Product Description

First published in 1970 and widely regarded as a prophetic masterpiece, this is a groundbreaking experimental novel by the acclaimed author of 'Crash' and 'Super-Cannes', who has supplied explanatory notes for this new edition. The irrational, all-pervading violence of the modern world is the subject of this extraordinary tour de force. The central character's dreams are haunted by images of John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe, dead astronauts and car-crash victims as he traverses the screaming wastes of nervous breakdown. Seeking his sanity, he casts himself in a number of roles: H-bomber pilot, presidential assassin, crash victim, pscyhopath. Finally, through the black, perverse magic of violence he transcends his psychic turmoils to find the key to a bizarre new sexuality.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #49442 in Books
• Published on: 2001-05-21
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 192 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
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

Review
'I would argue that "The Atrocity Exhibition" represents the zenith of the experimental novel in English. But Ballard's marginalia are a tour de force, a wholly original work in their own right. One can hear Ballard's voice as he offers a surreal evening class on his own work, life and preoccupations. This one is a must.' Will Self, Time Out 'Brilliant and unnerving!a writer with talent to burn.' The Times 'These stories -- "condensed novels", Ballard has called them -- are a high-water mark in English experimental fiction.' New York TImes

About the Author
J.G. Ballard was born in 1930 in Shanghai, where his father was a businessman. After internment in a civilian prison camp, he and his family returned to England in 1946. His 1984 bestseller Empire of the Sun won the Guardian Fiction Prize and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. It was later filmed by Steven Spielberg. His controversial novel Crash has recently been made into an equally controversial film by David Cronenberg. His most recent novels are Cocaine Nights and Super-Cannes.

Customer Reviews

Definitely worth reading.
Quite a surreal book. Not sure I understood it completely but here goes...

The sexual pathology of the main protagonist is revealed in a series of psychosexual experiments involving the positioning of objects in the geometry of space time. These are attempts to unlock the latent sexuality of, among others, a motorway overpass, a particular arrangement of wrecked cars, or the angle between walls, along with the re-enactment of the (real or imaginary) deaths of the famous in an effort to achieve a sexual ideal; often personified by Elizabeth Taylor.

In each chapter the main character's identity is viewed from another angle, another facet of his personality, and we accompany him through his apparent psychoses. Even his character name changes throughout and sometimes the events and characters appear only in his mind. Other characters, such as Dr Nathan who is our window of rationality in this surreal world, or Karen Novotny the eternal victim, provide their necessary roles in the psychodrama.

I enjoyed reading this book and, having only read one other J.G. Ballard (The Crystal World), will no doubt read another of his work. However, I felt that The Atrocity Exhibition, good though it was, (ironically) didn't really reach the climax I expected. Maybe I just need to read it over again.

The annotation in this edition by J.G. Ballard is essential - although my copy does not have the illustrations mentioned above.

SGL

virtually reality
This fantastically odd book reads like an amphetamine crazed encyclopaedia of the late twentieth century. The world it describes is one in which sci-fi has become a Freudian reality (no surprises for Ballard's fans then), psychiatrists go madder than their patients and mutilated dream characters fall down an enormous replica of Liz Taylor's vagina in an abandoned film set.

I just hope, for the sake of those who haven't read it before, that this new edition is annotated. Otherwise, some of those dense references are a little obscure for those of us who were not around in the 6o's and 70's.

Oh yes, and it's written in the style of the Warren Commission Report, too.

The True Tradition
Burroughs was championed in the UK by Ballard and Moorcock, who took his cut-up ideas and made them into something far more refined and socially accurate, though lacking the mad humour of The Naked Lunch.
These stories first appeared in New Worlds, which was running Pynchon, D.M.Thomas, George MacBeth,
Thomas M. Disch, M.John Harrison, James Sallis and a whole lot of talented (and very young!) writers.
They anticipated 'post-modernism' by a good few years. These stories are as good as they were when they first dropped through my mail-box almost thirty years ago. This is the edition to own.
The missing name in this equation, too, is Barrington Bayley, from whom Burroughs borrowed a great deal and who remains the 'forgotten' talent of that still-vital movement of which The Atrocity Exhibition remains one of the central and most essential books. Read this with The Cornelius Quartet and get the buzz that cheered us all up in
the 60s and 70s when angry authors were engaging more effectively with the issues of the world -- none of which have gone away. This book, rather than his better known Crash, proves that Ballard is a true visionary, a true master for the 21st century. It's a great tradition...