The British science fiction writer, J. G. Ballard (1930-2009), through his dystopian novels, deals with the complex relationship between the man and the world around him, the modern technological landscape and his effect on the human body and psyche. Influenced by surrealism, Freudian psychoanalysis and Gothic literature, Ballard's works explore the delicate line between mind and body. “The biggest developments of the intermediate future will take place, not on the Moon or Mars, but on Earth, and it is inner space, not outer, that needs to be explored. The only truly alien planet is Earth”, he declares.
The novelCrash is one of his most well-known and controversial books, first published in 1973, and seems to be a literal transfer of Andy Warhol's desire “to become a machine” and the Ballard’s statement that science fiction is "the dream of becoming a machine ". The car is used as an extreme metaphor of the capitalist and (ultra) technological world, the symbol of fetishized consumer desires, the ultimate desire of whom, that of self-destruction.
His characters take pleasure from the horror of the car crash and the Freudian death drive becomes a literal goal, in a desperate attempt to escape from the paralytic derivatives of our culture and recover their lost desires and urges. Urges, that at least for Ballard's characters, are worth dying for.
