Upon first viewing, I have to say that I found the film disturbing and unpleasant. Why in the world would I have any interest whatever in reading the original book? Perhaps I am always comparing books and the films they make from them, and since sometimes the “unpleasant” can still be important, I was curious enough to give it another try—via the original literary product.

First of all, this was not an easy book for me to locate. It took three weeks through an inter-library loan several states away. Once in my hands, I have to say that it was a book I found well worth the effort to read.

In a peculiar synchronicity of events, the older brother of my son’s girlfriend was involved in a horrible car crash recently that put him in a coma for several months, and broke one leg, one arm, most of his ribs, his jaw, multiple fractures in his hips, and caused his spleen to be removed. This young man is only 29—big, strong, good-looking, great career—although there has been healing of body, there is still concern about permanent brain damage. He has made a remarkable recovery, but he will likely never have anything approaching a normal life again. Such is the seriousness of an actual car crash.

Car crashes are not—in any way—sexy. Western civilization has, to a large degree, sexualized the automobile. We already know this is the conceit that runs through this book within the grossest depictions of sexual perversity, start to finish. First, let me state, I am hardly prudish, but much of this material was quite shocking. Trash? Not at all! To maintain this sort of symbolism through an entire novel makes for certainly fascinating writing and I admire Ballard’s skill. But this is not always an easy read.

 There are some differences between the book and the film, although the two were very, very close—some scenes were word for word. Watching the film, I found Vaughan to be the most repellent of all the characters; in the book, he is even more twisted and revolting in so many ways that, as a reader, I could not see why he was so compelling (rather than repelling) to Ballard and the other characters in this coterie of car crash fetishists. The book also has Vaughan consumed with a desire to be involved in a car crash with Elizabeth Taylor, who never seems to show up in the movie. (Updating the story would surely have included Princess Diana, I have no doubt.)

A lot of the book was visualized perfectly to film. Word for word, scene for scene. The characters were exactly like in the book. As the book is narrated in first person, James Spader was likely facing the most difficulty in the translation of his character. We never even get a verbal description of what the author/narrator looks like physically, and the characterization is all done internally and directly to the page. In fact, the narrator is so integral that you never are really sure if you are getting the entire persona of Ballard (the character or the author). Spader’s somewhat “tabula rasa” interpretation—as the person who reacts and internalizes and becomes a disciple in Vaughan’s group—is the perfect way to take this character to film. 

If anything, the main character is Vaughan. As unpleasant as he was in the movie, he is even more disgusting in the book. He is physically filthy, drives a nasty and dirty car (even after three trips through the car wash, it is still described as dirty. And the interior is even worse—crusty with various body fluids). He masturbates (or just “dribbles”) uncontrollably over car wrecks, he finds them so stimulating. He has some bizarre hypnotic effect over others, drawing them into his sick fantasies. This effect on others makes him, I believe, one of the most evil characters ever created in fiction. Yet Ballard gives his wife over to this man for rough sex, becomes a voyeur to this activity, and later wants to connect with him in a homosexual coupling (these scenes are included in the film).

When Vaughan is finally killed in a wreck, you almost mutter to yourself “good”. But then you see the remaining characters, mostly females (oddly enough) display the fact that they will continue these strange rituals that Vaughan has initiated them into. Vaughan’s charisma (carisma?) takes on a life of its own that transcends his own demise and becomes part of the characters that survive.

Vaughan is most definitely an evil entity. He wants to involve others in his perversion, to the point of getting them maimed or killed. One of his followers (Seagrave, the transvestite stunt driver) is killed in a car wreck (dressed up like Elizabeth Taylor—altered in the film to Jayne Mansfield)—and he does this for Vaughan. If the fetish were merely within the group, it would be strange enough, but Vaughan likes to see other, innocent people involved in wrecks, lending an element of voyeurism to his fetish. If they survive, they may even join his group, like Ballard and his wife.

Evil is degraded and degrading. Perhaps that is what Ballard (the author) is saying. All of us have the capacity to become totally degraded, given the influence of evil sneaking into our lives. Some one can make you believe you are “expanding your mind”, or your senses, or your experiences—when you are really allowing yourself to be sucked down into a cesspool of depravity. We are all so easily tempted. All too many of us have such a weakness within us from the start. Before Ballard meets Vaughan—even before he has his first accident—he has a curious relationship within his own marriage. James and Catherine have assorted affairs and report back to each other about them. A very odd sharing, indeed.

