Ballard's 'Crash'

The first four chapter's of J.G. Ballard's Crash were...interesting. I think Robin mentioned on the first day of class that what most if not all transgressive literature does is not only "upset-wildly held values" but also, you know, make us uncomfortable. Uncomfortable because we see something of ourselves in between the lines? Perhaps...perhaps not.

What struck me immediately about the text was the clinical, matter-of-fact way in which the language was written. Sex isn't just sex, it's "the sexual act." The ass crack isn't the ass crack it's "the natal cleft." The first pages are just this wild micture of bodily fluids - blood, semen, feces, sweat - it's pretty unpleasant to read, but it makes for a very defined introduction to the narrator. The language he uses, as stark and matter-of-fact as it is in some places, also provides further understanding into the way he thinks.

Because all the unpleasant, perhaps nasty, perhaps upsetting things he talks about (unpleasant, nasty, and upsetting for us) is described as if they were the opposite. There are constant mentions of rainbows - lighting up Vaughn's scarred face, refracted in puddles of urine, or the bruises on John's chest. The aftermath of these accidents, too, are described in such a way, like the "fragments of tinted windshield" set in a victim's forehead "like jewels." The way the narrator sees the world and describes the world is always a little off than how "normal" people would.

All of these little quirks and ticks just d more to create a character who is not in the least likable but very intriguing. I'm even more intrigued, however, by the mysterious character of Vaughn, whose obsession seems to be even more intense than the narrator's.

I'm eager to continue on with this story - it's giving me an insight into one way in which this sort of subject matter can be tackled. I recently saw a documentary about objectum sexuals (one of the people followed is the infamous woman who married the Eiffel Tower), and it formed the catalyst for a story I've been working on about someone who falls in love with her neighbor's house. I admire how Ballard has written this character rather unapologetically, neither condemning nor condoning his actions but just presenting them for what they are - I hope I can do the same.

You can watch the first part of "Married to the Eiffel Tower" below:

Nabokov's "Natasha"

In Valdimir Nabokov's short story "Natasha" we are presented with characters living in separate realties from one another. Wolfe, who lives out fantasies of a life as a man-of-the-world, Natasha, who lives in an ethereal limbo of self-denial and Khrenov - in a reality that is and isn't defined by the present, a reality that's slowly deteriorating, punctuated only by unpleasant dreams of his past.

For me, Nabokov's language always seems to distance itself from the characters, and thus the characters from the reader. By the time Wolfe and Natasha share their date in the the park, we realize that we really cannot trust anything they say or do - they are too far gone.

The story, to me, seems more cinematic than literary - in that so many of the descriptions, which are so specifically visual ("the sleek, girlish part of her hair") seem like the flashes or glimpses of cut up images that you would see in a fim. So, I found myself reading this story and being more affected by the tone and the feel of it rather than whatever plot there was. A sort of hazy, sleepy, other-worldly feel - slightly upsetting, but in a subtle way.

I recently saw a film called We Need to Talk About Kevin that, while certainly not comparable at all in terms of story, seems to have this intangible tone that the story does:

The Cut-Up

(^ me as i sat down to write this)

In the test-bungalows of Southern California my mother rubs

her glossy syntax into bowls of porcelain

A shadow, a shadow, an awkward engineer

careening down steeples of The Divine, down mountains of (something like) regret which,

as you know, is just (something like) a sheen church with dirty altar and

I, crouched down on a waning floor with blood in my mouth or my eyes or my hands

I, I, I watch this criminal amateur speak and move the way the Sidhe do

"Nothing hurts if you don't let it" and

something like a sob pours out, a ripple relation, hallelujah

Your pedantic lamasery with its

awed wash of ash and smoke is now just

Ingate silt on the bottom of a bubble universe

But then my mother the middle hydrogen tasted

And the the oxygen went out

Burroughs

The excerpts from Naked Lunch, the poems, and the interview were my first formal introductions to William S. Burroughs (excluding an admittedly fuzzy knowledge of the Beat Generation). The excerpts themselves were not what I was expecting, but the interview component was just as surprising in certain ways.

It was only after reading the interview and watching some clips of him on YouTube that the sense of him I got (his mannerisms, the cadence of his voice) filled the writing and made it connect more for me. On their own, the excerpts and poems were certainly interesting, challenging, a exciting. But with my half-formed idea of Burroughs in my mind, my impression of them and some of my understanding in a lesser sense shifted.

What really struck me, though, was this quote from the interview:

"Well, the situation has changed radically, say from what it was in the 1920s when I was a child; you could describe that as a pretty hard-core matriarchal society. Now, the picture is much more complicated with the pill and the sexual revolution and Women's Lib, which allegedly is undermining the matriarchal system. That is, at least that's what they say they're doing, that they want women to be treated like everyone else and not have special prerogatives simply because they're women...You see, the southern part of the United States was always the stronghold of matriarchy, the concept of the 'Southern belle' and the Southern woman. And that is still in existence, but it's on the way out, undoubtedly."

The concept of a matriarchal society, specifically in the United States, is just a really hard concept for me to wrap my head around. I'd love to know what exactly Burroughs meant by a "matriarchal" society when he answered this question all those years ago. I was a little surprised, to be honest. It didn't really gel with my idea of what a "Beat" poet would say - but then, I don't know much about that group of writers or much about him certainly not where gender comes into play. Burroughs quote prompted me to do a little more digging on good ol' Google, where I found a few interesting articles and one Google Book that talked about sexism in the Beat Generation - which has made me eager to read more of their work which I, I must admit, have always had a sort of aversion to for whatever reason.

I guess my idea of "transgressive" authors was of anyone railing against "conservative" ideals. But then, I guess I got caught up because obviously what I perceive to be a "conservative" ideal - in this case sexism and misogyny - is not actually a conservative ideal and can be a part of any one's beliefs, regardless of how subversive they may be in other areas. If anything this was a reminder that I should, you know, be ever and always aware of the complexities of the authors and novels we're going to be reading this semester. And probably just people in general. That, too. Nothing is ever just black or white or grey - which is a good thing.

If you haven't gotten a chance to see and/or hear him in action, here's a video of Burroughs talking about other beat poets: