J. G. Ballard

Crash

Mads

For the first time, a benevolent psychopathology beckoned towards us

anastasia

After being bombarded endlessly by road-safety propaganda it was almost a relief to find myself in an actual accident.

Didn’t think I could be moved by a book that mentions rectum’s this much.

Freakier than the film somehow, very Cronenbergian in its exploration of a new kind of sex. On the surface these ideas could seem simply gross or shocking but they tell interesting stories of human connection, bodily autonomy, maintaining personal freedom in a repressive capitalistic society, the psychopathology and consequences of dehumanising your fellow man, and discovering your own versions of benevolence outside of organised religion. Anyway I wanna fuck a car now or whatever. 

Didn’t think I could be moved by a book that mentions rectum’s this much.

Freakier than the film somehow, very Cronenbergian in its exploration of a new kind of sex. On the surface these ideas could seem simply gross or shocking but they tell interesting stories of human connection, bodily autonomy, maintaining personal freedom in a repressive capitalistic society, the psychopathology and consequences of dehumanising your fellow man, and discovering your own versions of benevolence outside of organised religion. Anyway I wanna fuck a car now or whatever. 

jaya kohol

I hate it I love it I hate it I love it I hate 

Bowie 

absolutely painful and horrific to read the entire way through, very well done and i may never recover

yasi

My first encounter with J.G. Ballard. I have a suspicion his mind is as twisted as the cars in this book’s title.

Frederik De Bosschere

only smut id ever read on the mrt…. “pornography is the most political form of fiction, dealing with how we use and exploit each other, in the most urgent and ruthless way”

Ghee

a horrible book about despicable people that is genuinely prescient about the role of everyday technology in our sex lives and relationships - where cars take the role that smartphones or message boards or chatbots or VR headsets would today. really awesome book that is going to be totally inaccessible to a lot of people because it is also disgusting. 

Tom Lawlor

Lily

Crash is a book about a circle of car crash victims obsessed with cars and with the erotic possibilities they find in the idea of the broken bodies of crash victims. Or, it is a book about the spectacular horror (or elation, depending on how you read it) of technology entering into our most intimate human relations and desires. Or, it is a book about "...psychopathic hymn, a deranged act of worship. It sees the car crash as a religious sacrament"¹. Or, it is s a book about our inability to find immanent meaning, trapped in a hellscape of mental abstraction, haunted by specters of familiarity that might enable us to project significance onto elements of an external landscape.

 I realised that the entire zone which defined the landscape of my life was now bounded by a continuous artificial horizon, formed by the raised parapets and embankments of the motorways and their access roads and interchanges.

Reading Crash was a liminal experience; perhaps like the relation of the book itself to its themes and motifs. An experience simultaneously harrowing and joyous, while neither sentiment seemed concrete or real. Ballard examines, in the most flat tone possible (very much a postmodern one) a world of artifice where there is no counter-pointing truth, no depth, no content. A spectacle that draws the reader in, while paralyzing its senses. In Crash, vitality is constantly fossilized; bodies turning into things, human interactions emptied of meaning. It was all too easy to feel a skeletal coldness taking over my own body as I read this book, calcifying my emotions. To say I have enjoyed the read, or that I recommend it with any enthusiasm, feels like conjuring a simulated ghost. Crash is a book.



¹ Ballard, in a letter to to Robert Louit, 16 November 2004.

The definitive cult, post-modern novel--a shocking blend of violence, transgression and eroticism. When Ballard, our narrator, smashes his car into another and watches a man die in front of him, his sense of sexual possibilities in the world around him becomes detached. As he begins an affair with the dead man's wife, he finds himself drawn with increasing intensity to the mangled impacts of car crashes. Then he encounters Robert Vaughan, a former TV scientist turned nightmare angel of the expressway, who has gathered around him a collection of alienated crash victims and experiments with a series of auto-erotic atrocities, each more sinister than the last. But Vaughan craves the ultimate crash--a head-on collision of blood, semen, engine coolant and iconic celebrity. First published in 1973 Crash remains one of the most shocking novels of the second half of the twentieth century and was made into an equally controversial film by David Cronenberg. Ballard's autobiography Miracles of Life was published in 2008 and Extreme Metaphors, a collection of interviews with the author, is due out in 2012.

