crash
This disturbing novel is often classified as science fiction, though at first glance the label may seem unjustified. The most advanced technologies described in this book are cars and airplanes—and very conventional ones at that. Unlike other Ballard books, such as The Crystal World or The Drowned World , with their apocalyptic sci-fi scenarios, Crash describes a world that apparently is just like our own.
Well, on second thought, maybe not. The technology in Crash may be familiar, but the people can hardly be from this planet. At the opening of the book, the narrator (named Ballard in the novel) describes his recently deceased friend Vaughan, who had a bizarre erotic obsession with car crashes, automobile injuries and motorway mishaps of the most violent sort. This might be plausible, but when we find that the narrator Ballard is also fixated on the sexual potential of car crashes, the reader is doubtful that there are two such sickos in the same town. But then we are introduced to Ballard’s girlfriend Catherine, who also finds auto collisions to be an oh-so- heavy-metal aphrodisiac. And don't let me forget to mention Ballard’s sometime mistress Helen Remington (they met when he killed her husband in a traffic accident) who also gets aroused by—yes, you guessed it—car crashes.
No, these are not believable characters. I have spent a lot of time driving on the roads over the years, and I can attest that you are more likely to find a hobbit, a Hogwarts alum, and two Dune sandworms in the car next to you, than this unlikely foursome. By sheer Darwinian logic, people who need to slam their vehicle into a bus in order to get aroused do not propagate. Heck, they're lucky to live beyond the expiration date on their DMV learner's permit.
These odd characters and their strange inter- relationships are what give Crash the aura of a futuristic book. And their envisioned Armageddon—or “Carmageddon,” as Ballard prefers to describe it—may be as creepy as an attack by Triffids or a virus from outer space, but it is the people themselves, and not their technology, who make us uneasy. The characters here represent something new in fiction; the nihilism of, say, Bazarov in Turgenev's Fathers and Sons looks like Mister Rogers in comfy slippers by comparison.
But the technology is the focus of the writing, and no author has ever lavished more sensually-charged adjectives on the various parts that make up a typical car. The words of devotion that Petrarch aimed at Laura, Dante at Beatrice, are here targeted at steering columns, toggle switches and radiator grilles. Much of this prose is unsettling, even sociopathic. Then again, some of it is quite lovely. No matter what your objections might be to the values espoused by this novel—and if you have no objections, don’t expect to date my daughter—you will be forced to admire the sheer sweep and daring of the writing. Of course, you will probably also get nauseous from time to time before you have reached the grand finale of this paean to a crash test dummy philosophy of life.
Here is a taste: The lungs of elderly men punctured by door-handles; the chests of young women impaled on steering-columns; the cheek of handsome youths torn on the chromium latches of quarter-lights. To Vaughan, these wounds formed the key to a new sexuality, born from a perverse technology. The images of these wounds hung in the gallery of his mind, like exhibits in the museum of a slaughterhouse . . . . Or how about this: The car crash is a fertilizing rather than a destructive event. And how about a nice aphorism to append to your emails: They bury the dead so quickly. They should leave them lying around for months. No, these are not isolated passages taken out of context (trust me, the context only makes it worse), but rather typical extracts from a very atypical novel.
If you like edgy, this is definitely edgy. Even so, a sociopath is a sociopath, no matter how well he writes. And the character named Ballard who narrates this story is sick in the head, and needs some treatment. I won’t pass judgment on that other fellow named Ballard who wrote Crash . Maybe he is just offering us an oblique critique of contemporary mores. But it wouldn’ t surprise me if he had a screw or two loose too.
the crystal world
Collins English Dictionary has added the tern “Ballardian” to its lexicon, defining it as follows:
Ballardian : (adj) 1. of James Graham Ballard (born 1930), the British novelist, or his works (2) resembling or suggestive of the conditions described in Ballard’s novels and stories, esp. dystopian modernity, bleak man-made landscapes and the psychological effects of technological,social or environmental developments.
It is worth noting that most of the science fiction novels that have “crossed over” to become accepted as literary masterpieces have emphasized the Ballardian aspects of their narratives. We have Orwell’s 1984 , Huxley’s Brave New World , Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale , Cormac McCarthy’s The Road , and (of course) the novels by the ultimate Ballardian author, J.G. Ballard, who continues to inspire not just lexicographers but a host of fans with his provocative oeuvre.
Ballard was perhaps more influenced by surrealism and William S. Burroughs than by Hugo Gernsback and Amazing Magazine . As a result, his writing is completely free of the pulp fiction trappings that degrade so much of what passes for sci-fi. The closest equivalent in fiction to The Crystal World may, in fact, be Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness which, like Ballard’s novel, tells the tale of a visitor into the depths of jungle who stumbles into an unexpected and nightmarish encounter with the dark side.
English doctor Edward Sanders arrives at river port city in Gabon, from which he hopes to journey to a leprosy treatment center. But he hears of a mysterious disorder that is spreading through the jungle. Some type of virus is transforming the landscape, its contents and inhabitants into crystal. Little can be done to counter this terrestrial cancer, although jewels seems to have some power to liquefy the crystals.
Other writers would highlight the global pandemic, and focus on the effects of this virus spreading to London, New York, Paris, Moscow and the like. But Ballard keeps doggedly fixed on the intimate and personal nature of this situation. Also, he relies on the malignity of the crystals to inspire a type of icy landscape writing – a strange transference of a picturesque arctic narrative into the midst of the jungle.
This is poised work by a fine writer. Those raised on bloodier and bolder Armageddon tales may find the pacing slow, but readers who are coming to sci-fi after long familiarity with literary fiction will enjoy Ballard as a bridge between these two, often incommensurable, worlds.
Amidst a generation of British writers who wanted to shake things up—an era of avant-gardists, class conscious rebels and the so- called "Angry Young Men"—few writers shook harder than J.G. Ballard (1930-2009). His work encompassed everything from the gritty autobiographical novel Empire of the Sun to 'new wave' sci-fi works. These books were often disturbing, and Ballard's 1970 work The Atrocity Exhibition was even the subject of a censorship trial in the US. Yet Ballard attracted a devoted cult following, an unlikely alliance of punk rockers, bohemians and writers on the fringe. Few authors risked more or inspired such strong passions, both yay or nay, than than this seminal figure.