Money 3

“We go to Kreutzer’s. I eat and drink like there’s no tomorrow. We don’t have much to say. Nobody asks sticky questions as they are led on all fours up the stairs. I’m not about to spook her, not me. I’m too worried about earthquakes or nuclear warfare or extraterrestrial invasion or Judgment Day coming between my and my reward. All you’ll get from John Self is smalltalk, flattery, and squealed demands for more drink. After toothache liqueurs I thunder home and abandon the Fiasco in the middle of the street. By now I am a crackling sorcerer of grub and booze, of philtres and sex-spells. Selina walks into the bedroom with her head held low. I give a great hot grunt as I untether my belt.” (143)

John Self’s world is full of dissatisfaction and satisfaction, or as he says, happiness and pain. Amis crafts the self-loathing, self-absorbed character of John which views his world with rather innocent eyes. Despite his public appearance and smalltalk conversations, John is fully capable of digesting any situation objectively and innocently. By giving readers the comedic display of the fat, drunken, and sexually aggressive John, we laugh at him. A person who we probably would be offended to be around for more than a minute, we can’t help but indulge in his entertaining and humorous lifestyle.  His self-directed humor “cheats the expectations of the audience through clever use of language.” His hyper introspections and descriptions of them renders the reader incapable of averting laughter. I think it’s because we don’t expect such brutal honesty from such a narcissistic character. Indeed, John Self never communicates his introspections with anyone, but he does share it with the reader. His confides all of his self-hatred and self-pity with the reader, often speaking directly to us. This unexpected side of John makes us able to like, or at the very least enjoy, all of his crudeness. John builds a relationship with the reader, making us laugh and sharing secrets with us. It becomes difficult to not like him. 

Money 2

John Self crafts his own world within the language he meticulously devises. For example, in any passage you can find him developing his vision of the world through his unorthodox logic. On page 64 John examines how the rising demands of real-estate effect parking availability which in turn creates a shift in social thought:

“You just can’t park round here any more. Even on a Sunday afternoon you just cannot park round here any more. You can doublepark on people: people can doublepark on you. Cars are doubling while houses are halving. Houses divide, into two, into four, into sixteen. If a landlord or developer comes across a decent-sized room he turns it into a labyrinth, a Chinese puzzle. The bell-button grills in the flakey porches look like the dashboards of ancient spaceships. Rooms divide, rooms multiply. Houses split -- houses are tripleparked. People are doubling also, dividing, splitting. In double trouble we split our losses. No wonder we’re bouncing off the walls.”

In a carefully constructed meditation, John raises doubt of the public due to an increase in domestic populations. More interestingly, the lack of parking space is what initiates this thought. Because “you just can’t park round here any more,” or rather, because John can’t conveniently park any more he studies the cause and effect of local real estate. Things are doubling, tripling, dividing, multiplying, and splitting. As his neighborhood increases in population, John describes the consequences which appear to be negative chiefly towards him and him alone. Indeed, his narcissism reveals real truths of the real world. Though this thought was born only as a direct result of John feeling threatened that people can double park on him as he informs us that "people can double park on you" the reader. On the contrary, he persuades us to agree with him as he skillfully covers his own conceitedness. 

Money 1

“Money” features an odd, not too appealing, fat man as the main character, John. Narcissistic and rude, I can’t help but finding myself agreeing with John’s behavior. His off-beat humor relaxes me and, as if I have no choice in the matter, end up liking and enjoying him very much. Reminiscent of Holden Caulfield from Salinger’s “The Catcher in the Rye,” cynicism allows the reader to laughingly agree, rationalizing and legitimizing the thoughts and actions of John Self. For instance, when discussing Selina’s style of wardrobe John gives his thoughts, saying

“The men wince and watch, wince and watch. They buckle and half turn away. They shut their eyes and clutch their nuts. And sometimes, when they see me cruise up behind my little friend and slip an arm around her trim and muscular waist, they look at me as if to say -- Do something about it, will you? Don’t let her go about the place looking like that. Come on, it’s your responsibility.” (19)

Oddly, most men wouldn’t imagine the middle-aged men staring down their girlfriend to be disappointed in such a lack of a patriarchy. Though with John, he isn’t concerned of the unwanted attention. No, it’s not about Selina, it’s about him and someway he isn’t meeting his own expectations. A funny and meaningful introspection into the psyche of John Self.

Cronenberg's "Crash"

Cronenberg’s film “Crash” was a slow ride through the many sex lives indulged in violent automobile collisions. It was able, although, to develop each character in depth, giving every person unique and twisted morals custom-fit to their own sexual preferences. Sometimes considered the crux of a story, Cronenberg skillfully established the intricate personalities from J.G. Ballard’s “Crash.” However, Cronenberg failed to maintain focus on Ballard’s obsession of the violent dynamics of body and technology. Mentioning it in dialogue only once, Vaughn attempted to speak of the motivation for a new cult rising sexual era. Unfortunately, Cronenberg seemed to pay more attention to the sex of “Crash” rather than to contemplate, in dialogue or visual poetry, the complex and serious accusations Ballard is throwing at humankind abusive involvement with technologies. Cronenberg turned a brilliant novel into nothing more than a soft-core porn flick. 

