The Artist as Monster: The Cinema of David Cronenberg

Book Description

PAPERBACK INCLUDES TWO NEW CHAPTERS

David Cronenberg is one of the most fascinating filmmakers in the world today. His provocative work has stimulated debate and received major retrospectives in museums, galleries, and cinematheques around the world. William Beard's The Artist as Monster was the first book-length scholarly work in English on Cronenberg's films, analyzing all of his features from Stereo (1969) to Crash (1996). In this paperback edition, Beard includes new chapters on eXistenZ (1999) and Spider (2002).

Through close readings and visual analyses, Beard argues that the structure of Cronenberg's cinema is based on a dichotomy between, on the one hand, order, reason, repression, and control, and on the other, liberation, sexuality, disease, and the disintegration of self and of the boundaries that define society. The instigating figure in the films is a scientist character who, as Cronenberg evolves as a filmmaker, gradually metamorphoses into an artist, with the ground of liberation and catastrophe shifting from experimental subject to the self.

Bringing a wealth of analytical observation and insight into Cronenberg's films, Beard's sweeping, comprehensive work has established the benchmark for the study of one of Canada's best-known filmmakers.

Customer Reviews:

The most comprehensive study of Cronenberg's movies.......2004-12-11

In my large collection of books on David Cronenberg this is the most important one. Beard shuns unreasonable or extremely biased attitudes (like radical feminism) - which does not mean he ignores them: on the contrary, he eagerly engages in polemic discussion, often incorporating some notions specific for various ideologies into his own discourse. Doing so, he performs a comprehensive analysis of Cronenberg's films, seen both as separate and intertextual pieces of art. It is really amazing to see how he manages to combine the complexities of academic approach with the utmost clarity of message.

This is partially due to the structure of the book, which also makes it extremely easy to use - movies are discussed in separate chapters, divided into smaller sections, devoted to the most important themes and motifs present in each of them.

For all those reasons, Beard's book is not only a valuable and helpful source for all kinds of academic discussion, but also a great reading for all Cronenberg fans.

The Critic as Monster.......2001-11-04

I'm pretty sure I've read every book available about David Cronenberg in two languages (English & French). This book by William Beard is probably the thickest and says the least.

Beard analyzes Cronenberg film by film (up to but not including Existenz). His approach is academic. Now I have no problem with theoretical or erudite books, being a professor myself. But this book, entrenched in academic film analysis, must be the least enlightening book on a director that I've ever read. It takes utterly trivial insights and phrases them in the most long-winded verbiage.

Here's a sample from the first paragraph of the chapter about Videodrome. Decide for yourself:

In Videodrome, "there is finally a shift of the ground of the action into the male protagonist, a centralization of this masculine figure who can now properly represent the masculine sensibility of the film. The marginalization or diminishment of this figure in the earlier features looks in retrospect like a kind of evasion -- or, to be more charitable, perhaps simply a stage in the filmmaker's continuing hunt to discover the ground zero of desire and prohibition. Now, that centre is at last discovered to be not the sexually transgressive woman, nore the inventor-father, nor unfeeling and predatory elements of society (although all of those forms are importantly present in Videodrome), but, rather, the self. And the appetites and anxieties, with their bodily mutations and diseases, finally unfold in and enact themselves on the self, and the self's body. The self is the monster." (page 121)

I would think that this must be a central paragraph of Beard's book, since he bases his title on it (artist as monster). But what is he really saying? That the "self" is monstrous because "appetites and anxieties" give it a working-over? Everyone has appetites and anxieties -- why is that so monstrous? How does that illuminate the film? It's hard to tell what analytical stance this even represents -- some vague form of psychoanalytical criticism?

In the preface to the book Beard admits that he thinks Cronenberg is not a "great artist but a powerful minor one." I couldn't help but think that this was the book's entire problem. It thought more of itself than of Cronenberg.

Personally I think Cronenberg is a great artist, and this book is a minor one -- a powerless minor one.

