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The Atrocity Exhibition
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The Atrocity Exhibition by Ballard - Jan BOTM
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I'm nearing the end. It's quite crazy and outrageous. Will write more when I've finished. Gail's comments in the review thread are astute (as usual). I'm not surprised that it was the random pick, not the popular vote.
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Chapter or story titles
The Atrocity Exhibition. New Worlds, Vol. 50, No. 166, September 1966 (excerpt).
The University of Death. Transatlantic Review, No. 29, London, Summer 1968.
The Assassination Weapon. New Worlds, Vol. 50, No. 161, April 1966.
You: Coma: Marilyn Monroe. Ambit No. 27, Spring 1966.
Notes Towards a Mental Breakdown. New Worlds July 1967 (excerpt).
The Great American Nude. Ambit No. 36 Summer 1968.
The Summer Cannibals. New Worlds No. 186 January 1969.
Tolerances of the Human Face. Encounter Vol. 33, No. 3, September 1969.
You and Me and the Continuum. Impulse, Vol. 1, No. 1, March 1966.
Plan for the Assassination of Jacqueline Kennedy. Ambit # 31, Spring 1967.
Love and Napalm: Export USA Circuit No. 6, June 1968.
Crash! ICA-Eventsheet February 1969 (excerpt).
The Generations of America. New Worlds No. 183, October 1968.
Why I Want to Fuck Ronald Reagan. Brighton: Unicorn Bookshop, 1968
The Assassination of John Fitzgerald Kennedy Considered as a Downhill Motor Race. Ambit No. 29, Autumn 1966.
Appendix (added in 1990)
Princess Margaret's Facelift. New Worlds No. 199, March 1970.
Mae West's Reduction Mammoplasty. Ambit No. 44, Summer 1970.
Queen Elizabeth's Rhinoplasty. TriQuarterly No. 35, Winter 1976.
The Secret History of World War 3. Ambit No. 114, Autumn 1988.
Some questions:
1. Have you read any books by the author or is this your first Ballard?
2. What were your expectations when you started the book?
3. What was your reaction? and did it live up to your expectations?
4. What did you like?
5. What did you dislike"
6. What do you think the title means?
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2. I knew it was going to be bad as the reviews compared this to pornography and Ballard talks about how pornography helps inform science and the role of pornography on culture. I read later that when Ballard wrote this his wife had recently died. When you read of Ballard's life experiences it helps to understand how he is "so messed up" in his writing.
3. It was gruesome, it was full of sexual and violent content that I don't like. It lived up to expectations and then some.
4. I liked the references to historical events and people.
5. I disliked the pornographic content
6. I am just rambling here because of course I don't know but the book is a survey of all these atrocities and then speculations of atrocities that never occurred. Ballard's mind has to be a cesspool of atrocities.
It's a quick read, I listened to the audio so I didn't have to see all these words, thank goodness. The reader is pretty good.
This is my 1st book by Ballard; I've been planning to read his Empire of the Sun some day. I saw the old movie made from that book by Spielberg years ago.I'm going to concur with the average two-star rating on this "experimental novel". It is rather outrageous and very weird (and you might say "not in a good way"). It's not surprising that while it was in the original 1001 list it was dropped from the next edition.
It did have a lot of satire of sorts on American pop culture and celebrity obsession but I think DeLillo did this much better in some of his books such as White Noise.
I listened to the audiobook which may have been a rather different experience than the paper book as I understand that has a lot of pictures.
I have read a few Ballards including Crash which is just awful and some of the books that walk that line between being unnecessarily disgusting and actually having a point Super-Cannes and High Rise then there is the amazing Empire of the Sun which I absolutely loved and which doesn't have what seems to have become his trademark obsession with the worst of human nature.
I have just started this and already it feels like another Crash to me so I am not looking forward to reading more.
I have just started this and already it feels like another Crash to me so I am not looking forward to reading more.
I agree with you Book. I thought that Empire of the Sun was a great book and haven't liked anything else I have read of his since then. However, I still have Crash to look forward to (or not).
As I’m not a list completist I’ve decided to give this one a hard pass. I have too many enjoyable books on the go. Crash has the distinction of being the only film I walked out of part way through… I won’t be reading that one either!!But I’m determined to read something by Ballard that works for me l, I’ve heard great things about others. I might try Super-Cannes or High Rise.
This lived up to the expectations set by the title it is only the way that Ballard writes that saves his books from being thrown away in disgust.
I loved the author notes that explained each section with what Ballard was attempting to achieve. I say attempting because sometimes I was thinking have you actually read what you have written.
I am also familiar with several of the locations he writes about so that was an enjoyable part of the book.
This book also shows how his writing developed to the pile of poop that is "Crash" in fact the main character of Crash makes his first appearance in this book. I also felt it serendipitous when after writing "Crash" Ballard suffered his own car crash and his complaining about having to pay for a much fancier road sign that the one he had destroyed did make me laugh.
There were also some really interesting takes on topics that are still relevant today., such as fake news and the sanitising of violent events like plane crashes which means we don't actually understand the horror because we never see it.
Disliked pretty much everything else.
For me the story was written as if you were at an art gallery moving from image to image of new atrocities so that what I make of the title.