The descent continues. At the beginning, Vaughan has a job, but by the end of the book, he is living in his nasty old car, filthy, degraded, and depraved. As Ballard follows in his footsteps, he seems to be working less and less and spending more days and nights doing the same weird things that Vaughan is doing—having random sex and looking at auto accidents.

The line between “questionable” and “pure evil” is crossed when evil (let’s call that evil, “Vaughan”) manipulates and draws others into his bizarre world. To anyone who has done any reading or studying about serial killers, it is interesting to note that their desire to rape, kill, or mutilate others often comes down to a strange sexual fetish. The men who do this (and they are most likely to be men), will do it for sexual “reasons”. Victims are mere objects to gratify a momentary desire—then discarded like trash. Vaughan sees others (and their cars) as expendable objects for his lust. In the first chapter of the book, James Ballard calls Vaughan his “friend”, but Vaughn cannot possibly have real friends. He is far too narcissistic. Everything is about him and his next orgasm. It is almost another take on the Faust legend—where one might sell one’s soul for the ultimate orgasm. Perhaps this is what Vaughan and his followers have done.

Does Vaughan relate to the idea of a serial killer? Some are “hands on” in their crimes, but the pathology of the leader who shares his insanity can, instead, give us a Hitler, Jim Jones, Charles Manson—or a Vaughan. These “leaders” are incredibly scary, because they don’t have to do it all themselves. Their followers can carry the torch for them. Their creepy charisma sucks people in to their fantasy turn-ons. Manson and Vaughan show similarities in that they are so very influential among their followers, whether it is a God-complex (Manson) or a scientist-in-extreme (Vaughan). 

Vaughan is repugnant in many ways, including physically. Much is made of the scars all over his body, especially his genitals. There are descriptions of the scars on his chest in the shape of a steering wheel, where he had slammed into it during an accident, and how his nipple was badly reattached surgically. Overall, I think the main reason Vaughan is described in such an unsavory way is due to the old ugly = evil leitmotif. If Vaughan was disgusting in the movie, you may find him totally repulsive in the book.

As much as we find Vaughan so over-the-top and repellent, he still manages to create followers to his ecstatic experiences in (almost) a religious sense. Why else would they want to continue what he began once he is dead? There is obviously a very powerful experience going on for this coterie of congregants.

Much has already been made of the character of Gabrielle elsewhere, as she speaks most closely about the human body physically melded to machinery. She is virtually a cyborg, requiring body braces just to get around. She is the triumph of human + machine. Beyond this character, though, we find that a character’s choice of car is very much symbolic of self. Vaughan drives his gross old black (black = evil) Lincoln, smeared inside with dried semen. Catherine Ballard, a pale blonde, drives a white sports car. And after James Ballard’s car is totaled at the beginning of the book, he goes out and buys another gray car exactly like it. Perhaps this means that his life has been in a boring rut? Is that what starts his strange quest for excitement within and without his marriage, and as a part of Vaughan’s group?

Other observations would have to include changing the location from England (book) to Canada (film).  Oddly enough, this does make a difference. Sometimes the book gives you a description of sex acts in cars that make you wonder how a human body can contort in such a way—until you remember that the steering wheel is on the other side in England.

Also, there is a scene in the book—but not in the film—where Vaughan gives Ballard an LSD-laced sugar cube and has him drive around “under the influence”—not only of the drug, but there is the influence of Vaughan himself. This segment is an incredibly fantastic bit of writing. Through the mind and the eyes of the narrator (Ballard), the world is topsy-turvy. Nothing makes sense. Everything is completely unrealistic. You absolutely feel you are in the mind of somebody trying to drive and being unable to connect with reality. Friends don’t let friends drive high? Yet afterward comes a moment where Vaughan is trying to run him down and likely kill him. Some friend. Still, this scene where Ballard is driving under LSD is so marvelously written that I wish it had been included in the film. It would have been cinematically intriguing

Did J.G. Ballard write this book as a “message” of any kind, beyond the life/sex/death metaphorical placement of mankind’s automotive technology as our ultimate creation? With sex as the ultimate creative act, is it so much a stretch that it also becomes our most destructive act when the cars we create crash into one another?

This is not an easy film to watch, or an easy book to read—but I have ultimately obtained a much more profound respect for this work. This is not material that is shocking for the sake of being shocking. There is a lot here, on a lot of levels, about our western society. This is not some “semi-porno wacko stuff” as some one once described it to me, but a multi-layered, curious work of art.

© Judith Buddle, 2007