Book Description

Ever since his emergence from the Canadian cinematic underground during the late 1960s, David Cronenberg has challenged and disturbed audiences with works that range from cutting-edge commercial to cult-fave studies in "body horror" and existential despair. This collection of new interviews by critic Serge Grünberg examines Cronenberg from his career's uncertain beginnings through his ascendancy to master filmmaker. Cronenberg talks candidly about aesthetics, censorship, sexuality, the straightjacket of political correctness, and the ephemeral sense of reality in an age saturated with mass media. Each of his landmark films is discussed in detail, accompanied by stills, rare handbills and posters, and storyboards that show the creative process at work. Detailing both his textbook masterpieces — works like Videodrome, Naked Lunch, and The Fly — and his more edgy films such as the transsexual romance M. Butterfly and the bloody cyberpunk epic Existenz, these interviews shed light on one of cinema’s most talented and misunderstood creators.

Customer Reviews:

Great infomative read.......2006-06-26

few directors are actually good at giving intelligent yet enaging interviews..or DVD audio commentaries for that matter..Cronenberg is one of the few, this book covers everything from his early doubts and stuggles to make films, as well as his continuing fascination with the realtionship his characters have to their bodies and the particularly complex situations they find themselves in..I only wish the book had color stills, as Cronenberg is one of the very few subtle visualists we have working today..but the texts are well worth the read..

When?.......2006-03-10

Why does this title continue and and continue to be pushed back? This book was originally to be published in the fall of 2003, but was delayed multiple times in roughly three month intervals. Each time the newly posted release date was reached, a new delay of roughly three months was issued. I'm skeptical that this book has been published even today. Usually ships in one to three months? That's ridiculous.

Cronenberg on Cronenberg (Directors on Directors)

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A sharp intelligence only possessed by a minority of film directors...
make me feel good? yes.
I own every edition of this book
David Cronenberg... Obsessions and Avant-Garde Films
a great start

Cronenberg on Cronenberg (Directors on Directors)
David Cronenberg
Manufacturer: Faber & Faber
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0571191371

Book Description

Cronenberg on Cronenberg charts Cronenberg's development from maker of inexpensive 'exploitation' cinema to internationally renowned director of million-dollar movies, and reveals the concerns and obsessions which continue to dominate his increasingly rich and complex work. This edition brings Cronenberg's work up -to -date with an additional chapter on Crash.

Customer Reviews:

A sharp intelligence only possessed by a minority of film directors..........2006-11-05

The "auteur" moniker that seems to hang ominously like a dead albatross around David Cronenberg's directorial neck is an overly misapplied reputation which requires a bit of deconstruction.

Essentially, when you hear the term auteur, the suggestion that typically applies is that the director in question--in this case, David Cronenberg--is a snotty type who doesn't budge not even the width of an atom for his particular creative vision. Everything on-set by definition must be done to the letter of the man himself, an inflexible character. Auteur, in this highly pejorative sense, is the closest thing to a Mussolini-type dictatorship which one could experience on the film set. Horrors.

But I'd certainly have to disagree.

David Cronenberg, according to many of the players who have worked under him (not toiled, collaborated!), especially in the case of Maria Belo and Viggo Mortensen, lately of A History of Violence, have nothing but rave reviews for the man. Even former porn-star Marilyn Chambers in The Brood had fantastic things to say about the Toronto-based director.

Few so-called auteurs seem to be as democratic as Cronenberg. He places a great emphasis upon his actors' appearance on screen, and much is discussed of how he generally will permit heaps of retakes for various scenes if a given actor feels as though they didn't pull off a scene correctly, or with particular aplomb.

He's one of the smartest directors in Hollywood. He's extremely well read (evidenced by his fluidity of speech during interviews--I've watched them), he's maginificently outspoken, and he knows his material so very well, especially when he writes the scripts himself. What's more is that he's adamant about shooting his films in his native Canada. In a North American industry where most Canadian would-be talent darts south of the border faster than Scotty's teleporter might, Cronenberg has stuck it out in places like the old movie studios at Kleinberg, Ontario and in the provincial captial, Toronto to establish a solid reputation north of the 45th parallel.

If you've never had the chance to hear Cronenberg speak on screen, you're really missing out. See if you can pick up the film called Spider...which starts Rafe Fiennes and Gabriel Byrne, which also contains an excellent segment on the director speaking about his various travails in attempting to land 11th-hour financing for that picture (which nearly capsized because they couldn't land the cash). I'm not raving for nothing--he doesn't miss a beat, this Cronenberg guy. He knows his stuff cold, and so do the people who entitle him to do what he does. They know they're in good hands, and Cronenberg always seems to deliver the goodies.