I loved the author notes that explained each section with what Ballard was attempting to achieve. I say attempting because sometimes I was thinking have you actually read what you have written.
I am also familiar with several of the locations he writes about so that was an enjoyable part of the book.
This book also shows how his writing developed to the pile of poop that is "Crash" in fact the main character of Crash makes his first appearance in this book. I also felt it serendipitous when after writing "Crash" Ballard suffered his own car crash and his complaining about having to pay for a much fancier road sign that the one he had destroyed did make me laugh.
There were also some really interesting takes on topics that are still relevant today., such as fake news and the sanitising of violent events like plane crashes which means we don't actually understand the horror because we never see it.
Disliked pretty much everything else.
For me the story was written as if you were at an art gallery moving from image to image of new atrocities so that what I make of the title.
1. This is my 5th Ballard. I gave Empire of the Sun, the first of his I read, 4 stars, Cocaine Nights and Super-Cannes three stars and Crash and this one two stars.2. Cocaine Nights and Super-Cannes were quite similar, I thought, I was hoping for something similar, or even something as good as Empire, but I found it very like Crash.
3. My reaction was mystification. I started out listening to an Audible version but was completely baffled, so I downloaded the link and started reading along. I found the author's notes much more interesting than the text. They were placed beside the text in the ebook version, but at the end of each chapter in the Audible one, so I started skimming the book and reading all the notes before listening. And when I got to the end of the Audible version Ballard suggested just dipping in when a paragraph looked interesting and ignoring the other bits because that was, in fact, how he wrote it! This explains the repetitions and the non-linearity.
4. I did like some of the writing. In particular, the description of Ronald Reagan reminded me of exactly how I felt at the time of his presidency. Ballard remarks that the book is a product of his wayward imagination, and sometimes his phrases were so shocking as to be memorable: such as stating that there should be more sex and violence on television as a catalyst for change. In what direction, the reader may ponder!
5. His insisting that car crashes are seductive; his harping on about geometric lines; his prediction that sodomy will become as banal as plaster ducks on a wall; the central character appearing in a succession of roles, presumably pointing out that an individual can fulfill a whole spectrum of possibilities, either in reality or in his (it has to be a male) imagination. Even the second coming of Christ!
6. The Atrocity Exhibition is an idea of Ballard's to show car crash victims, war casualties, surgical procedures et al which will shock, repel and possibly (although I personally found this idea implausible) sexually arouse an individual. He later, apparently, had an exhibition of crashed cars. I think this was a highly individualistic fetsh.
1. Have you read any books by the author or is this your first Ballard?This was my 3rd Ballard. I’ve also read Empire of the Sun and The Drowned World, both of which I really liked.
2. What were your expectations when you started the book?
Like others above, I’d also read reviews about this book and felt this wouldn’t be to my liking. I was expecting the excess of pornographic content and gruesome detail, but also some interesting ideas and skilful writing.
3. What was your reaction? and did it live up to your expectations? Like Pip, I started on Audible and it didn’t work for me, and I agree the notes were more interesting than the text. I was surprised how much of the graphic content related to real people - Jackie Kennedy, Jayne Mansfield etc. - and thought that was unnecessarily tasteless. Overall though it wasn’t as bad as I feared.
4. What did you like? The recurring themes like the space race, film, art (references to Max Ernst and Dali), the quality of the writing, its originality.
5. What did you dislike? The pornographic content, especially the sections describing pornographic experiments with particularly unpleasant references to their effect on the mentally ill and children. It was also too experimental and chaotic in structure for me to enjoy as a literary work.
6. What do you think the title means? I think the book gives both a literal and figurative exhibition, a display of unpleasant events such as car crashes and murders which is designed to stir up emotions in the visitors/readers. It’s also an exhibition because of the media who bring these images (or at least the events they involve) to the attention of the public. These are images which preyed on the author’s mind - I noted also some references from his experiences in Shanghai - so he is putting a very personal twist on these images.
1. Have you read any books by the author or is this your first Ballard?I had not read anything by this author before this book.
2. What were your expectations when you started the book?
I expected this to be shocking, based on the cover, but not as difficult to read as it was.
3. What was your reaction? and did it live up to your expectations?
I disliked this book, it felt so disjointed it was difficult to follow.
4. What did you like?
I liked the novelty of the writing approach.
5. What did you dislike"
I disliked that there wasn't a more linear thread between the vignettes.
6. What do you think the title means?
I think the title was referencing the cast of horrific vignettes.
I've read several other books by Ballard:Empire of the Sun - 5 stars
The Drowned World - 4 stars
Cocaine Nights - 3 stars
Miracles of Life (autobiography) - 3 stars
Crash - no rating
This one, like Crash, I decided not to rate. They are very similar in tone and I think it's clear that The Atrocity Exhibition spawned Crash. I admire Ballard for putting a lot of very challenging stuff out there, but that's not to say I enjoy reading it.
The main thing I liked about this book was how he challenged the notion of celebrity in the 1960s when it was just beginning to take over from other justifications for precedence (aristocracy, wealth). I think the cult of celebrity has got totally out of control now with reality TV and Ballard foresaw this to some extent.
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