Pamela Alvarado

I LOVED IT!!!! it's one of the best good girl loves bad boy books i've ever read

Lacey

Also posted at Booklovers For Life

I LOVED this book. Crash is hilarious, cute, sweet, and intense all at once! I am SO glad that a friend recommended me this book. I had this series waiting for me on my kindle app for the longest time, and I’m a bit miffed at myself for not reading it sooner.

This book is PERFECT for those who love a good romance, a bad boy, a hilarious heroine, and huge plot twists. Yes, there is a freaking plot twist that you NEVER ever see coming, and oh gosh, it was great. Really, really great.

When I read the first couple pages, I was already hooked. Because Lucy Larson is the most hilarious heroine ever! She’s such a lovable, tough, sometimes infuriating main character. I was laughing my butt off from the start, and I knew I was going to enjoy the book. But it turns out I didn’t just enjoy it; I loved it so, so much. Lucy is a fantastic main character. She’s a girly girl, a dancer, and the new girl at her school. Yes, she can be a bit of a jerk and a bit mean, but who isn’t when her family is completely dysfunctional (her mom’s the coldest mother in the world, and her dad is just out of it all the time) and her school sees her as the school slut (even though she’s never even had sex)? BUT she gets through the day thanks to a special someone named Jude Ryder.

Jude. Ryder. Oh my. Jude Jude Jude. Can you tell how much I love this boy? Because I do. So freaking much. I’m kind of a bit obsessed, to be honest. Jude is the epitome of a bad boy. Everything you can think of a bad boy doing, Jude’s probably done it. He’s been to jail over ten times, dealt drugs, done drugs, nailed nearly every girl who’s met him, and on and on. He has a temper problem and uses violence to solve answers. So WHY do I love Jude even after knowing all these things? Because deep down, he’s alone. He has no one. His mother ditched him and his father when he was younger, and his father is in jail. He lives in a home for orphaned boys, has been beaten and bullied there, and has never known love. Until he meets Lucy.

When Lucy and Jude meet, they’re very antagonistic towards each other. It’s actually quite funny how they act towards one another, with Lucy being, You’re a bad boy so I’m staying away from you and Jude being I’m not a relationship guy or a good guy, so stay away from me. Then, it turns out Jude does want Lucy in his life, as his girl (omg, ack, when he calls her his girl, I was just swooning so. freaking. hard.). And Jude has the sweetest, most loving heart when he’s in love, and he gives his entire heart to Lucy (lucky girl). He puts everything into making their relationship work, because he knows that he’s going to eventually do something to screw it all up. He thinks of himself as such a piece of shit, but Lucy KNOWS he’s not. He does love and he does care, and he puts his whole heart into everything he does, including love.

There are the usual insecurities running through the couple’s minds, like Jude believing Lucy deserves so much better than him, and Lucy being jealous of his past with other girls. The story played out very well, although there were times when Lucy acts immature and juvenile. And, of course, can’t forget that Plot Twist that had me reeling and going, “WTF?” (All I can say is, good job with that Plot Twist, Nicole Williams. Thumbs up.)

Even though some people might think that Jude is insane (I mean, he kind of is, at least a little, but I still love him!), I thought that Jude was the most incredible guy ever. Yes, he’s never going to be the good/nice guy or that boy-next-door type of guy, but he’s Jude Ryder. He gets jealous and possessive, but never in a way I thought was obsessive or over-the-top. He gets jealous and possessive because he’s completely in love with his girl, and there’s never going to be another girl for him. Lucy is it for him, and he tries to better himself for her, and if that’s not the sweetest, most romantic gesture ever, I don’t know what is.

Of all the things he says (and there are A LOT), I thought this was the romantic one of all:

“I’ll be here, each day and every day on, as long as you want me to be.”

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