In terms of the book itself, I've fallen head over heels in love with this "directors speaking about themselves" series. After having first read Cassavetes on Cassavetes in New Zealand, Kieslowski on Kieslowski in the Czech Republic, and now Cronenberg on Cronenberg here in Prague (with Herzog on Herzog waiting anxiously in the wings), you're going to be hardpressed to find better biographical data on these giants of indie cinema other than what you'll read here. Martin Scorsese has even been profiled in this series...from what I've heard, it's one of the thickest of them all. Oh poor bank account...

This book rocks (!!!) because you're getting an uncensored take on the author's views. The book is Cronenberg at his vintage best, cussing, intimately describing various details (especially the final insert on his film CRASH, the "real" CRASH, not the Oscar-winning impostor!) of the sex scenes between his actors Holly Hunter, James Spader, and Elias Koteas, and some keen insider details from the period of cinematic history in Canada back in the old "tax shelter" days, when finance was freely available. When guys like David Cronenberg were only looking for scripts to fit the bill, because they were swimming in Canadian dollars. Those were the days, and Cronenberg pays due homage to the era -- it's what made him who he is today, and without the access to the money back in those days, his destiny might've turned out slightly differently. It's what he describes as his transition from "filmmaker" to "movie maker," a la Hollywood, bigger budgets, bigger stars, and box-office coups.

See if you can also catch a special "director's series" DVD from the American Film Insitute (AFI). It's called "The Directors: David Cronenberg," and he's one of (I believe) several directors profiled, with clips from their various films (I've watched most of 'em). Catch some early clips of Canadian actor Michael Ironside, who is still stupendous, IMHO, even in his later years. That infamous "head exploding scene" from Scanners, still to this day, is something else. It's buried somewhere on that DVD I'm talking about.

So I think I've said enough about completely irrelevant things. If you're looking to be entertained, see if you can pick up a copy. It's not heavy lifting, reading-wise, and it's packed with factoids, anecdotes, and details.

--ADM in Prague

make me feel good? yes........2003-07-04

Dude, it's really hard to stop David Cronenberg from yapping about his films. this, though, is a good thing. The man is very well spoken ,even if he doesn't think shivers and videodrome aren't comedies. this book, my friend, make me feel good.

I own every edition of this book.......2002-05-24

Or at least I did until I gave away the second edition as a gift but it meant a lot. The current edition is fourth and came out after The Crash. To the people who know only his films it will be surprising Cronenberg came from a literary background and how much his films are intellectual. The man also possesses mean dry wit which shows up when talking about his ex wife and personal enemies like censors or would be do-gooders (fellow Canadian writer Margaret Atwood). To those who do not know about the author as much as they should this is a great book. Those who love Cronenberg's films probably own this already. I am waiting for a new edition to come out, the one to include the making of Existenz and his new film Spider and I'm buying!

David Cronenberg... Obsessions and Avant-Garde Films.......2002-05-13

David Cronenberg has gained a sizeable cult following throughout his career as the director of a series of challenging and intelligent horror movies. CRONENBERG ON CRONENBERG is the definitive book on the subject; an in-depth and personal look at both the man and his amazing body of work.

The book is written as a series of lengthy commentaries by Cronenberg himself, and is accompanied with brief remarks and observations by editor Chris Rodley. David Cronenberg comes across as being an intellectual individual, and is very knowledgeable about all aspects of his films. Many times, he will go into detail about what his intentions were on a particular scene and how successful he felt it was. There are also passages where Cronenberg talks about his experiences with censorship. However, the book is most entertaining when David Cronenberg goes into these long and amusing anecdotes about his many experiences with actors (a particularly funny encounter involves an actress in the film SHIVERS who couldn't make herself cry on screen). In one of the book's most interesting moments, David Cronenberg explains how many of his ambitious ideas for the film VIDEODROME never materialized and how special-effects wizard Rick Baker (who had been attracted to the project after having read the first extreme draft of the film) had to settle for working on a toned-down second draft with Cronenberg's more surreal moments removed from the script.

The book follows the director from his early exploitation films, like SHIVERS and RABID, to his more ambitious studio work, like DEAD RINGERS and NAKED LUNCH. Fans will probably be intrigued to find out that the book also contains much information about David Cronenberg's early student films like STERIO and CRIMES OF THE FUTURE. The book also focuses on many of the themes and concerns that have become apparent in all of the director's films. Throughout the text, there are numerous photographs and footnotes and the book also offers a definite Filmography that includes a brief synopsis about each of his films.

