This is a mixture of DeLillo, but without the fiction writer's finnese, or Baudrillard (whom he references), but without the essayists verve. I found it very difficult to begin with, really quite dull, as it is repititious & not particularly well written, but the images build to an effect, & the ideas are fascinating & at time highly original. I am glad I persevered, by the end it is quite illuminating & funny. The notes (from 1990) are well worth including. ( )

Please see review on my blog: Underground Man:

http://undergroundmangeomatt.blogspot... ( )

Piani intersecandi, vulve, cubismi sintetici (sì), giustapposizioni: this is why I want to fuck J. G. Ballard. ( )

In the past I've struggled a bit with Ballard--there is no doubt in my mind though that he was a very imaginative and creative writer. Despite his antipathy for Ralph Nader (in his notes to the book) this is a great book--both in format, design, imagination, creativity, intent and his subsequent ability to truly carry it off. For me there is a nod to the nouveau romanticists especially Robbe-Grillet--a sense of almost being shipwrecked into a dream which replays the same scenes over and over again with sometimes subtle, sometimes more overt variations against a background of a super modern depopulated urban landscape where violent death and celebrity are the real currency being traded on. Human emotions such as love or fear have no currency here. Even though this book reeks of irreligion there is almost something messianic about this Atrocity Exhibition. It always seems to return to certain themes--sexuality/pornography/death/fame--speaking of them from an objective scientific/godlike viewpoint with the intent it seems to me of deconstructing the emotions behind the acts while at the same time This books always stays on the edge. Car crashes and assassinations abound (JFK's being a major reference point) likewise allusions to the Vietnam--yet even with all those particularized cultural references this book does not feel dated--at all. That is quite remarkable.

Ballard's prose here is carefully precise as it needs to be. The design and the format of the book are as unique as the written content--there are many illustrations--representations of the human body and its functions, of modern architectural and human achievement. One can almost see this book in some respects as a warning that progress for its own sake can lead to our own dehumanization. Truly one of the best experimental of all time. ( )

There is a whole lot of insanity going on in this text, but it works in a strange, unexpected way.

This edition, replete with Ballard's own footnotes, provides plenty of explanation in a text that needs a lot of it: it's fragmentary, practically plotless, and overwhelmed with imagery and incongruousness.

As it progresses, it actually does become more clear: Ballard's response to media- and celebrity-saturation from the '70s still rings clear today, and comes out most interestingly in the final (added) story, "The Secret History of World War 3."

Clearly, this will not be for everyone, as it's in your face and very experimental. But there's a coherence to the incoherence, and it's executed surprisingly well.