About this title: Critics have labeled Ballard's classic "pornographic"--both as criticism and as praise. It is the story of a man obsessed with sex who is drawn into a demimonde of individuals who combine car crashes and drugs with a variety of sexual acts. A disturbing document on the influence of technology and sexuality in culture, this is the first in a loose trilogy of novels--"Concrete Island" and "High Rise" are the other two--that examine Ballard's view of "modern life."
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"A fierce initial rush that ebbs to dullness. The book is quite good, but once I got past the neatness of the premise, I found it lacked a little in tension towards the end. After all, the opening of the books lets you in on the climax, and there aren't really any surprises to be had, so after a while it all begins to wear a little thin. Dare I say, this book is perhaps not perverted enough?
But the prose is wonderful, with all sorts of bizarre and lurid things described with extreme precision; Vaughan is a fascinating character; and the strange ideas regarding the intersection of sexuality and technology, and the accompanying desensitisation, are quite interesting. All in all, this is a very good book, though not a great one. I will definitely keep an eye out for more Ballard."
I learned that sex and crashing cars DON'T mix well for me.
I think as a short story of 10 pages the idea would have come across sufficiently.
The almost complete lack of love or fidelity by anyone involved, and the way that EVERY ONE of the main characters seemed fascinated by the cars, accidents and injuries was unbelieveable in the extreme.
There are only so many times you can write/compare anatomy and parts of cars before it gets tedious.
"I read 3/4s of this on a plane ride. A setting suited for the book just needing a meeting of machine and ground to marry bodies and metal in a manner to trump this book. I enjoyed the Ballard-esque perversness of reading this dirty dirty little book surrounded by no less than 7 copies of Dan Brown's latest.
Essentially the story is a confronting exploration of the possibly maschositic relationship between the western world and motor cars. The heavy riffing of crash, machinery and sexual imagery with clinical prose across ever page is , like a car crash, both compelling and unsettling.
You probably shouldn't enjoy it but it is worth a chance for adventurous readers."
"Wow! I had heard of this book for years. Then I saw the Cronenburg film which I found excellent and kinky. Well, obviously the book is even more technologically erotic than the film. It is fascinating to read about this confluence of cars and sex in ways beyond the old-fashioned session in the backseat. It's fascinating although the sex becomes a little tiresome after a while. But I can certainly understand how this book pressed buttons when it was first published more than 25 years ago.
Well, after finishing it, I am a little disappointed. It seems that the novel builds up to sex between two men, one of whom dies not too long afterwards. Again, I imagine that even the transgressive sex between the two men must have pushed serious buttons. Now the homoeroticism seems a little dated.
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