Crash
Ratings35
Average rating3.4
15
Ratings35
Average rating3.4
The definitive cult, post-modern novel – a shocking blend of violence, transgression and eroticism. When our narrator smashes his car into another and watches a man die in front of him, his sense of sexual possibilities in the world around him becomes detached. As he begins an affair with the dead man's wife, he finds himself drawn with increasing intensity to the mangled impacts of car crashes. Then he encounters Robert Vaughan, a former TV scientist turned nightmare angel of the expressway, who has gathered around him a collection of alienated crash victims and experiments with a series of erotic atrocities, each more sinister than the last. But Vaughan craves the ultimate crash - a head-on collision of blood, semen, engine coolant and iconic celebrity. First published in 1973 'Crash' remains one of the most shocking novels of the second half of the twentieth century and was made into an equally controversial film by David Cronenburg.
Reviews with the most likes.
This is not the kind of book that one can really enjoy reading, in the same way its hard to really enjoy American Psycho at points. Unless you're a very sadistic, damaged person. The prose style of Crash is very dense and complex, it is not something you pick up casually. And as for its content, I myself am a little desensitized, but like American Psycho, the constant talk of extravagant, gory injuries and various bodily excretions just gets exhausting after a while. Nonetheless, the underlying philosophy - the connection between man and machine, carnage and sexuality - is extremely fascinating. I don't claim to understand it - I didn't entirely understand the movie, though I still consider it one of my favorites - but for that it was worth the read.
Sex and car crashes. I think I am over my head with this one.
Listening to this audiobook while driving really feels like tempting fate...
Went through ups and downs in my opinion of this–at first I was fascinated and dazzled by its novelty, then I grew annoyed with the repetition of phrases, but then I circled back and appreciated it as a textural, atmospheric piece of writing.
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