The Fair with the atrocities

the Fair with the atrocities (original title: The Atrocity Exhibition ) is an experimental novel and visionary of the British writer J.G. Ballard. Appeared initially in 1969 with the the United States, and published in 1976 in France with the editions Free field. A brought up to date edition of the book was published in 1990, was enriched by a foreword of William Burroughs, by a fragment of fiction of Jean-Jacques Schuhl, and especially of the notes and comments, for the majority ironic, of Ballard itself on its own texts. The book was adapted to the cinema by Jonathan Weiss in 2001.

The history deliberately confused, consists of independent fragments - written as from 1965 -, in the line, to a certain extent, of the model of writing of William Burroughs, of which J.G. Ballard is an admiror of long time. Each chapter is split in sub-chapters of only one paragraph, thus constituting a puzzle of little stories with a particular central theme, that Ballard itself calls “condensed novels”. The book does not comprise a beginning nor of end, and the narration at all does not follow the contractual and linear arrangements of the novel. The central figure changes identity in each chapter (Talbert, Traven, Travis, Talbot, etc), as if its vision of the world changed constantly with him.

The topic of the history consists of a description of the media landscape and cultural which invades and breaks the spirit of the individual. Suffering from headaches, the protagonist, doctor déboussolé in a psychiatric hospital, harness themselves with various experiments based on the visual matter of the media culture which surrounds it: the Suicide of Marilyn Monroe, the bends of Hiroshima, the Assassinat of John F. Kennedy, embeddings of luxury cars - topic that Ballard will develop then in Crash! (1973).

This novel inspired certain artists in the world of the Rock. A song of Joy Division takes again the English title of the novel, Atrocity Exhibition , on the album Closer . The album of Merzbow Great American Nude car its name of the one of the chapters of the novel. In addition, two songs of the album Sacrifice of Gary Numan refer to the book: Coils and Napalm and off has Question Faith , which contain the sentences “I' L Be your exhibition off atrocity”.

External bond

Interview of Jonathan Weiss on the novel and his adaptation to the cinema

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