Apophasis and motifs in Crash (2nd Reading)

Apophasis is “absence of belief.” (18) I found this notion to be fundamentally contradictory because, by definition, apophasis also suggests an unnamable belief.  An unnamable belief, while abstract and unspecific, is still a belief in something.  I like the term anarchistic here, because while an anarchist may be anti-establishment and anti-just-about-everything, an anarchist is firm in his or her opposition.  In other words, the stance of opposition alone, even in the absence of clear-cut goals in mind, is still a belief.  So can an apophatic believe in his or her apophasis?: I guess the answer must be YES.

I think Ballard in Crash certainly illustrates “a warped view of conventional literary forms and societal beliefs.” (18) One could argue that Ballard is an apophatic writer, and that the way he expresses this disposition is through satire.  If satire “mocks through exaggerated mimicry,” (5) Ballard writing qualifies.  He exaggerates human sexuality and presents it in ways that are not only new, but offensive to most readers.  Ballard is commenting on a society whose relationship to technology is codependent and confusing: he says, “…the failure of the technical relationship between my own body, the assumptions of the skin, and the engineering structure which supported it.” (68) Furthermore, Ballard also considers the severe restrictions in place on social behaviors such as sexuality and the effects thereof.  Maybe Ballard apophasis is his absence of belief in British social norms, but he certainly believes it needs to change.

More generally: the plot has developed tremendously in our second set of reading in Crash.  We are reintroduced to Vaughan: we learn he is a photographer of sorts and that he keeps reappearing in Ballard life.  Vaughan’s appearances suggest that he may be following Ballard, or that Ballard is seeking out Vaughan?  In addition, Ballard interacts intimately (and sexually) with Helen, with whom he crashed and sent to the hospital.  Their relationship is extraordinary, because she willingly engages with the man who is responsible for the death of her husband.  Helen comes across as apathetic, as one who shows no remorse for the death of her husband.  I’m interested to figure out how alike she and Ballard are, and if their relationship is possible.  I also believe that Ballard the author communicates certain ideas through Helen that he had not done with Ballard’s character.  For example, Helen says, “There’s a certain moral virtue in being materialistic.” (78) How much of this is really Ballard, and should the reader understand this statement through a satirical filter? 

I have noticed several motifs, but the one that continues to reappear is the motif of thighs.  Ballard is obsessed with thighs indiscriminate of gender.  At one point, Ballard demonstrates a lust for Vaughan’s thighs.  He repeatedly speaks of the thigh of the women he encounters: Catherine and Helen (more obviously), but also of those he encounters briefly, like the nurses at the hospital.  Perhaps Ballard is taking something that he knows many people believe to be inherently sexual parts of the body and using this assumption to catch the reader off guard.  He begins many of the sexual moments in the story with a description of thighs, but then he quickly relates the flesh to the mechanisms of cars, to the technology surrounding the bodies which inhabit the vehicles.