Atrocity Exhibition, The

J. G. Ballard

3.77

6,490 ratings by Goodreads

ISBN 10: 151131866X ISBN 13: 9781511318662

Publisher: Audible Studios on Brilliance Audio, 2015

A prophetic and experimental masterpiece by J. G. Ballard, the acclaimed author of Crash and Super-Cannes. This edition features explanatory notes from the author.

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 turmoil to find the key to a bizarre new sexuality.

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.

He published his first novel, The Drowned World, in 1961. His 1984 best seller Empire of the Sun won the Guardian Fiction Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. It was later filmed by Steven Spielberg. His memoir Miracles of Life was published in 2008. J. G. Ballard died in 2009.

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Review:

Easily one of the 20th century's most visionary writers, J. G. 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 ultrarealistic images of eroticism and destruction add an important dimension to Ballard's text.

From the Back Cover:

When the Atrocity Exhibition was originally printed (1970), Nelson Doubleday saw a copy and was so horrified he ordered the entire press run shredded. Two years later Grove Press brought out a small hardback printing re-titled "Love and Napalm: Export USA." Now Re/Search brings out an illustrated, large-format edition of this notorious work, augmented with four recently written stories, plus extensive annotations--written by the author, never before published--which clarify and illuminate this exhilarating, prophetic masterpiece.

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