The Crash novel opens with the word “Vaughan”, and ends with the word “passenger”.  When one thinks about the journey the characters take, the convulsions of emotions the reader is put through (particularly the unwary), these two words become an important framing device.  Vaughan accrues many passengers along the way, some willing accomplices, some not. 

At the same time, the opening paragraph of the novel, telling of the demise of Vaughan in retrospect, immediately throws us in several directions.  It addresses the deaths of “passengers” in a bus, killed by Vaughan as his car careered over the rails of the highway.  These passengers, unwitting extras on a film set, with Vaughan playing leading man/Director and Elizabeth Taylor playing the leading lady, are slain while on their trip to or from the airport (airports are a recurring theme in JG Ballard’s writing).

Such is the subversity of Crash, that we don’t feel sympathy for these passengers, although immediately we are roped into being passengers ourselves.  Clearly this is not going to be an easy literary ride.  In fact, the only person who seems to feel anything remotely predictable about this initial scene is Taylor herself, an actress, an emblem, a representative of fame and fortune who in this moment is shown as “normal”.

In the second paragraph we learn of Vaughan’s obsession with Taylor.  We hear that he’s part of the paparazzi gone mad, sailing to extremes.  He has been following Taylor for quite some time, and then taking close up shots of various body parts so he can enlarge them up and paste them to the walls of his apartment. 

Sadly, Taylor as a character is entirely missing from Cronenberg’s film.  This is likely due to legal reasons (it’s highly unlikely Taylor would have taken kindly to having herself depicted in such a way on screen, although a braver actress in decline might well have volunteered services to play herself).  Instead, the movie concentrates itself on older dead celebrities, and even then, the focus is the crash itself rather than the actual celebrity.

Crash isn’t a novel that pulls punches.  It has a story to tell, but it’s a story that exists in its own view of the world.  The sign posts we are given, the anchors on which we might get our bearings, are corrupted, changed, or perhaps entirely non-evident.  Reaching only the third paragraph we experience detailed commentary on Vaughan’s dreams of crashing into Taylor’s car, of how her body would work both in unison, and in opposition, to the crushing compartments around her, and Vaughan’s dream of being associated with her fame “by the identical wounds inflicted on their bodies”.

The description of the car crash, with Vaughan’s semen spilling over the dashboard and Taylor’s uterus pierced by a car insignia, almost exist as a test for the unwary reader.  By this point you already know what you’re getting into – the book has accelerated from zero to a hundred in an opening salvo, and it won’t slow down.  Readers are either exhilarated by the danger, or they’re already stabbing at the brakes, ready to get out.

To say Vaughan’s character is complex is still to undersell it.  Vaughan at times seems only partly human.  His obsessions seem obtuse, yet very focused.  We are introduced to him in memoriam.  By the time we meet Vaughan in the novel, he’s already dead.  This is another idea that was dropped by Cronenberg who preferred a more linear telling of the story. 

In the movie version of Crash, death is acknowledged as the ultimate result of the actions of the main characters, those infected and acknowledging these new feelings.  The point is, it’s shown as the eventual outcome.  With the novel, the first line gives it away:  “Vaughan died yesterday in his last car-crash.”  Period, over, story told.  It's the complexities and mysteries of that car crash, of that death, that will be explored in the remaining pages.

There are so many elements of erotica in the novel that they’re difficult to represent within a ninety-minute time frame.  Just about every human-to-human sexual contact is covered.  The novel, with its greater canvas, explores a lot more, and can afford to be far more brazen.  For example, the homoerotic relationship between Vaughan and Ballard is probably one of the most controversial aspects of the film, and is held almost until the last.  The novel however jumps right in.  JG Ballard, telling the story from a first person perspective (mirrored in the film, since Ballard appears in almost every scene), discusses Vaughan’s ability to quieten him with glimpses of a “heavy groin”.  The term “erect penis” appears as early as the fourth paragraph.  If the film had begun this way, I wonder if things would have been pushed over the edge, and the proposed bans would truly have taken place?

Ballard is still staring, and talking, about Vaughan’s groin in death.  Looking down at the crash scene Ballard writes:  “I looked down for the last time at the huge groin, engorged with blood.”  There’s no mistaking that JG Ballard is brave enough to state his intentions up front.  Nothing is hidden in Crash.  Most of the confusion around its story occur because people, completely unprepared for the journey, get left at the side of the road in a strange land, with strange people, and without speaking a word of the local language.  But finding a solution to these products is at the heart of the story.

We also learn early on that Vaughan was a thief.  Vaughan steals cars for joy rides, and further, he’s a killer.  We learn that Vaughan is in the habit of stealing cars and having minor accidents in them.  In this opening chapter we hear of an accident with two air hostesses, and later, about the cold calculated death of a mongrel dog at the side of the road.  This element has been removed entirely from Cronenberg’s screenplay.  In the film, we never see him stealing a car (although there has been some speculation about the cars used to re-enact the death of James Dean – where did they get such expensive vehicles, was it simply from Seagrave?)  We also never see him killing pedestrians or animals.  In fact, it seems as though Cronenberg goes to great pains to play down this aspect.  In the movie Vaughan is questioned by police about “an accident near the airport. Some pedestrian... they think he was run over intentionally.”  Ballard responds, “Vaughan isn't interested in pedestrians.”  Vaughan's character is almost played for sympathy.