CRONENBERG ON CRONENBERG is a fascinating portrait into the mind of one of the genre's greatest directors and comes highly recommended. This new edition comes with an excellent interview with David Cronenberg concerning his controversial 1996 film CRASH.

a great start.......2000-12-26

"Cronenberg on Cronenberg" is a great start for anyone who wants further insight on David's work, specially his early films. One musn't hesitate, this is the basic fan purchase.

Average customer rating:

GUILTY PLEASURE
An entirely new form of Pornography.
Stunning! A must read for Ballard Fans!

Crash
David Cronenberg
Manufacturer: Faber & Faber
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0571191274

Customer Reviews:

GUILTY PLEASURE.......2001-08-17

HERE IT IS CRASH FANS, DAVID CRONENBERG's SCREENPLAY OF J. G. BALLARD's CRASH. THE 65 PAGE SCREENPLAY IS PRECEDED BY A 10 PAGE INTRODUCTION WHERE DAVID IS INTERVIEWED BY CHRIS RODLEY. IT ALSO CONTAINS 4 PAGES OF B&W PHOTOS. IF IT'S THE FILM's NARRATIVE THAT YOU LOOKING FOR, THEN CHECK OUT THIS 1996 BOOK. IF IT'S THE SOURCE MATERIAL THAT YOU SEEK, THEN CHECK OUT BALLARD's 1973 NOVEL. IF THAT'S NOT ENOUGH, CHECK OUT IAIN SINCLAIR's BOOK ON CRASH (BFI, 1999). EITHER WAY, YOU CAN INDULGE YOURSELF IN THE GUILTY LITTLE PLEASURE THAT IS CRASH. IT'LL BE OUR LITTLE SECRET.

An entirely new form of Pornography........1999-02-27

And that's saying alot. When was the last time in literature we got to see something sexual that had never been thought of before? Very Chilling, Very perverse, and an extremely new way of looking at fetishism.

Stunning! A must read for Ballard Fans!.......1997-08-01

Released to coincide with the limited movie release, J.G. Ballard gives a stunning description of one man's obession with auto crashes after surviving his own accident. With brilliant descriptions and a brilliant touch Ballard takes you into a world of automotive love and the love of accidents like you've never seen before. A great weekend read, you won't be able to put this down. Erotic, thrilling, sad, moving

David Cronenberg: Collected Screenplays 1: Stereo, Crimes of the Future, Shivers, Rabid

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An essential for fans
A Must for Cronenberg Completists
Cronenberg Asks "Why?"

David Cronenberg: Collected Screenplays 1: Stereo, Crimes of the Future, Shivers, Rabid
David Cronenberg
Manufacturer: Faber & Faber
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0571210171

Book Description

David Cronenberg has made a career of exploring the darker side of eroticism. Stereo, Crimes of the Future, and Rabid gave initial form to his fascination with the psychological aspects of death, disease, lust, and power. And, in 1975 Shivers gained Cronenberg widespread recognition and notoriety for his exceptionally chilling expressions of society's fears about the sexual revolution and its long-term ramifications.

Customer Reviews:

An essential for fans.......2004-07-19

I agree with everything the reviewer says in "A Must For Cronenberg Conpletists," but I would like to add that "Stereo" and "Crimes of the Future" are now available on DVD. Blue Underground very recently released Fast Company, Croneberg's drag racing film (try it, you'll like it!) and included the two short films on an extras disc. The transfers are excellent, and yes, Cronenberg fans should have these DVDs and the book of screenplays. The screenplay is especially helpful in understanding and appreciating "Stereo."

A Must for Cronenberg Completists.......2003-11-04

For a good part of the century, the vanguard thing for a writer to do was to renovate his medium importing techniques from film: montage, jump cuts, close-ups, slow motion, and so forth. But if the writer with cinematic influences has since become a familiar -- perhaps a too familiar -- type of artist, the literary director is still something of an anomaly. When asked for their influences, most directors cite other filmmakers, and yet David Cronenberg tends instead to name William Burroughs, Samuel Beckett, Philip K. Dick, the Existentialists. Before undertaking a career in film, there was a brief moment when Cronenberg even toyed with the idea of becoming a writer. In a series of fascinating interviews with Serge Grunberg, Cronenberg once admitted that he always dreamed of being an "obscure" writer along the lines of Kafka. But instead of languishing as an obscure writer, ultimately Cronenberg switched disciplines and became what he is today: a director remarkable less for his cinematic qualities -- you can't credit him with purism or much innovation in film technique -- than for the unique vision and literary sensibility he brings to his films.

