- Vermilion Sands
Infobox Book
name = Vermillion Sands
image_caption =First Italian edition of the collection
author =J. G. Ballard
country =UK
language = English
genre = fiction
publisher = Jonathon Cape
pub_date =1971 "Vermilion Sands" is a short-story collection by
J. G. Ballard , first published in1971 . All the stories are set in an imaginary vacation resort called Vermilion Sands which suggests, among other places, Palm Springs in southern California. The characters are generally the wealthy and disaffected, or people who make a living off them, and parasites of various kinds.In the preface, Ballard himself wrote: "Vermilion Sands has more than its full share of dreams and illusions, fears and fantasies, but the frame for them is less confining. I like to think, too, that it celebrates the neglected virtues of the glossy, lurid and bizarre."
The collection
tories
"Vermilion Sands" contains the following stories:
*"Prima Belladonna" (1956)
*"The Thousand Dreams of Stellavista" (1962)
*"Cry Hope, Cry Fury!" (1966)
*"Venus Smiles " (1957)
*"Studio 5, The Stars" (1961)
*"The Cloud-Sculptors of Coral D" (1967)
*"Say Goodbye to the Wind" (1970)
*"The Screen Game" (1962)
*"The Singing Statues" (1962)Exotic technology
Each story concentrates on different media - in some cases more than one - and most of them focus on a particular innovative, usually rather decadent/baroque twist on an existing artistic medium. For instance:
*"Prima Belladonna" focuses on music, especially singing, via singing plants and a 'mutant' voice;
*"The Thousand Dreams of Stellavista" focuses on architecture, via mobile, mood-sensitive houses;
*"Cry Hope, Cry Fury" focuses on painting, through paints that respond to the presence of light/objects (an example of decadence through the evaporation of skill);
*"Venus Smiles" focuses on sculpture, through the creation of a (strangely growing) sound sculpture;
*"Studio 5, The Stars" focuses on poetry, through automated poetry machines (another example of skill vanishing, this time into automation);
*"The Cloud-Sculptors of Coral D" focuses on a peculiar kind of sculpture made by carving clouds - painting also appears in this one;
*"Say Goodbye to the Wind" focuses on fashion via living fashion and sound jewelry (non-aural music and erotic food are also mentioned in passing);
*"The Screen Game" has no unusual technologies, but an unusual aesthetic - jewels and screens dominate;
*"The Singing Statues" returns to sound sculpture (which is probably why it was removed from the American Berkley Medallion edition of 1971, as the story conflicts with the plot of "Venus Smiles").Although the characters themselves often exhibit the same obsession, anomie and psychological disintegration typical of Ballard's characters, the emphasis on elaborate and sometimes humorously imagined art forms gives these stories a playfulness unusual in his other stories. A few other stories not set in Vermilion Sands are comparable because of their similar artistic games, especially "Sound-Sweep" (1960, on music/opera) and "Passport to Eternity" (1962, full of decadent trends and live fashions).
Popular culture references
* The song "Vermillion Sands" on the
Buggles album "Adventures In Modern Recording " is probably referring to this collection.External links
* [http://www.rickmcgrath.com/jgb.html The Terminal Collection: JG Ballard First Editions]
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