It is easy to suggest that Cronenberg downplayed, or eliminated, various elements simply because he was afraid of the consequences of putting them in:  The planned murder of Elizabeth Taylor; the theft of cars with the express purpose of crashing into others causing injury; the overt homoerotic relationship between Ballard and Vaughan.  However, the fact that Cronenberg took on the project at all, and the elements he did come up with, ought to be adequate to convince us that he was less interested in watering things down, as he was making a coherent film.

In this first chapter there is also mention of another significant scene that was scripted, and most likely filmed, although removed from the final cut of the movie.  This is a visit to a Road Research Laboratory.  There is an oblique reference to the scene in the movie, and a musical cue appears on the soundtrack CD.  As a lover of all things Crash, it gnaws at me to know these scenes might be out there somewhere, even if they didn’t fit the original vision for the film.

Several other elements from the film are explored in the opening chapter, albeit a short chapter filled with dense and suggestive ideas and concepts, almost a précis of what is to come.  For example, Vaughan’s love of prostitutes, models for his various impact dreams.  We learn that Ballard and Vaughan cruise the highways at night with their police scanner on, trying to locate accidents (this occurs in the film, but it’s not shown as a primary obsession, and they only find a single accident).  In the opening to the novel they are first to an accident scene.  Once the police arrive they leave and Vaughan goes to a prostitute so he can position her as the female victim, experimenting with her shape.  This occurs in the film without the context, as Ballard drives Vaughan down the highway while the latter has his own version of sex in the back seat.

As is often the case, complex ideas can be difficult to represent in film, but are much easier with the written word, even concepts as strange as those portrayed in Crash.  One of the questions often asked about the movie is “what is it about?”  or “why are they doing this?”  In the novel, things are made quite clear for us:

“Vaughan unfolded for me all his obsessions with the mysterious eroticism of wounds:  the perverse logic of blood-soaked instrument panels, seat-belts smeared with excrement, sun-visors lined with brain tissue.  For Vaughan each crashed car set off a tremor of excitement, in the complex geometries of a dented fender, in the unexpected variations of crushed radiator grilles, in the grotesque overhang of an instrument panel forced into the driver’s crotch as if in some calibrated act of machine fellatio.”

This central concept is difficult for many to grasp, in fact, to be fair it’s probably difficult for all of us to grasp in one respect or another.  In particular regard to the filmed version, it’s one of the aspects that seems to confound viewers.  Perhaps it’s simply too alien, or perhaps it’s an idea that Cronenberg struggled to completely put across.  In the film Vaughan has so few accidents (the only injuries he picks up on screen are during the James Dean reconstruction, and that is entirely planned) that an appreciation for his desires is perhaps harder to grasp, however much a viewer might already be alienated from them.

While Vaughan is clearly concerned with celebrity, it should be noted that the list of crash victims is not exclusive, and extends beyond the famous.  While we opened with Elizabeth Taylor, we soon rack up a long list of crash victims, both imagined and real.  In the opening chapter the following victims are mentioned:  Celebrities, middle-aged cashiers, elderly men, young women, ambassadorial limousines, celebrating children, brothers, sisters, enemies, off-duty hotel receptionists, escaping criminals, honeymooning couples, automobile stylists and laboratory technicians, child molester, overworked doctors, retired prostitutes, housewives, schizophrenics, nurses, lesbian supermarket manageress’s.  In fact, the world of Crash, the feelings, emotions, and actions that take place, encompass all people, in all walks of life.  The novel does not discriminate, and it never holds back.  We are all part of the story it tells, no matter how mundane, or indeed, shocking it might be.

Still, much attention is given over to celebrity deaths, and the imagined participation of Vaughan or others.  The novel specifically mentions the deaths of James Dean, Albert Camus, Jayne Mansfield, and John Kennedy.  It also has imagined deaths with Jacky Onassis and Ronald Reagan.  The movie re-enacts two of these, James Dean and Jayne Mansfield.  It includes John Kennedy’s in a wonderful piece of dialog between Ballard and Vaughan:  “Is that why you drive this car? I take it that you see Kennedy's assassination as a special kind of car-crash?” asks Ballard.  “The case could be made.” Vaughan replies.

Once again, I think constraints of time, and the refinement of ideas, meant Cronenberg felt at ease excluding these other elements.  Elucidation is so much easier in the written word. 

The opening chapter of the novel also contains a scene where Ballard and Catherine have taken to having their own crashes, causing what are presumably minor injuries.  The movie compresses this, and begins earlier in their evolution to a Crash lifestyle. The difficulties Cronenberg faced making a movie from the source are clear.  In the opening chapter, JG Ballard exposes everything we’ll be examining, giving us events, and ideas.  It wouldn’t be going too far to state that the novel opens like an explosion of glass, each fragment telling its own story.

Still, as an introduction it is short, indiscreet, yet honest.  As we move through the novel and tell the story of Vaughan, Ballard, and the rest of the characters, we will see better alignment with Cronenberg’s take.