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The Atrocity Exhibition

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The Atrocity Exhibition

By: J. G. Ballard
Narrated by: William Gaminara
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About this listen

A prophetic and experimental masterpiece by J. G. Ballard, the acclaimed author of Crash and Super-Cannes. This edition features explanatory notes from the author.

The irrational, all-pervading violence of the modern world is the subject of this extraordinary tour de force. The central character’s dreams are haunted by images of John F. Kennedy and Marilyn Monroe, dead astronauts and car-crash victims as he traverses the screaming wastes of nervous breakdown.

Seeking his sanity, he casts himself in a number of roles: H-bomber pilot, presidential assassin, crash victim, psychopath. Finally, through the black, perverse magic of violence he transcends his psychic turmoil to find the key to a bizarre new sexuality.

J. G. Ballard was born in 1930 in Shanghai, where his father was a businessman. After internment in a civilian prison camp, he and his family returned to England in 1946.

He published his first novel, The Drowned World, in 1961. His 1984 best seller Empire of the Sun won the Guardian Fiction Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize. It was later filmed by Steven Spielberg. His memoir Miracles of Life was published in 2008. J. G. Ballard died in 2009.

©1990 J. G. Ballard (P)2014 Audible Studios Classics Fantasy Fiction Genre Fiction Literary Fiction Political Science Fiction
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As so often with Ballard (for whom I have almost unbounded admiration), I find myself absolutely unable to recommend this work without caveats and qualifications. As a commentary on human society from the late 20th century onwards, it is apposite and trenchant in its depictions. As a collection of writings, it is frequently revolting and its subject matter almost flirts with the especially perverted fringe of pornography. This is not frivolous: he is holding a mirror up to our society and if we don’t like what we see, it’s not really of his invention.
Challenging, certainly. Interesting and provocative, absolutely. But you won’t sleep the better for having read or listened to it.
You have been warned.

Repellent and compelling.

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