--- product_id: 11427191 title: "Crash Paperback – October 5, 2001" brand: "j. g. ballard" price: "€ 27.22" currency: EUR in_stock: true reviews_count: 9 url: https://www.desertcart.be/products/11427191-crash-paperback-october-5-2001 store_origin: BE region: Belgium --- # Crash Paperback – October 5, 2001 **Brand:** j. g. ballard **Price:** € 27.22 **Availability:** ✅ In Stock ## Quick Answers - **What is this?** Crash Paperback – October 5, 2001 by j. g. ballard - **How much does it cost?** € 27.22 with free shipping - **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship - **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.be](https://www.desertcart.be/products/11427191-crash-paperback-october-5-2001) ## Best For - j. g. ballard enthusiasts ## Why This Product - Trusted j. g. ballard brand quality - Free international shipping included - Worldwide delivery with tracking - 15-day hassle-free returns ## Description Full description not available ## Images ![Crash Paperback – October 5, 2001 - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71rXkBSqeJL.jpg) ![Crash Paperback – October 5, 2001 - Image 2](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71go5pvzrML.jpg) ## Customer Reviews ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ I would love to say.... *by J***S on Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2009* I would love to say that this was a fascinating warning against our ever growing dependence on technology and how it has changed us to were we are more connected to the inanimate than the animate. I would love to say that this book was an extraordinary work of provocative literary fiction and how it made me think and challenged my views on sexuality and the world around me.... But I can't. Because this book was an amazing, hard to put down, unbelieveably graphic, in depth, fantasized look at people with car-crash-fetishes.James Ballard a director (I think) of commercials gets into a serious car accident that kills the driver of the other vehicle involved and forever changes James and the victim's wife. Through the strange and sometimes dangerous eyes of a deranged man, Dr. Robert Vaughn, who also had long ago been in a life altering crash, they discover the sexuality of the pairing of their bodies with automobiles and the eroticism of car crashes. (I'm pretty sure others who are die-hard fans of this book will scoff at my paultry description of the book, but that's basically what this book is about.)I enjoyed the book because it was different-- definitely an alternative in eroticism-- and gave me a glimpse of how people react differently to tragedies or the unthinkable. I can't say I walked away from the book with a more enlightened view of anything, but I can say I walked away with satisfaction.The only complaint I have is the tone of the book: It was monotone. There were so many instances in the book were I knew I needed to feel something-- astonishment, horror, grief, lust-- but they were lost in the one page long, overly detailed, paragraphs. I have read 100 Years of Solitude and Love in the Time of Cholera so I am familiar with this type of style but I think for this book empahsis-- ie. shorter paragraphs-- were needed to punctuate the scenes. And his switches in scenes and times of day and character actions completely threw me off because they were not actually stated. It was more of an aftethought. The author's main focus was telling the story and making sure the reader understood that there was semen *everywhere* and vulvas being penetrated constantly. Sounds a bit much for a review, right? Read the book and you'll see that what I said was practically G-Rated.All in all... good book. ### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ ballard, crash, 1970's, controversy *by R***R on Reviewed in the United States on March 8, 2019* In the 1970's, J G Ballard focused on controversial themes of sex, excess, and nightmarish scenes that disturbs the reader four decades or more later. From "High Rise", (1975); to "The Atrocity Exhibition", (1972). "Crash', is about Ballard, who is turned on by car crashes, as he meets various people: Vaughn, (a man who fuses technology is sex), while the characters over-indulge in behaviour that makes it an uncomfortable read. It is world's away from "The Drowned World", (1962), Ballard's science-fiction novel, to the well-known autobiographical "Empire of the Sun", (1984), (filmed by Steven Spielberg in 1987)."Crash", which was filmed in Canada by David Cronenberg in 1996, translates the novel to be a romantic thrill-ride that is hit-and miss with James Spader, Holly Hunter, and Rosanna Arquette. In short, "Crash" is a dazzling, futuristic, and voyeuristic book, that couldn't be written today, (in 2019). But it is an important book to read, as is all of Ballard's work before and after "Crash" ends at just over two hundred pages