Given this literary outlook, you might expect that Cronenberg's screenplays are writerly tours de force -- which they manifestly are not. In a slightly puzzled preface to this introductory volume of his screenplays, Cronenberg emphasizes that the screenplay is not the venue for literary pretention. "Screen prose," he writes, "is rigorously functional. Its focus is narrow, narrower than a haiku, and its purpose is very limited... In fact, profound, complex prose just gets in the way of the real business of a screenplay, and thus is generally derided, considered pathetic." Accordingly, the two screenplays of Cronenberg's first feature-length films -- Shivers and Rabid -- are best read in conjunction with the films themselves. They're study aids, production documents that can help in the analysis and understanding of the films -- and they're not much more than that.

But what about the screenplays for Stereo and Crimes of the Future, two of Cronenberg's early attempts at avant-garde cinema? Most readers won't have seen these films, since about the only way to get them is to purchase an nth-generation VHS from ebay. What's more, neither text was really a screenplay in the proper sense, since each was written not before but after the film was shot. So what are you to make of these ex post facto voiceover monologues? Are they hybrids of the writer that Cronenberg wanted to be and the filmmaker that he eventually became? Or are they just juvenilia?

The script for Stereo introduces a world similar to the one Cronenberg created in the film Scanners. Volunteers at the Canadian Academy for Erotic Inquiry submit to telepathy experiments that lead to unexpectedly erotic results -- to "omnisexuality," an "expanded form of bisexuality." As a text, the script closely prefigures the type of pseudo-scientific prose perfected by J.G. Ballard in The Atrocity Exhibition (aka Love and Napalm), which is ironic given that Cronenberg has claimed not to feel much affinity with Ballard upon first reading.

Crimes of the Future also introduces familiar Cronenberg themes -- essentially pathology and perversity. Here it is easy to detect a young cineaste deeply under the influence of Burroughs. For example, Cronenberg writes that a colleague's body "has begun to create puzzling organs, each one very complex, very perfect, unique, yet seemingly without function. As each is surgically removed, it is quickly replaced by another, equally mysterious. He has taken to breaking into the specimens room and stealing the jars containing the organs. His body, he insists, is a galaxy, and these creatures are solar systems. He becomes melancholy when they are far from him. His nurse says that his disease is possibly a form of creative cancer." This, of course, is almost a paraphrase of a famous passage from Naked Lunch.

Given the obvious immaturity of these early pieces and the narrow functionality of the screenplays of Shivers and Rabid, is it worthwhile to read -- to buy -- even to publish -- this first volume of Cronenberg's collected screenplays? For the casual fan, the answer is probably no. These screenplays will not give you literary kicks independent of the films. But for those who are fans of Cronenberg the director, these screenplays are indispensable for understanding how the would-be author became the cinematic auteur.

Cronenberg Asks "Why?".......2002-11-27

In the brief (page and a half) introduction to this collection of his first four feature scripts, David Cronenberg is clearly puzzled and typically provocative. One can almost hear him getting the phone call from the publishers saying they'd like to publish his first four scripts as a book, followed by a looooong pause, and then Cronenberg's response "Why?" For, as he quite fairly asks, "How can anyone possibly read a film script? A script is not writing. A script is a ghost of something not yet born." He elaborates: "Screen prose is rigorously functional.... its purpose is very limited.... Screenplays are scrutinized, not read.... elegance and beauty in screenwriting are qualities not responded to, not rewarded, not actually noticed..." Finally, after challenging the notion of a script as something to be read at all, he then goes on to question the reader: "How can you possibly approach reading these four odd scripts...? ...you have no function... What, in fact, are you?"