Crash, end

Throughout “Crash,” Ballard poetically creates vivid automobile collision sequences. In such visions he attempts to bridge the human body with the violent technology of a swift, chromium death cage: the car. However, consistently Ballard has alluded to the aeroplane, or “glass dragonfly” of the sky (209). This “motionless” machination is not too far different from the automobile. Automobiles claim more lives and carnage than aeroplanes. Ballard could potentially be implying this referring to automobiles always as “chromium” and aeroplanes always as “glass.” Whereas one seems more brittle, the other seems more durable. In this sense, aeroplanes appear as “all or nothing” objects. That is, either they reach their destination safely or they crumble and burn to pieces in some technical mishap often leaving no chance for survivors. Automobiles don’t have this 50/50 gamble. To Ballard, in a collision they are doomed to crash, twist, and warp their rigid bodies yet leave room to deform surviving victims. The conception of a chromium vehicle sounds solid, less likely to collapse under pressure. Nevertheless, when such seemingly indestructible material does eventually subside, it redefines the human anatomy. The aeroplane passenger or roadside pedestrian are irrelevant. It is the person inside the cockpit of the automobile who is the star in Ballard’s vision. It is he who experiences the physical metamorphosis such violent and necessary technology is responsible for. As curious and sexual creatures, Ballard has us adapt to the prevalent scars and woulds on victims’ bodies as we relearn our thirst for something exciting and unknown, similar to a lusty teenager thrusting himself into an uncharted world of sex. Indeed, Ballard’s volatile concoction of contorted chromium and unfiltered sexual fantasy allows him to release the foul stench of technology we have grown to rely on so adamantly. 

Dance (Ballard Imitation Exercise)

Dale held the metallic box gingerly as it’s eye began to blink. The shutter blade snapping back and forth gently vibrated the machine in his hand. They both silently observed Gaines as she danced with her third paranoid eye fixated on his camera. He tenderly leaned and rolled each limb and muscle to accumulate every angle of her warm, radiant orb. Each silver halide crystal meticulously caught the intricacies of her presence like that of a silk web spun from a spider’s spinneret. Gaines twirled on, unaware of how she was liberating the emptiness held within the motion camera’s silver halide salts and gelatin. Embedded in it was now the still unvisible spectrum of shade and tone. She quickly glanced up into the seats where her friends were sitting, letting out a faint smile. Expressionless and concentrated, Dale held the shivering camera statically, recording on, giving Gaines immortality.  Dale wrapped his hand around the aperture and slowly began to twist it clockwise, letting the camera’s vision ease into blindness. 

Crash, ch 11 - 17

As James’ relationship with Vaughn deepens, the readers perception of James shifts in a rather unexpected way. At first, James appears as dark, perverse, spontaneous and carless as Vaughn. It wouldn’t be odd to see them as almost similar personalities. But more and more James is becoming hesitant around Vaughn, appearing timid and nervous, more cautious than we had ever originally imagined. For instance, James questions Vaughn’s detached hostility towards the worn-out Seagrave. Also James refuses to drink wine while driving alongside a prostitute as Vaughn dives in deep with a bottle of wine in one hand, hash cigarette held between his lips, and a prostitutes breast in his other hand in the back seat. 

Additionally, it seems J.G. Ballard’s world within “Crash” contains only the perverse and the overly-sexually driven. Affairs appear casual and are accepted among marriages, recent widowers, etc.. However, it becomes apparent that the characters in this world, all of them, have a suppressed or not-yet-discovered sexual urge involving the new physical limits brought to them via twisted and warped chromium cars. After a crowd gathered to spectate the gruesome scene of a multiple car pile-up James notices two couple engaging in gentle foreplay on the way to their cars, presumably enticed by the violent automobile performance. Catherine is also affected by this. Despite never being in an automobile accident herself, she too becomes enthralled by the coupling of flesh and chromium. James realizes this, “the multiple car-crash we had seen had sprung the same traps in her mind as in mine” (159).

One other small yet significant detail is that of pedestrians. “Vaughn isn’t interested in pedestrians” (150). Why? It seems that human can still become violently meshed with technology. However, to J.G. Ballard, it is more important that death occurs within the automobile. For death to occur outside of an automobile may be something entirely different in what Ballard is focusing his issue with technology on.

Crash, ch 5-11

James begins to discover and indulge in his new found eroticism. He imagines a future beach, made up of broken glass grains instead of sand. He speaks of this time as “the age of the automobile accident” (57), but it seems that time may have already approached.

Most noticeable in these chapters, James begins to become curious and interested in Vaughn. On the multi-storey car-park James takes in Vaughn’s facial scarring from a serious motorcycle accident. It seems all too obvious that, this too, had catapulted Vaughn into this new form of “excitement and eroticism, punishment and desire” (147). 

However, I remain confused in deciphering the cryptic relationship between James and Helen Remington. James concluded that “by a terrifying paradox, a sexual act between us would be a way of taking her revenge on me” (72). Having sex with the man that murdered her husband seems like an odd way to exact revenge. Perhaps it is in this perverse world J.G. Ballard crafts which enables constant sex drive into the minds of characters, controlling every move from the basis of sexual encounters.

Menippean Satire

The apophaticism in Ballard’s “Crash” is essential. By “providing a warped view of conventional literary forms and societal beliefs” (18) we can truly begin to destructuralize our own psyches in a Descartes-like fashion. Transgressive authors carry the ability to rub our norms raw to the bone. In this psychic reverse we are forced to endure we are granted the privilege to rebuild our societal expectations through close examination. It is this mental scrutiny which can allow readers to absorb the full meaning behind a transgressive piece. Lastly, the apophatic writer leaves wounds on the reader’s mind, ensuring long-term memories and emphasizing the severity of the points they subliminally craft. 

Though am I unsure of how this is “negative theology”; if it is the same thing, or something different.