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The Atrocity Exhibition [Paperback]

J. G. Ballard
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)

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Book Description

Dec 1972

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, psychopath. Finally, through the black, perverse magic of violence he transcends his psychic turmoils to find the key to a bizarre new sexuality.
As an e-book, The Atrocity Exhibition takes on a new identity. Hyperlinked throughout, the reader navigates in news ways throught Ballard’s extraordinary vision. Linking the text with the newly added notes from the author, the reader can access Ballard’s later thoughts on the book and his reasons for writing it.

--This text refers to the CD-ROM edition.

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Product details

  • Paperback: 144 pages
  • Publisher: Paladin; New edition edition (Dec 1972)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0586035745
  • ISBN-13: 978-0586035740
  • Product Dimensions: 17.5 x 11.2 x 1.3 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 822,894 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

Amazon 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 --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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

--This text refers to the CD-ROM edition.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars Definitely worth reading. 19 May 2003
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
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

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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars Ereader version full of incorrect words 6 Sep 2010
By Jwe
Format:Kindle Edition
I can only assume the Kindle version was scanned from hardcopy as it is full of mistranscriptions..."diem" repeatedly for "them" and dozens of others. Really spoils the read of this fantastic book. Amazon you really need to do something about this.
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26 of 28 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars Truly visionary 3 Oct 2005
Format:Paperback
Will Self describes this book, on the cover, as representing "the zenith of the experimental novel in English. Ballard's marginalia are a tour de force, a wholy original work in their own right."

This annotated edition with an excellent introduction by William Burroughs and Ballard's own chapter notes, written with over twenty years hindsight, further enhances a novel that already made Ballard stand out as one of greatest soothsayers of the twentieth century.

Obsessively documenting his obsessions and preoccupations, this novel cuts deep into the fabric of contemporary society. Not an easy read but an invaluable testament of our time, now with added historic perspective.

Every good novel should change your life - this will alter your perceptions in an astonishing and radical manner. Not to be missed.

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20 of 22 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars virtually reality 15 Mar 2001
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
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.

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful
2.0 out of 5 stars Warning - Kindle Edition Full of Mistakes 6 April 2011
By reader
Format:Kindle Edition
Great book, obviously, but there are so many typographic errors in the Kindle edition that it really spoils the reading experience. Disappointing.
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars amazing - the geometry of virtual un-reality 28 Aug 2005
Format:Paperback
ballard himself said that every paragraph of this frightening, obscure and obtuse puzzle-fiction is a condensed novel. it's true and puts most other writers to shame: experimental and totally transgressive.
the imagination and wayward-intelligence behind the ideas here might lead you to think it was written by an maverick escapee of a mental asylum (maybe travis, trabert, talbolt or traven)but ballard, like orwell and huxley, knows exactly what he's talking about.
there's abandoned airfields where recreations of the jfk assassination take place, studies of the geometry of bits of car in relation to calculated sexual poses, the encyclopedia of imaginary diseases, dali, max ernst, the death-crashes of james dean, albert camus.
first published as a collected 'novel' in 1969 it embodies the start/end of the space race, psychopathology of the modern icon and the possibilities of celebrity car-death.
the annotations by ballard in this edition are very helpful in creating an understanding of some of the less obvious content without detracting from the ferocity of the ideas.
'atrocity exhibition' is the only title this book could possibly have.
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17 of 19 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars The True Tradition 30 Jan 2002
Format:Paperback
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...
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
1.0 out of 5 stars Don't be fooled by pretentious critics palming this trash off on...
I think this book is only rated so highly because people FEEL as though they should rate it highly because it's a bit different and actual critics rated it as some sort of... Read more
Published 4 months ago by Zero
5.0 out of 5 stars Challenging but brilliant
By turns disturbing, inspiring, exciting and baffling, Ballard's at-the-time controversial work is a surreal examination of society's relationship with media, technology and... Read more
Published 19 months ago by Rod Williams
3.0 out of 5 stars Good, but convoluted.
Why say it in five words, when you can say it in a hundred? I thought books, and hence written communication, were supposed to simplify a communicative exchange. Not this book. Read more
Published on 22 Jun 2009 by Jonny R
5.0 out of 5 stars Best book I ever read!
Yes, this is a difficult and complex book. Yes, it is dense, cryptic and multi-layered. Yes, it lacks a clear linear plot. Yes, it is packed with complex and repetitive images. Read more
Published on 30 Aug 2005
1.0 out of 5 stars Worst Book I Ever Read!
Perhaps not a popular opinion.
If you can get through a page of this book without finding the words 'geometry' or 'algebra' or 'equation' somewhere in there... Read more
Published on 10 Jan 2005
5.0 out of 5 stars Dont give up too soon!!!!
Perhaps the most bizarre and visionary work that I have read since Lindsay's "Voyage to Arcturus", at at times almost as inscrutable. Read more
Published on 21 July 2004 by silenticecream
5.0 out of 5 stars A rewarding read
Although it's one of Ballard's more cryptic works this is a very rewarding read. This large format edition provides plenty of room for notes in the margins expanding on and... Read more
Published on 12 Feb 2004 by Nicholas Dunn
5.0 out of 5 stars A rewarding read
Although it's one of Ballard's more cryptic works this is a very rewarding read. This large format edition provides plenty of room for notes in the margins expanding on and... Read more
Published on 12 Feb 2004 by Nicholas Dunn
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