I'd heard going in that this novel of eroticized destruction (of automobiles, bodies, is there a difference?) would become somewhat redundant by the end. I mean, it has pretty much exactly one system to discuss: the triangulation of alienated modern life (circa the 70s) between sex, bodily harm, and automotive engineering. Yet the first quarter or so was riveting like a shattered steering column through the lungs. After that, Crash does ebb into a kind of monotony, but a mesmerizing, calculated (maybe sort of pleasant, in a very off-kilter way) monotony that never relinquishes its uncomfortable poetry. And then, this is a book about traffic and obsession, which are monotonous. So the length is unnecessary (true, it could have been a short story), but not exactly unwelcome. (Of course, the long commute (fitting!), the luxury of being able to read the whole in a couple days, really helps here to fly through.)