Crash

Science-fictioneer Ballard extends his field of vision beyond the genre in a death directed if not obsessed vista where sexuality and "perverse" - a recurrent word - technology, the technology of the automobile, are on the same vector - not only seemingly interchangeable as well as indivisible. Ballard has almost written his book in blood and semen (again recurrent, discharged everywhere) as if to reduce the distance between the cock and the cockpit. You might be reminded of Robbe-Grillet - so much of this is accomplished through the cine-camera technique via Vaughan, a computer "scientist as hoodlum," one of the recording eyes (the other is Ballard himself); there are the same photovisual jump shots, the same junctions and repetitions. And of course the orgasm or the little death as it has been called becomes the larger one as his speed freaks (yes, they are both kinds) propel themselves toward the larger death ahead. A comparison to The Clockwork Orange has been made and it is justified by its ugly, hostile, metallic insistence. And also as such, it qualifies as a bravura performance with a whiplash impact. Whether or not you choose to be there is something else again. (Kirkus Reviews)