And he does have a point. After all, why exactly would anyone be interested in "reading" the scripts for Stereo (1969) and Crimes of the Future (1970), scripts that are nothing more than after the fact transcriptions of voice-over monologues. The only reason one can imagine is if the reader is attempting to chart the early fumblings of the stylish, but self-indulgent Canadian writer-director. However, even at eleven and four pages respectively, the "scripts" are tedious and pretentious in the extreme, and the idea of spending an hour watching the actual films (they are both just over an hour) strikes me as a singularly bad idea. More useful are the scripts for Shivers (1975) and Rabid (1977), solid horror/sci-fi pieces that clearly demonstrate Cronenberg's gradual progression to such works as The Brood, Scanners, and Videodrome. These, at least, can be examined and deconstructed by writers seeking to unlock the secrets of the decent horror script. Realistically though, it's hard to imagine anyone other than the hardcore Cronenberg fanatics finding this early work very interesting on the page. Those seeking to gain better insight into Cronenberg are much better off reading Chris Rodley's series of interviews with him in Cronenberg on Cronenberg.

Average customer rating:
Collected Screenplays I.
David. CRONENBERG
Manufacturer: London: Faber & Fabber
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000UG7DF4

Average customer rating:

Somewhat of a car crash in itself, Ballard's prose deserved a much better execution...

Tiwsited, compelling

GOVT 490 -- BALLARD's BOOK

GOVT 490 - Book Review

GOVERNMENT 490 SUMMER A- A. ALHAJ

Crash
David Cronenberg
Manufacturer: Theatre Communications Group
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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The Atrocity Exhibition

Concrete Island

The Best Short Stories of J. G. Ballard

Story of the Eye

Cocaine Nights

ASIN: 0889104972

Amazon.com

J. G. Ballard's graphic, violent novel is controversial wherever it is read, even on Amazon.com's own Web page! The book's characters are obsessed with automobile accidents and are determined to narrate the horrors of the car crash as luridly as possible. In the words of the novel's protagonist, the wounds caused by automobile collisions are "the keys to a new sexuality born from a perverse technology." Read this novel and learn why David Cronenberg, who had previously adapted Dead Ringers and Naked Lunch for the screen, fought to turn it into his latest film.

Book Description

In this hallucinatory novel, the car provides the hellish tableau in which Vaughan, a "TV scientist" turned "nightmare angel of the highways," experiments with erotic atrocities among auto crash victims, each more sinister than the last. James Ballard, his friend and fellow obsessive, tells the story of this twisted visionary as he careens rapidly toward his own demise in an intentionally orchestrated car crash with Elizabeth Taylor. A classic work of cutting edge fiction, Crash explores the disturbing potentialities of contemporary society's increasing dependence on technology as intermediary in human relations.

Customer Reviews:

Somewhat of a car crash in itself, Ballard's prose deserved a much better execution..........2007-08-06

About a year ago I was driving down the interstate when I noticed a few police cruisers up ahead, their lights blaring, parked in uniformed manor on the side of the road, just under the overpass. As I approached, slowing down with the flow of traffic that always seems to coagulate in front of a crash, I noticed the front end of a black sedan, the make and model escape me, smashed in and almost nonexistent. The windshield was completely gone; glass littering the pavement, and a young and beautiful woman was lying over the steering wheel facing out at the passing vehicles. I remember staring at her face, her dark hair falling over her bloodstained face, her eyes closed to her wounds, her jaw swollen and bruised, her neck black from the impact against the wheel, and I couldn't help but feel this overwhelming sadness that was masked in a strange serenity. She looked so peaceful, so calm in her death. It was at that moment that I decided to read J.G. Ballard's novel `Crash'. I had heard a lot about it and had wanted to give it a read through. Now this happened to me a year ago, but I just finished his novel about three minutes ago. I just never really got around to reading it, but about a week ago I finally delved in.

I will say this, that all the controversy surrounding this novel is very well deserved. `Crash' is not a novel for the weak of stomach or the faint of heart. It's outlandish and blunt, straightforward and explicit. I will say that I was turned off a bit at times and in the end am ultimately disappointed with Ballard's execution of his prose. The novel itself would have blossomed had Ballard used a little more subtlety and tact, but instead he went for the gusto and shock-value of his events, high on perversion and blatant grime with mixed results. Some have likened this novel the `Fight Club' but in my opinion what Palahniuk did with `Fight Club' is far superior to what Ballard does here.

