J.G. Ballard’s self-declared ‘Immodest Proposal’ for a global war-­alliance to exact the destruction of America demonstrates the provocatory zeal of his last fiction plans, as well as their enduring prescience. As Ballard emphasises several times in the World Versus America notebooks, he is utterly serious in his concerns and visions.
Although the Ballard ­estate declined permission for any images of pages from the World Versus America archival notebooks to accompany this essay, any member of the general public interested to do so can readily visit the British Library and view the notebooks in their entirety in the freely-­accessible manuscripts collection there.

Wahrscheinlich mussten die Kuratoren fürchten, jemand stolperte über die Stufen beim Blick an ihre Wände, unachtsam vom Bilderansehen – kann es sein, dass ich eben unten an dem ersten Objekt der Ausstellung einfach vorbeigegangen bin? Nummer 1, »Schleier ohne Form. Vorhang…«. Muss an der Wand direkt zwischen Eingang und Abgang… »Lieber Herr Kollege…!«, und Aufgang angebracht gewesen sein, »… Vorhang. Höhe 310 cm, Breite 475 cm«, ich müsste das doch vom letzten Gangabschnitt her schon gesehen haben, wandhohes Ding. Was ich hier übersehe, geht mir durch den Kopf, wäre das Wesentliche. Was noch die schlichteste Form von Analyse ist. Eigentlich müsste ich, weiß ich, zurückgehen im sacht aufsteigenden Wendelstein. Aber er ist zu Ende, vor mir öffnet sich entlang einer letzten flachen Stufe das Anatomische Theater. Licht.

Dem rechteckigen Raum eingeschrieben ist das Oval einer hölzernen, braun glänzenden Balustrade, von der aus sieht man nach unten. Irgendwo wird hier geflüstert. In drei enger...

• Ausstellung
• Gegenwartsliteratur
• Körper
• Darstellende Kunst

“So many egoists call themselves artists,” Rimbaud wrote to Paul Demeny on May 15, 1871. Even though that is not always obvious, ‘I’, the first person, is the most unknown person, a mystery that is constantly moving towards the other two, the second and third persons, a series of unfoldings and smatterings that eventually gelled as ‘Je est un autre’. That is why ‘apocryphal’ is a literarily irrelevant concept and ‘pseudo’ a symptom, the very proof that life, writing, is made up of echoes, which means that intrusions and thefts (Borges also discusses them) will always be the daily bread of those who write.

Words from others, words taken out of place and mutilated: here are the alms of time, that squanderer’s sole kindness. And so many others, mostly others who wrote, and many other pages, all of them apocryphal, all of them echoes, reflections. All this flows together into—two centuries...

• Krieg
• Kriegserfahrung

I said “Would you like a rope? You know that haul you have is not secured properly.”
“No,” he said, “but I see you have string!”
“If this comes into motion—” I said, “you should use a rope.”
“Any poison ivy on that? ” he asked me, and I told him my rope had been in the barn peacefully for years.
He took a length of it to the bedside table. He had no concept for what wood could endure.
“Table must have broken when I lashed it onto the truck,” he said.
And, when he was moving the sewing machine, he let the cast iron wheels—bang, bang on the stair.
I had settled down to pack up the flamingo cookie jar, the cutlery, and the cookware, but stopped briefly, for how many times do you catch sudden sight of something heartfelt?
I saw our milk cows in their slow...