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CRASH by J.G. Ballard
Unsafe Sex At Any Speed Review by M.G. Wood It is at the age of consent, when a young man or woman is deep in the throes of a sexual awakening, that he or she is placed behind the wheel of an automobile and taught to drive. Forever welding together the mechanics of acceleration and coming to a full and complete stop with the mechanics of rhythmic masturbation and coming to full and complete stop. Always accelerate in the curves, slow and steady wins the race, speed kills. What happens to that unbreakable psycho-sexual bond when someone is involved in a violent car crash? Are you unconsciously damaged by the trauma like someone victimized by sexual abuse; where the anger and pain of the experience is buried but prevalent in every adult relationship. Do you like to watch? Slow down to see the accident on the side of the road? Ambulance chasers and skirt chasers come together for the innately erotic twisting and melding of bodies real and inanimate, into an orgy of metal, glass, and human flesh. Vaughan not only slows down to look at the accident, but gets out of the car and takes up-close and personal photographs of the destruction and the dying; to be used later for his own sexual fantasies, masturbatory and interactive. Vaughan is the deeply-scarred, deformed protagonist of J.G. Ballard’s controversial 1973 novel CRASH. Vaughan dreams of one day dying in a car crash with Elizabeth Taylor in the hopes that as they lay dying, covered in blood and motor oil, they reach simultaneous orgasms with their last dying breaths. In May of 1956, Elizabeth Taylor saved the life of her purported one-true-unrequited love, Montgomery Clift. Leaving a party thrown by Ms. Taylor, Clift crashed his car on the winding road leading from Taylor’s house. When the accident was discovered, Taylor reportedly removed teeth from Clift’s throat, teeth that surely would have choked Clift to death. Montgomery Clift was horrifically disfigured by the accident, requiring extensive plastic surgery. Alas, the star’s beauty could not be re-formed. What followed was10 years of drugs, booze, and sometimes violent homosexual affairs culminating in the actor’s premature demise at the age of 45. Elizabeth Taylor proclaimed her love for the troubled Clift to the very end. Author J.G. Ballard may well have found inspiration for the character of Vaughan in the Greek tragedy symbolized by the fall of Montgomery Clift. Vaughan’s longing to consummate his love for Taylor by way of a violent car crash and Taylor’s most intimate moment with Clift shared while lying among the wreckage of the crash that would change his life forever.
J.G. Ballard’s central character in CRASH is named Ballard. Ballard has a rich and imaginative sex life with his wife Catherine, pertaining mostly of mutual extra-marital affairs by which to fuel sex in their own marital bed. But, while Ballard and Catherine may be humming along in a sexually promiscuous relationship, even the most fantastic of open-marriages can fall into a rut. Then one day Ballard is involved in a horrific car accident. Ballard survives the accident, lying face to face with the other survivor lying wounded in the adjacent car, a beautiful young doctor named Helen Remington. As Ballard lay wounded and bleeding in his mangled car, Helen exposes her breast to Ballard, forever changing Ballard’s fate. Recovering from his injuries, Ballard sits on the balcony of his high-rise apartment overlooking the expressway and the nearby airport in which Catherine works. Ballard finds his vantage point is perfect for peeking into passing cars, studying the eccentric behavior of the modern driver. As well as capturing mental images of his wife’s mid-afternoon liaisons at the airport hotel. Soon enough Ballard is well enough to drive again and upon his first venture on the road he meets Helen Remington, his partner in collision. They have sex in Ballard’s car, during which Ballard discovers a strange man photographing their inter-auto-erotic escapade. The strange man is Vaughan. Ballard initially becomes involved with Vaughan out of his obvious deviant curiosity. But, Ballard quickly finds himself more deeply involved in Vaughan’s sex-death scenarios than he had anticipated. Ballard becomes a member of Vaughan’s twisted band of marauding malcontents consisting of drug-addled accident survivors of all form; scarred, crippled, and deformed. Ballard brings Catherine in on the “fun”, including an odd circus-like event consisting of Vaughan and friends re-enacting famous deaths in or by way of automobile: Jane Mansfield, JFK, James Dean, etc. Catherine can’t help but be turned on by her husband’s new obsession, and in no time she too is attracted to the dangerous life of Vaughan. Ballard and Catherine and Vaughan develop into a sexually-charged demolition derby from which someone will surely die a violent death. Ending in a junk-yard of unfixable wrecks and irreparably damaged parts, anointed with the sexual fluids of lust and mayhem.
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