The very idea that sex is linked to the heart of human emotion is a very essential point to the understanding of this novel. It's also a very true statement. Sex is the most universally understood way that any living breathing creature can express themselves. We can convey happiness, sadness, anger, frustration, confusion, lust...you name it and we can express it through the otherwise intimate act of sexual intercourse. Throughout Ballard's novel the characters talk of an awakened sexuality due to their automobile accidents, but in actuality the prose has the opportunity to carry much more weight than that. I strongly fell that it was poor judgment on Ballard's part to make this novel as explicit as it was. If you look at another extremely controversial novel `American Psycho' you will see the advantages to the use of subtlety. Bret Easton Ellis understood the power of the underlying motive, and so while `American Psycho' has it many moments of grotesque macabre it still ushers in the serene examples of pure mood changes and allows the reader to wrap their head around the real meaning of the atrocity. `Crash' just paints a lurid and abnormal picture without giving us to opportunity to grasp what this all could have meant.

I don't know if I'll ever really understand why some laud this novel. It attempts to convey a deep meaning but in my opinion it fails to capitalize on it. It's so intent of shocking the reader that it forgets its purpose and tries to become something it's not. It screams for someone to take it seriously and understand it's tortured implications but it falls flat and far from it's intended destination. In effect, it crashes and burns instead of sours like it could have. Maybe that was the intention though, maybe that is the ultimately ironic conclusion, that a novel so obsessed with the violent link between sex and the car crash would in essence crash in it's attempt to convey an emotional response. I for one am not impressed, but it's a novel that deserves to be read if not to contemplate where Ballard went wrong.

Tiwsited, compelling.......2007-08-01

J. G. Ballard, Crash (Doubleday, 1973)

So I finally got round to reading Crash, J. G. Ballard's novel, the basis for the good movie of that name, which has been sitting at the top of the TBR pile staring at me for close to two years. While I didn't find it as disquieting as many reviewers I've read did, I have to say I was shocked by the book's explicitness, given that it's almost thirty-five years old at this point. How on earth did Ballard get away with having a book this explicit published by a major house? I could see Grove putting it out, sure, but Farrar, Strauss, and Giroux? Kudos to both author and publisher for having the guts.

What I didn't expect was how profoundly David Cronenberg had changed things for the screenplay. While the book does still focus on the interplay between Ballard and Vaughan, it seems Cronenberg did a lot of character combining to streamline everything. The plot remains roughly unchanged: Ballard, the narrator, begins to understand and explore the erotic side of car crashes after having a particularly nasty one in which he killed a man, a doctor named Remington. Remington's wife Helen and the enigmatic crash fetishist Vaughan, as well as Ballard's wife and assorted other characters, help Ballard come to understand this new sexual terrain as it reflects on Vaughan's obsession with causing a crash that will kill Elizabeth Taylor (yes, the movie star).

I finished the book roughly a week ago, and I've been wrestling with the idea in my head ever since that Cronenberg's film is actually better, empirically, than Ballard's novel. It's leaner, more spare. The changes Cronenberg made improved things. But there's certainly no denying that Ballard's novel has a power all its own. Much of this comes from Ballard's seductive style of writing, which is at the same time both far too forward for any conventional setting and so obsessively detail-oriented that it's hard to not see what Ballard and Vaughan are on about when they're describing the man-machine connection. (Not hard to see how Cronenberg got intrigued by the source material, is it?) In other words, Ballard manages to keep his focus on the details while messing with your mind in the background through word choice, phrasing, and pace. It's masterfully done. That said, the "it" in the preceding sentence is a bit tough to define; while Crash certainly meets the somewhat flip definition of a piece of literature (its main character most certainly changes through the course of the novel), there's not terribly much to it. In that regard, it has the feel of an existential-angst book, but there's far too many things getting destroyed here for that to ring true; it'd be like Kieslowski directing a remake of Bullitt. Perhaps I'm making too much of this disjunction (which may not even exist) because I'm culturally conditioned to expect that existential angst can't really coincide with action and have both pieces of the puzzle come off successfully, but when I finished the book, I felt oddly unsatisfied. I still don't know exactly why. Technically, it's a brilliant book, and it succeeds at everything it sets out to do. But I'm still only giving it four stars for, well, reasons I can't honestly define. Read it, and decide for yourself. ****

GOVT 490 -- BALLARD's BOOK.......2007-06-22

J. G. Ballard's "Crash" is a novel that puts together ideas foreign to one another in a masterful, at times tasteless, depiction of a world where technology mixes with sex, speed, and cars.

