off topic, but an odd bird, Vlad
Definitely, and not a particularly appealing (though entertaining) personality - at least when pontificating about literature. (I've read a lot of his interviews, and wrote my UG dissertation on 'Lolita'.) His 'Lectures on Literature' are eccentric but brilliant - also seek out his book on Gogol. He definitely wouldn't have used that cliche 'human nature', apologies to his shade for that one. (I think another of his quarrels with Freud is that Freud turned the
mind into a collection of symbols and systems - of cliches, in other words.)
On the subject of time, I was listening to this last night
https://www.nypl.org/blog/2018/08/21/time-nypl-podcast-ep-228 an interview with a physicist, talking about how there's no such thing as 'now'.
Incidentally, I'm not sure his opinions on sci-fi are the same as Ballard's, but I recall reading Ballard talking about how science fiction of the space-race variety was now anachronistic, that sci-fi would only get anywhere by exploring 'inner space', etc.
