J.G. Ballard Crash

All I know is that it gave me nightmares and ended up with The Normal and Throbbing Gristle on my latest playlist.

Full review nicked from sarahbbc.wordpress.com/.../08/crash-jg-ballard

Simply put, JG Ballard’s Crash is an exploration of the link between sex and cars in an increasingly technological world. First published in 1973 it is in no way dated, and remains remarkably pertinent, which can only serve to generate a huge respect for the author’s vision. Described as post-modern, and containing some elements of meta-fiction, it did not recall any other book to mind, although there are those who make a comparison with William Burrough’s “Naked Lunch.”

With this, my first Ballard, I took the view that if I only ever read one it would be as well to pick the most extreme example of his work. One might argue that The Atrocity Exhibition would be better suited to this purpose, but it is fair to say that Crash is certainly in the running.

Crash begins with the ending (this novel is neither plot nor character driven), and then leaps back to the start; a fatal car crash involving the narrator, strangely named James Ballard. Ballard survives, but begins to perceive possibilities inherent in the linkage of sex, cars and crashes. Enter Vaughn.

Vaughn is revealed to the reader as a “TV scientist” for whom sexuality only exists within the context of the car, and car-related violence. Vaughn is also obsessed with the celebrity and the fatal crash; real, imagined, planned.

As Vaughn presides over the anticipated “autogeddon” like a deranged messiah, the imagery of Beelzebub is, at the last, employed to good effect. This messiah of science is not ushering in a golden age.

From the outset the reader is exposed to a great deal of sex, both direct, and in the imagery used to describe cars and the infra-structures associated with driving. However, the book is completely free of eroticism and I would have to dispute Ballard’s own description of his work as “the first pornographic novel based on technology.” Sex is described mechanically and analytically. It is unsettling and distasteful, but not pornographic.

Progressing through the book there are several factors to concern the reader:

Initially the descriptions were so repellent that I could only read by means of peering at the page, warily, from behind my hand. It was perplexing to think that this might also be a valid response to witnessing a real car crash. Whilst this bizarre behaviour was not conducive to the technicalities of reading it was a consideration that should this cease it might indicate a desensitisation to the content.

A second worrying factor was the ease with which the mindset of the book is adopted. For example:

“Can we drive a little?” she asked. “There’s all this traffic – I like to look at it.”

Ordinarily such a remark would not be readily interpretable as provocative.

These concerns were not unfounded. It was eventually possible to emerge, to look the book in the face, so to speak. Whilst this suspected desensitisation was not welcome, the ease with which it was achieved is an illustration of Ballard’s superb control of his reader. The repetitive nature of the prose is not disimilar to the constant bombardment by propoganda and advertising to which we are all subject. The point is driven home.

This, one of the few quotable passages of the book, appealed for its grace and beauty.

The mannequin, Elvis, lifted himself from his seat, his ungainly body at last blessed by the grace of the slow motion camera. Like the most brilliant of all stuntmen, he stood on his pedals, legs and arms fully stretched. His head was raised with its chin forwards in an attitude of almost aristocratic disdain. The rear wheel of the motor cycle lifted into the air behind him, and seemed about to kick him in the small of the back, but with great finesse the rider detached his feet from the pedals and inclined his floating body in a horizontal posture.

As the mannequin sails through the air the slow motion spectators themselves appear as mannequins…

It is devices such as these; tricks of narrative which reflect, pre-empt and, above all, suggest… that raise this book out of the voyeuristic hell it might otherwise inhabit.

June 8, 2009