Violence is an essential to this book. And it offers a glimpse into the inner workings of a demented, but understandable human mind. Ballard shows the reader the impacts of technology on humanity and the society we are all involved in. To be able to write about such a perverted, twisted mindset and yet not fully disgust it's reader is the key to Ballard's work.

To see an object like an automobile as erotic and arousing is so foreign to most people--Ballard tackles this idea head on in this work.

Let's not miss the point. Ballard didn't write this novel to gross us out; he wrote the novel to literately show us just how much humanity has come to rely on technology. To the point where technology can change our most animal, non-technological feature--sex. This book will become more and more relevant as we continue to develop new technologies, and I find it more interesting that was written decades ago, where we were much less reliant on technology as we are today.

Concepts like emotion from pain, sex, cars, technology and humanity are what Ballard attempts to link in this book. "Erotic fiction"? I think not. A gross depiction of where we could be heading? Perhaps.

GOVT 490 - Book Review.......2007-06-22

A look into the fringes of human sexuality, Crash written by J. G. Ballard explores a world where technology is the only means to reach sexual satisfaction. A surreal account of what drives humans to seek new methods of sexual exploration. Taking the reader to the fringes of society, Crash reveals the level to which humans will take sexual experience. Ballard ultimately reveals that humans are dependent on technology to reach sexual satisfaction.
Ballard's use of automobile crashes as a vehicle for heightened sexual enlightenment is perverse. His use of the automobile to represent technology is twisted, yet allows the reader to relate to technology as something tangible. In addition the morbid obsession with crashes and sex is shocking enough to make the point that humans are losing their connection to each other, and must turn to the assistance of technology to reconnect with each other.
Crash focuses on the experiences of narrator James Ballard and the shady Robert Vaughn. After his initial car crash, Ballard learns of others who use car crashes as a means to sexual satisfaction. Ballard learns of Vaughn's obsession with Elizabeth Taylor, and his intent to be in a car crash with her. It is this obsession, which describes humanities need to connect to each other through the use of technology. To be in a car crash with Elizabeth Taylor is how Vaughn will fulfill his sexual desires and reconnect with society, personified by Elizabeth Taylor.
Ballard also seeks out car crashes in order to fulfill his sexual desires. Unable to fulfill his needs at home or with others, Ballard realizes that he cannot be satisfied unless the act is associated with a crash. He has lost his connection to humanity. He is not able to associate to others sexually without the assistance of technology. It is only through the act of car crashes and sex that Ballard is able to reconnect with humanity.
The experience of car crashes and sex as a means for humans to reconnect to each other is perverse. The description of wounds caused by a car crash is a reminder of how powerfully connected sex and technology are. This perverseness is described when a sex act is performed on a thigh wound. Ballard may have used this to further detail how anything associated with technology, is preferred over the norm, in this case normal sexual intercourse.
Crash is perverse, twisted, and taboo. The grotesque descriptions leave little to be desired. While readers may become acclimated to these descriptions, they are necessary to show the extremes that humans will go to to reach sexual gratification. J. G. Ballard's world exists on the fringes of society that many hope to never experience. I would not recommend this book for reading enjoyment, but merely for instructional purposes to show how humans have lost their connection to humanity. The extremes that are described in this book go too far.

GOVERNMENT 490 SUMMER A- A. ALHAJ.......2007-06-21

The Novel Crash by J.G Ballard revolves around sex, cars, and society. Furthermore, the novel stresses on societies obsession and fascination with cars and how appealing they are. Some characters mentioned in the book by J.G Ballard find automobiles erotic and arousing.

In truth it seems that a lot of the characters mentioned in the book have a very strange train of thought, that some readers may go as far as labeling them as perverts.

J.G Ballard has a unique way when it comes to narrating his ideas in the novel. For one, the themes from the story are about how technology has a great influence on society, yet Ballard links this influence to sexual arousal and stimulation.

Additionally, Ballard focuses on the human body with much detail from the very beginning of the novel. He focused on the female body and on the male body, where he showed his talent of taking a simple fact or feature about the male and female bodies and elaborating on it throughout the entire novel.

I did not enjoy reading the book very much, it is sick, twisted and has a lot of sexual depiction that run a disturbing graphic train in the reader's mind.

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