say that the landscapes and the effects of technology on the human particular time-space is determined by the political and psyche. His works deal with the contemporary economic system of that society. western landscapes. Regarding the place of eminence Drishti : the Sight # Vol. IX, Issue: I (May, 2020 - October, 2020) # 129 Architecture also plays a key role in the determination The space and time of the novel ‘Cocaine Nights’ of a specific Spatio-temporality. In the words of Knabb are specially constructed to accommodate the wealthy “architecture is the simplest means of articulating time and retired people of Europe. This space is being and space, of modulating reality and engendering constructed as a prison for the rich. All of them are dreams. It is a matter not only of plastic articulation beneficiaries of global capitalism, they nonetheless and modulation expressing an ephemeral beauty but appear as victims to its Spatio-temporal logic. The of a modulation producing influences in accordance territory of the rich in Estrella de Mar in Cocaine with the eternal spectrum of human desires and the Nights is described as a place of unreality and surface, progress in fulfilling them” ( 3). The capitalists design an “affectless realm” (Ballard 35) where the miles of the architecture keeping in mind the needs and desires white cement erase memory and abolishes time (34). of the inhabitants. Thus the needs and desires of the Similarly, the nearby Costa sol complex builds its inhabitants externalized through architecture. inhabitants into “prisons” disguised as luxury condos designed for people to do nothing (220, 213). They sit In 1983, Ballard stated “the sort of architectural spaces in their “capsules” where the shadows on the walls we inhabit are enormously important — they are become a “substitute for thought” (215). This is a limbo powerful. If every member of the human race were for those who can afford it, a place where the to vanish, our successors from another planet could redundancy of time and movement is built into the reconstitute the psychology of the people on this planet structure of existence. Space not only serves as a from its architecture” (Vale 44). ‘Space’ has a special container for passive life but seems to be endowed concern in J G Ballard works; the space referred here with more life than the waiting “like the armatures of is both external and internal. His works confront the the human beings who would occupy them that potentiality of space within the contemporary evening” (215). If the patient waiting for the beach landscape, articulating complex relationships between furniture symbolizes the total subsumption of agency the external environment and the individual. The outer of the residents of Estrella de Mar and Costa sol space is the reflection of the inner psyche of the man. through the perfection of leisure. In the novel Cocaine Nights, the space is designed The protagonist of the novel Charles Prentice is a to abolish time. The novel comes under the latter travel writer by profession. He is informed that his category of J G Ballard career. brother Franck Prentice is arrested by the police for his role in a fire, at a place in Estrella de Mar in Costa Andrzej Gasiorek points out that “the last four novels del Sol, that has killed five people. Further, he is of J G Ballard mark a shift from the collapse of social informed that his brother has confessed his guilt. systems explored in Ballard’s earlier texts to a Shocked by the information and feeling that his brother depiction of the implications of the success of social can never commit such a crime, he wants to visit Costa systems. This is a completely different type of dystopia del Sol. He feels that his brother might have confessed — the nightmare of the ultimate success of capitalism” his crime to save someone. Charles visits Club (20) — or, as Jeanette Baxter puts it “the alliance of Nautico, the sports club in Estrella de Mar to which neo-fascism and global capitalism across a shifting Frank was the secretary and tries to gather information contemporary Europe” (386). Instead of dystopian by meeting various people with a view to unravel the wastelands and natural disasters, these later novels actualities behind the murders. As days pass by, he are set in spaces of perfection. All human needs, realizes the setting of the Estrella de Mar has a Gasiorek notes, “have been anticipated, and the entire mystery of its own; he wants to unearth the hitherto social mechanism has been calibrated to minimize unknown facts about it for which he becomes a friction and disturbance” (21). member of that society. What he discovers is that it is Drishti : the Sight # Vol. IX, Issue: I (May, 2020 - October, 2020) # 130 a leisure society, where human needs leading to a community of Europe who wants to lead a comfortable happy and trouble-free life are fulfilled in advance. and luxurious life after their retirement. They want to All the members are so benumbed by the comforts alienate themselves from the rest of the world. The provided by the capitalists that their original humanity alienation is high that even though “The sea’s only ceases to exist. two hundred yards away but none of the villas looks out on to the beach. Space is totally internalized” Charles Prentice as a travel writer immediately (Ballard 203). Dr. Sanger explains that What Charles recognizes the architecture of the place. He notices: sees here is a ‘leisure society.’ According to Henri “The cubist apartments and terraced houses Lefebvre time and space are constructed in resembled Arcosanti’s, their architecture dedicated to conjunction with political and economic demands the abolition of time, as befitted the aging population (Beckman 278).
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