Track 12
"Track 12" | |
---|---|
Short story by J. G. Ballard | |
Country | United Kingdom |
Language | English |
Publication | |
Published in | New Worlds |
Media type | magazine |
Publication date | April 1958 (1958-04) |
"Track 12" is a short story by British author J. G. Ballard, it first appeared in the April 1958 edition of New Worlds (volume 24, number 70).[1] It then appeared in Penguin Science Fiction (edited by Brian Aldiss) in 1961,[2] Passport to Eternity, The Venus Hunters, The Overloaded Man, and later in The Complete Short Stories of J. G. Ballard: Volume 1.
As part of an intended anthology film the story was adapted by Harold Pinter. The adaptation was directed by Joseph Losey in 1967 and featured Dirk Bogarde and Julie Christie.[3]
An adaptation of the story was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 in 2016.[4]
Plot
The story begins with Maxted, a run-down athlete, having been invited over to the home of Sheringham, a university professor of biochemistry.[5] Despite Sheringham having asked him over to discuss business, Maxted suspects that Sheringham may be about to confront him about his wife, Susan Sheringham, with whom Maxted has been having an affair.
Throughout the course of the evening, Sheringham continues to play obscure sound recordings to Maxted, making him guess what they are (at one point he plays the amplified recording of a pin dropping). Sheringham explains he thinks microsonics is a great hobby, but it may be developing into an obsession. Maxted becomes impatient with the man he finds repulsive, and awaits the confrontation.[6]
As Sheringham leaves the patio to play the eponymous last track, Maxted begins finishing off his whiskey but begins to feel a peculiar sensation in his abdomen - what feels like ice cold mercury weighing down his stomach. He becomes sluggish and disoriented as track 12 begins to play. Sheringham enters again, smiling. He explains to Maxted that he has been aware of his wife's affair, and has been recording their intimacy for some time with numerous microphones. He explains that Maxted has drunk chromium cyanate, and as Maxted slowly "drowns" internally, Sheringham reveals that the "curiously muffled spongy noise, like elastic waves lapping in a latex seas" appended with thunderous rhythms growing ever louder is an amplified recording of a kiss shared between Maxted and Sheringham's wife.
References
- ^ "JG Ballard Book Cover Scans: 1956-59". The Terminal Collection. Retrieved January 6, 2009.
- ^ "JG Ballard Book Cover Scans 1960-1961".
- ^ "Ballard's Cinema: Notes for a Retrospective – Track 12 (Joseph Losey 1967)". 12 June 2017.
- ^ "BBC Radio 3 - Between the Ears, Between Ballard's Ears".
- ^ "Hear J.G. Ballard Stories Adapted as Surreal Soundscapes That Put You Inside the Heads of His Characters | Open Culture".
- ^ "Hear J.G. Ballard Stories Adapted as Surreal Soundscapes That Put You Inside the Heads of His Characters | Open Culture".
External links
- Track 12 title listing at the Internet Speculative Fiction Database
- v
- t
- e
- The Wind from Nowhere (1961)
- The Drowned World (1962)
- The Burning World (1964)
- The Crystal World (1966)
- The Atrocity Exhibition (1969)
- Crash (1973)
- Concrete Island (1974)
- High-Rise (1975)
- The Unlimited Dream Company (1979)
- Hello America (1981)
- Empire of the Sun (1984)
- The Day of Creation (1987)
- Running Wild (1988)
- The Kindness of Women (1991)
- Rushing to Paradise (1994)
- Cocaine Nights (1996)
- Super-Cannes (2000)
- Millennium People (2003)
- Kingdom Come (2006)
- "Mobile" (1957)
- "The Concentration City" (1957)
- "Track 12" (1958)
- "Zone of Terror" (1960)
- "The Sound-Sweep" (1960)
- "The Voices of Time" (1960)
- "Chronopolis" (1960)
- "Studio 5, The Stars" (1961)
- "Deep End" (1961)
- "Mr F. is Mr F." (1961)
- "Billennium" (1962)
- "Minus One" (1963)
- "The Recognition" (1967)
- " The Day of Forever" (1967)
- "Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan" (1968)
- "Venus Smiles" (1971)
collections
- The Voices of Time and Other Stories (1962)
- Billennium (1962)
- Passport to Eternity (1963)
- The 4-Dimensional Nightmare (1963)
- The Terminal Beach (1964)
- The Impossible Man (1966)
- The Overloaded Man (1967)
- The Disaster Area (1967)
- The Day of Forever (1967)
- Vermilion Sands (1971)
- Chronopolis and Other Stories (1971)
- Low-Flying Aircraft and Other Stories (1976)
- The Best of J. G. Ballard (1977)
- The Best Short Stories of J. G. Ballard (1978)
- The Venus Hunters (1980)
- Myths of the Near Future (1982)
- The Voices of Time (1985)
- Memories of the Space Age (1988)
- War Fever (1990)
- The Complete Short Stories of J. G. Ballard: Volume 1 (2006)
- The Complete Short Stories of J. G. Ballard: Volume 2 (2006)
and interviews
- A User's Guide to the Millennium (1996)
- Extreme Metaphors (2012)
- Miracles of Life (2008)
- When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth (1970)
- Crash! (1971)
- Empire of the Sun (1987)
- Crash (1996)
- The Atrocity Exhibition (1998)
- Low-Flying Aircraft (2002)
- High-Rise (2015)
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