or so. ### ⭐⭐ Somewhat of a car crash in itself, Ballard's prose deserved a much better execution... *by A***N on Reviewed in the United States on August 6, 2007* About a year ago I was driving down the interstate when I noticed a few police cruisers up ahead, their lights blaring, parked in uniformed manor on the side of the road, just under the overpass. As I approached, slowing down with the flow of traffic that always seems to coagulate in front of a crash, I noticed the front end of a black sedan, the make and model escape me, smashed in and almost nonexistent. The windshield was completely gone; glass littering the pavement, and a young and beautiful woman was lying over the steering wheel facing out at the passing vehicles. I remember staring at her face, her dark hair falling over her bloodstained face, her eyes closed to her wounds, her jaw swollen and bruised, her neck black from the impact against the wheel, and I couldn't help but feel this overwhelming sadness that was masked in a strange serenity. She looked so peaceful, so calm in her death. It was at that moment that I decided to read J.G. Ballard's novel `Crash'. I had heard a lot about it and had wanted to give it a read through. Now this happened to me a year ago, but I just finished his novel about three minutes ago. I just never really got around to reading it, but about a week ago I finally delved in.I will say this, that all the controversy surrounding this novel is very well deserved. `Crash' is not a novel for the weak of stomach or the faint of heart. It's outlandish and blunt, straightforward and explicit. I will say that I was turned off a bit at times and in the end am ultimately disappointed with Ballard's execution of his prose. The novel itself would have blossomed had Ballard used a little more subtlety and tact, but instead he went for the gusto and shock-value of his events, high on perversion and blatant grime with mixed results. Some have likened this novel the `Fight Club' but in my opinion what Palahniuk did with `Fight Club' is far superior to what Ballard does here.The very idea that sex is linked to the heart of human emotion is a very essential point to the understanding of this novel. It's also a very true statement. Sex is the most universally understood way that any living breathing creature can express themselves. We can convey happiness, sadness, anger, frustration, confusion, lust...you name it and we can express it through the otherwise intimate act of sexual intercourse. Throughout Ballard's novel the characters talk of an awakened sexuality due to their automobile accidents, but in actuality the prose has the opportunity to carry much more weight than that. I strongly fell that it was poor judgment on Ballard's part to make this novel as explicit as it was. If you look at another extremely controversial novel `American Psycho' you will see the advantages to the use of subtlety. Bret Easton Ellis understood the power of the underlying motive, and so while `American Psycho' has it many moments of grotesque macabre it still ushers in the serene examples of pure mood changes and allows the reader to wrap their head around the real meaning of the atrocity. `Crash' just paints a lurid and abnormal picture without giving us to opportunity to grasp what this all could have meant.I don't know if I'll ever really understand why some laud this novel. It attempts to convey a deep meaning but in my opinion it fails to capitalize on it. It's so intent of shocking the reader that it forgets its purpose and tries to become something it's not. It screams for someone to take it seriously and understand it's tortured implications but it falls flat and far from it's intended destination. In effect, it crashes and burns instead of sours like it could have. Maybe that was the intention though, maybe that is the ultimately ironic conclusion, that a novel so obsessed with the violent link between sex and the car crash would in essence crash in it's attempt to convey an emotional response. I for one am not impressed, but it's a novel that deserves to be read if not to contemplate where Ballard went wrong. --- ## Why Shop on Desertcart? - 🛒 **Trusted by 1.3+ Million Shoppers** — Serving international shoppers since 2016 - 🌍 **Shop Globally** — Access 737+ million products across 21 categories - 💰 **No Hidden Fees** — All customs, duties, and taxes included in the price - 🔄 **15-Day Free Returns** — Hassle-free returns (30 days for PRO members) - 🔒 **Secure Payments** — Trusted payment options with buyer protection - ⭐ **TrustPilot Rated 4.5/5** — Based on 8,000+ happy customer reviews **Shop now:** [https://www.desertcart.be/products/11427191-crash-paperback-october-5-2001](https://www.desertcart.be/products/11427191-crash-paperback-october-5-2001) --- *Product available on Desertcart Belgium* *Store origin: BE* *Last updated: 2026-05-10*