Three tangential concepts that I have in my notes (but did not make it into the discussion) are NOIR, EXISTENTIALISM, and FUTURISM. Although the book does not fully embody these ideas in the traditional sense, I did feel as though there were elements, if not oblique references to them in the book and in our discussion. I chose noir, not only for the kind of narrative style that Ballard employs, but also because of his characters, especially Vaughan. We talked about Vaughan as a psychoanalyst - one who provides context and meaning to the traumatic experiences of the others - but he also plays a kind of disheveled and perverted detective role, especially in his capacity as an observer. One can imagine that for Vaughan, the Femme Fatale is both the women and the cars, or preferably both - destroying each other in a moment of ecstasy. Existentialism seems to permeate the story in Ballard's description and planning of his own death. One of the primary revelations of existential thought is that the only truly empowered moment in a person's life is the choice of when and how they will kill themselves. This is a preoccupation of all the characters in the book that succumb to the erotic power of the crash. The staging of the crash with Elizabeth Taylor is a perversely Futurist take on the existential gesture. The celebratory nature of the exquisite murder and suicide is not unlike the futurist proclamation of war as a new and terrifyingly beautiful form of music.
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Three tangential concepts that I have in my notes (but did not make it into the discussion) are NOIR, EXISTENTIALISM, and FUTURISM. Although the book does not fully embody these ideas in the traditional sense, I did feel as though there were elements, if not oblique references to them in the book and in our discussion. I chose noir, not only for the kind of narrative style that Ballard employs, but also because of his characters, especially Vaughan. We talked about Vaughan as a psychoanalyst - one who provides context and meaning to the traumatic experiences of the others - but he also plays a kind of disheveled and perverted detective role, especially in his capacity as an observer. One can imagine that for Vaughan, the Femme Fatale is both the women and the cars, or preferably both - destroying each other in a moment of ecstasy. Existentialism seems to permeate the story in Ballard's description and planning of his own death. One of the primary revelations of existential thought is that the only truly empowered moment in a person's life is the choice of when and how they will kill themselves. This is a preoccupation of all the characters in the book that succumb to the erotic power of the crash. The staging of the crash with Elizabeth Taylor is a perversely Futurist take on the existential gesture. The celebratory nature of the exquisite murder and suicide is not unlike the futurist proclamation of war as a new and terrifyingly beautiful form of music.
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