The Atrocity Exhibition
Finally got my hands on a copy of the annotated version of J.G. Ballard's "The Atrocity Exhibition". As I suspected it has that flavor of poetry. Just like his book "Crash". One thing I'm noticing about the way that he wrote it is that he's deliberately using bad grammar in his sentences. Making them ambiguous on purpose. For example:
"Dr. Nathan gazed at the display photographs of terminal syphilitics in the cinema foyer."
The sentence is constructed in such a way that it's not clear what the object is (not to mention it's just plain freaky.) Is Dr. Nathan standing in a cinema foyer? or were the syphilitics standing in the cinema foyer when the photos were taken?
The odd sentence constructed like this could be a mistake but when it's done again and again it's obvious that's he's doing it on purpose. The result is similar to an optical illusion or a drawing by Escher. Sometimes you see a vase, sometimes you see two faces.
So far it's a collection of vignettes. The same characters and objects taken and reused.
"...Zoom Lens. Dr Nathan stopped. Reluctantly, his eyes turned across the room to the portrait camera mounted on its tripod by the consulting couch. How could he explain to this sensitive and elusive woman that her own body, with its endlessly familiar geometry, its landscapes of touch and feeling, was their only defence against her husband's all-too-plain intentions? Above all, how could he invite her to pose for what she would no doubt regard as a set of obscene photographs?..."
I'm reading it slowly. Kind of like letting wine roll under my tongue. Same way I read "Crash".
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