Crash
The definitive cult, post-modern novel – a shocking blend of violence, transgression and eroticism. When 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 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 Cronenburg.
Stats for nerds
7recommend
19mentions
16people
2008–2026years
37% recommend53% neutral11% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I absolutely love JG Ballard. Crash is a classic, and High Rise is a fun one.
- To save you some scripting:
Alan Moore - dystopian graphic novel V for Vendetta (serialized 1982–1989) Alejandro Jodorowsky Jean Giraud (Moebius) - graphic novel The Incal (1980–1988) Anna Kavan - Ice (1967). Anne McCaffrey - The Ship Who Sang (1969) Arkady and Boris Strugatsky - Пикник на обочине (1972; Piknik na obochine; translated as A Roadside Picnic) Barry N. Malzberg - Beyond Apollo (1972) Brian Aldiss - Barefoot in the Head (1969) Brian Aldiss - Greybeard (1964). Chester Anderson - The Butterfly Kid (1967) Christopher Priest - Inverted World (1974) Cordwainer Smith - Norstrilia (1975, in complete form). David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972) Frank Herbert - Dune (1965) Frank Miller - graphic novel Rōnin (1983–1984) Gary Panter - comic Jimbo (serialized 1977–present) Gary Panter - comic strip Dal Tokyo (1983–2007) Gene Wolfe - The Fifth Head of Cerberus (1972) Harlan Ellison’s (ed.) Dangerous Visions (1967) Jack Kirby - Fourth World comics (1971–1974). Jack Kirby - pre-Fourth World sci-fi comics (1964–1970) James Tiptree Jr. - Up the Walls of the World (1978) Jane Gaskell - A Sweet, Sweet Summer (1969) J.G. Ballard - Crash (1973) J.G. Ballard - High-Rise (1975) J.G. Ballard - The Atrocity Exhibition (written 1967, published 1970) J.G. Ballard - The Burning World (1964) J.G. Ballard - The Crystal World (1966) Joanna Russ - We Who Are About To… (serialized 1976; in book form, 1977) John Brunner - Stand on Zanzibar (1968). John Brunner - The Sheep Look Up (1972) John Crowley - Engine Summer (1979) John Crowley - The Deep (1975). John Sladek - Roderick at Random (1983) John Sladek’s - The Müller-Fokker Effect (1970) John Varley - The Ophiuchi Hotline (1977) John Wagner, Alan Grant, and Carlos Ezquerra - Judge Dredd adventures Block Mania (serialized 10/31/1981 to 12/26/81) and The Apocalypse War (1/2/82 to 6/26/82). Josephine Saxton - The Hieros Gamos of Sam and An Smith (1969) Katsuhiro Otomo - manga series Akira (1982–1990) Kurt Vonnegut - Slaughterhouse-Five, or The Children's Crusade: A Duty-Dance with Death (1969) Michael Moorcock - The English Assassin (1972) M. John Harrison - The Pastel City (1971) Moebius-s Le Garage Hermétique (The Airtight Garage, 1976–1979) Octavia E. Butler-s Kindred (1979) Octavia E. Butler - Wild Seed (1980) Philip K. Dick - A Maze of Death (1970) Philip K. Dick - A Scanner Darkly (1977) Philip K. Dick - Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) Philip K. Dick - Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (1974). Philip K. Dick - Martian Time-Slip (1964) Philip K. Dick - Now Wait for Last Year (1966) Philip K. Dick - The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch (1965) Philip K. Dick - The Unteleported Man (1966) Philip K. Dick - Ubik (1969). Philip K. Dick - VALIS (1981) Richard Brautigan - In Watermelon Sugar (1968). Robert Heinlein - Friday (1982). Robert Silverberg - Dying Inside (1972) Roger Zelazny - Lord of Light (1967) Russell Hoban - Riddley Walker (1980) Samuel R. Delany - Babel-17 (1966). Samuel R. Delany - Dhalgren (1975) Samuel R. Delany - Nova (1968) Samuel R. Delany - The Einstein Intersection (1967) Samuel R. Delany - Trouble on Triton: An Ambiguous Heterotopia (1976) Stanislaw Lem - Ze wspomnien Ijona Tichego Kongres futurologiczny (The Futurological Congress, 1971) Thomas M. Disch - Camp Concentration (1968) Thomas Pynchon - Gravity’s Rainbow (1973) Ursula K. Le Guin - Rocannon's World (1966) Ursula K. Le Guin - The Dispossessed (1974). Ursula K. LeGuin - The Lathe of Heaven (1971) Ursula K. Le Guin - The Left Hand of Darkness (1969) Vladimir Nabokov - Ada, or Ardor (1969) Vonda N. McIntyre - Dreamsnake (1978) Walker Percy - Love in the Ruins (1971) William Burroughs - Nova Express (1964) - I find Ballard kind of mesmerizing but frustrating. Crash I quite enjoyed, but other short stories I often felt his concerns and subjects quite alien. I join just about everyone else in saying read him, but I would never say he was prescient, as some do. He was chasing after something that feels kinda foreign to me. Too English for me maybe?
- Nice to see that gore-sploitation films appeared right at the start. After all, there were plenty of completely nude women in earliest films, though those were pretty tame—but afaik porn followed in a couple decades or so, when film stopped costing more than a live tour.
By the way, regarding ‘L’arrivée...’, Wikipedia says that Lumieres attempted 3D films even before getting properly started with flat ones. So, considering that accounts from that time were of quite meh quality, it's possible that the running-out occurred at a 3D showing, making the ‘illusion’ story more plausible.
Lastly, since J.G. Ballard is mentioned, I'll say that both ‘Crash’ and ‘Atrocity Exhibition’ are very cool. Aside from obvious connotations to real people's habits, just the atmosphere of the books is engrossing in the weirdest way. They tickle the brain in a manner that's only similar to what I experienced in childhood, when the world was big and anything could be in it—only, these books are for adults. I don't think they quite make surrealism like that anymore. Kobo Abe and animator Piotr Kamler are contemporaries that are somewhat similar in effect; Cronenberg's ‘Videodrome’ is likewise good (however his ‘Crash’ doesn't really have the feel). Of later stuff, Bret Easton Ellis is proficient in such immersion, and funny enough has a pair ‘American Psycho’-‘Glamorama’ that are close in the themes to each other but are related in execution like the two books of Ballard's, and likewise the film is its own thing by necessity.
Of very current authors, I know only Vladimir Sorokin who can pull off such feats—but his thing is that he can do what he wants with Russian language, and as a result is next to untranslatable. Apparently there's a dude who took on the challenge with English as the target, and several books at once are going to be published very soon (this year, they said)—I'm looking forward to diving in that the first chance I get, but my expectations are high and the outlook cautious.
- I'm due to re-read J.G. Ballard. "Crash" is a hard read but it predicted the way porn alienates people from each other.
"The Subliminal Man" (written in 1963) touches upon some interesting themes about manipulation via technology.
- Crash by J.G. Ballard.
