Crash pt.1

After devouring the first four chapters of Crash, I can definitely see the truth in Martin Amis' statement that J.G. Ballard's work appeals to a part of the mind not yet discovered. While initially one may be shocked and/or disturbed by Ballard's graphic imagery and the degraded morals of his characters, it is still impossible to stop reading because it definitely appeals so something inside of us that we can't put our finger on. Much of the novel's transgressive nature comes from the eccentricities in each characters sexual being and the way they deal with them. Vaughan makes no effort to hide the fact the he is aroused by imagining and looking at graphic, deadly car crashes and pictures of the wounds of their victims. "To Vaughan, these wounds formed the key to a new sexuality, born from a perverse technology", the perverse technology here is the automobile; everyone has one yet they kill so many people in the most gruesome of ways. In the novel, the things he does to get off are portrayed as normal, while in real life the same acts are only seen in crime shows and the most depraved minds in our society. Catherine to me seems extremely sexually open but at the same time disinterested in making emotional connections with others. She is intimate with both men and women, but what really attracts her is the concept or idea of a sexual encounter, that she will relive in bed with her husband, James, the narrator. He, like Vaughan is also fascinated by the concept of wounds inflicted on people by automobiles, but in a less blatantly sexual way. Since he is the narrator, we see more depth in his personality and sexuality; he seems more "normal" because we are experiencing his mind at work. On the other hand, we only know about Vaughan and Catherine what we are told by the narrator, making them both seem distorted and slightly not human (not really sure how to explain this, it's just the feeling I got). Maybe the reason that this book is so gripping is because we see how open they are about every aspect of their sexualities and wish we could be that uninhibited. I think this is also an indicator that the setting of the novel is not exactly "real" life; because in our society today it is normal and expected to repress expression of something that is necessary for life to even exist. Is Ballard making a statement about how absurd it is that we openly accept so many things that can take our lives but try to hide what literally gives us life to begin with?

cut up poem

visions of glossy syntax
are soon retired to the waning floor
as i rhymed hirudin stubbed upwards
with mirrored in pub awards
and my unwritten novel's maggoty shelf fear
is realized before it's even written
time for me to start thinking of a replacement major
maybe i'll be a side vet- a vet on the side?
or an awkward engineer,
a criminal amatuer
discretion voting in test bungalows,
raring circulation bioengineering
or should i just join the charlie sheen church and
win

Nabokov

Nabokov's Natasha quickly drew me in because of Nabokov's simple but revealing language and descriptions. Even adverbs used to describe the actions of different characters are somehow so telling, like they way Wolfe "thoroughly and satisfying washed and dried his hands". Nabokov's use of descriptive language in many ways helps shorten the distance between himself as the author and his audience by recreating the imaginary world in his own mind in the mind of the reader. However, while he chooses to use very expressive language in his narration of the story, the three characters' dialogue is kept simple and pretty brief, except for, interestingly, when they are lying. In addition, he narrator's task in Natasha is limited to setting up the physical surroundings and circumstances of the characters. The narrator here never reveals anything anything about the characters that a third person would not be able to discern, but instead narrates their physical reactions in order to give the reader insight about what they might be thinking. For example, When Wolfe brings Natasha out to the country for the day, there is a scene where he talks about his world travels to far and exotic places in detail, but I could still tell something about his stories was off because of the way that the Nabokov describes his physical actions in that scene. He falls silent, fiddles with a pinecone, touches his face, gives Natasha a strange look, and speak to her "in a cold, opaque voice". These are not the normal behaviors of someone who is reminiscing about probably the best experiences of his life. The relationship between the functions of the narration and the dialogue in Natasha made me think of the idea of "showing rather than telling" that is discussed in the Bahktin article. Natasha is definitely a polyphonic piece of writing because every voice; Natasha, Wolfe, Khrenhov, and the narrator; all are equally present and important to the story as a whole. The narrator is not meant to be omniscient here either, because if it was, the ending would have been written much differently (the narrator would have revealed that she did not really see her father outside) and would have had a drastically different effect. Also, importantly, the dialogue between these voices is never resolved or finished even at the end of the story, which I actually liked a lot. Nabokov easily could have continued the story indefinitely, but the fact that he ended it when one of the voices in the story was no longer able to contribute made it much more powerful.

W.S. Burroughs

In terms of Burroughs being "transgressive", it definitely seems like he had it out for the society he lived in. I noticed that two common topics in almost all of the excerpts from Burroughs' writing were disease and society. Basically every one of his cut up poems included the words "cancer" or "virus" and gave off really ominous vibes, which is interesting because he made them out of actual news stories. Maybe that's just what he wanted his audience to realize; that society is really creepy and dark if you look at it in a more creative way. In the first excerpt from Naked Lunch, Burroughs illustrates how Bradley the Buyer is overcome by his own kind of disease: an addiction to "contact" with junkies. In the second and third paragraphs of the excerpt, we watch the physical symptoms of Bradley's "disease" overcome him. "He can't drink. He can't get it up. His teeth fall out." He's always sucking on candy bars, which is really weirdly disturbing to imagine because he doesn't have teeth, and his skin turns a grayish green color. When he asks a junkie if he can rub up against him in order to satisfy his addiction, the junkie asks why he can't just get physical "like a real human". This question and Bradley's actions after really reinforce the imagery that Bradley has turned into some kind of weird subhuman golem-ish creature who gets off by "[making] himself all soft like a blob of jelly" and rubbing and touching junkies and government agents and then becomes covered in green smelly slime when he climaxes. One of Burroughs' greatest strengths here is being able to make the reader feel and experience exactly what he wants them to. I think this makes him transgressive because he is able to control his audience and make them feel things they don't want to feel. This is of course also true in the second excerpt from Naked Lunch, which left me feeling confused, violated, and kind of paranoid even though I don't know why. I also noticed that the two different excerpts from Naked Lunch have no similarities that would make anyone think that they came from the same book. This reminded me of what Burroughs said in the interview about picaresque novels and how they have no real plot but are just a collection of "transformed and exaggerated" series of events. Every aspect of the plot and dialogue of the second part was so absurd and wrong on a really specific and dark level, like the way Dr. Benway is so nonchalant about performing "surgery" in a bathroom with no regard to hygiene, intricacy, the right equipment, or the patient's life. I was especially drawn in by the passage, "Dr. Benway forces the cup into the incision and works it up and down. Blood spurts all over the doctors, the nurse and the wall.... The cup makes a horrible sucking sound", because it just made me feel real weird on the inside. Maybe it's just because I haven't yet figured out what his intent was or what point he is trying to make here. Is he even trying to make a point at all? I think he is because in the interview, he doesn't seem dark or disturbed at all. In fact he just seems really calm and reasonable, even when discussing different remedies for withdrawal symptoms, creating a myth for the space age, and being hassled internationally by the American Narcotic Department.