Crash

Listening to this audiobook while driving really feels like tempting fate...

Went through ups and downs in my opinion of this–at first I was fascinated and dazzled by its novelty, then I grew annoyed with the repetition of phrases, but then I circled back and appreciated it as a textural, atmospheric piece of writing.

“I need to drive again before it all goes.”

This is the most horrible book I have ever read (and I have a high tolerance for weird shit, with Naked Lunch being up there on my reading list) and if I didn't have to read it for a course I would have quit a quarter of the way in.

I can't give it a rating. Ballard knew exactly what he was doing and executed it well. It's just that what he was doing was holding up a warped wing mirror and showing the very worst of an alienated, superficial, soulless and pornographic humanity. By the end of the book I was exhausted from the endless onslaught of atrocity. There are no redeeming aspects; the sex in this book is not fun, sensual, or affectionate but rather the repetitive hollow actions of an addict. It left a vile taste in my brain.

This is not the kind of book that one can really enjoy reading, in the same way its hard to really enjoy American Psycho at points. Unless you're a very sadistic, damaged person. The prose style of Crash is very dense and complex, it is not something you pick up casually. And as for its content, I myself am a little desensitized, but like American Psycho, the constant talk of extravagant, gory injuries and various bodily excretions just gets exhausting after a while. Nonetheless, the underlying philosophy - the connection between man and machine, carnage and sexuality - is extremely fascinating. I don't claim to understand it - I didn't entirely understand the movie, though I still consider it one of my favorites - but for that it was worth the read.

Sex and car crashes. I think I am over my head with this one.