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20 All Time Classic Sci Fi Novels - The Atrocity Exhibition: Annotated (Flamingo Modern Classics)
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- Author: J.G. Ballard
- Type: Paperback
- ISBN: 0007116861
- Publisher: HarperPerennial
Synopsis
Easily one of the 20th century's most visionary writers, JG Ballard still lives far ahead of his time. Called his "prophetic masterpiece" by many, The Atrocity Exhibition practically lies outside of any literary tradition. Part science fiction, part eerie historical fiction, part pornography, its characters adhere to no rules of linearity or stability. This reissued edition features an introduction by William S Burroughs, extensive text commentary by Ballard and four additional stories. Of specific interest are the illustrations by underground cartoonist and professional medical illustrator Phoebe Gloeckner. Her ultra-realistic images of eroticism and destruction add an important dimension to Ballard's text. --Joaquim della Mirandella
Reviews
Why say it in five words, when you can say it in a hundred? I thought books, and hence written communication, were supposed to simplify a communicative exchange. Not this book. It overcomplicates everything, and although it may be a work of genius in disguise, its a work of genius that needs a lobotomy,
Jonny R
It is difficult to do justice to the controlled artfulness and uncompromsing directness of Ballard's vision in The Atrocity Exhibition. His subject is the psycho-sexual violence that lies beneath the apparently smooth surfaces of western consumerist and popular culture. The style is detached, deadpan, slyly repetitive and dreamlike, involving the reader in an unforgettable hallucinatory journey. This is also often a mordantly funny book, an important aspect of the author's achievement that I feel has been missed, particularly by those negative reviewers who not only take at face value the unsavoury tone of the novel's relentless rendering of atrocities; but profoundly fail to understand that Ballard is inviting us into a realm of unblinking truthfulness, and towards an understanding of the perverse and decadent banality at the heart of materialist culture. There will always be readers who would rather avert their gaze from great and subversive writing.
pburgess
'The Atrocity Exhibition' is a very apt title, because I have never read a more atrocious book. 'Experimental' translated means 'Avant-Garde', He mentions rape, torture, paedophilia, people who are aroused by Vietnam's child napalm victims and people who are aroused by viewing car crashes. As if this weren't bad enough, he writes the book in a willfully obscure, difficult, awkward style - hence the 'experimental' label.
Essentially what Ballard is trying to do is dazzle us with his expansive vocabulary, but it cannot change the fact that the novel is meaningless. I for one am not impressed by someone who uses ten-syllable words continuously.
Barely a paragraph goes by where he isn't making some crude or unpleasant outlandish sexual reference, even to the point where he is implying that anyone who is an anti-war protestor is sexually inadequate. There are numerous of these bizarre and disturbing thoughts.
I fail to see how anyone could 'enjoy' this novel, as it is not the kind of novel you can enjoy. Once you have come to terms with his style of writing, the novel just becomes tedious. I do not think there is an overall point. Avoid this obscene and tedious novel at ALL costs!
J. Roberts
Will Self describes this book, on the cover, as representing "the zenith of the experimental novel in English. Ballard's marginalia are a tour de force, a wholy original work in their own right."
This annotated edition with an excellent introduction by William Burroughs and Ballard's own chapter notes, written with over twenty years hindsight, further enhances a novel that already made Ballard stand out as one of greatest soothsayers of the twentieth century.
Obsessively documenting his obsessions and preoccupations, this novel cuts deep into the fabric of contemporary society. Not an easy read but an invaluable testament of our time, now with added historic perspective.
Every good novel should change your life - this will alter your perceptions in an astonishing and radical manner. Not to be missed.
Yes, this is a difficult and complex book. Yes, it is dense, cryptic and multi-layered. Yes, it lacks a clear linear plot. Yes, it is packed with complex and repetitive images. It is also Ballard's finest work, a collection of frames from a film that evokes all the obsessions and symbols of the latter years of the twentieth century.
And to answer the last reviewer, yes, I think it is great.
