Crash

by J. G. Ballard
Noonday PR, 1996
Review by Chris Switzer

         Perhaps there comes a time when information is distributed and accessed a little too freely, too easily. The secrets of Roswell, JFK conspiracy cover-ups and the ingredients of Napalm can be acquired by anyone with a computer and a phone line. Thanks to the Internet, there’s nothing left to surprise people. No one is shocked by anything anymore.
         This is how I felt reading J.G. Ballard’s Crash . At the time it was published in 1973, I can only imagine the looks of disgust at hearing the premise: after surviving a car accident, a man thereafter becomes sexually aroused by the sight of and participation in car wrecks. The eyes of many readers must have squinted; their mouths must have twisted in distaste. Who would find erotic the sight and touch of scarred tissue and contorted metal? Perhaps more disturbing, who would even consider writing about it? In 2001, however, it merely causes shoulders to be shrugged, perhaps an eyebrow to be raised momentarily and then lowered. When 13 year-olds already know about felching, fisting, castration fantasies and amputee sex, Crash is nothing more than a blip on the sexual radar screen.
         By no means is this meant to imply that Crash is without its literary merits; it’s certainly well written in all aspects of the craft. The story itself is certainly intriguing; Crash is the tale of a young producer, James Ballard, who loses control of his car one day and hurtles head-on into another, inadvertently killing the husband of Dr. Helen Remington. Dr. Remington herself survives the wreck, as does Ballard, scarred and temporarily crippled. Somehow the two experience a strange sexual bond from their fateful union, a sexuality that is heightened with the introduction of Vaughn, a car-crash survivor himself. Vaughn draws Ballard and Dr. Remington into a bizarre world where famous accidents are re-enacted and people derive perverse pleasure from the collisions and the aftermath that ensues. Ballard and his wife, Catherine, both become hypnotized by Vaughn’s raw sexuality, and willingly participate in his dramas on the freeway.
         While the premise is thought provoking, and Ballard’s prose is exceptionally poetic at times, the repetitive description of sexual hijinks eventually grows tedious, then altogether boring. The first time Vaughn ejaculated in his pants while watching a fresh car crash was strange and disturbing; the novelty wore off quickly the second and third times. I counted how many times Vaughn’s bodily scars were described as “handholds”. Characters masturbated each other, sucked each other’s nipples, pinched each other, slapped each other, and outright fucked so much that all sexual activity began to blur together, like the twisted fenders of a multiple car crash.