The Rachel Shihor Interview
Graphs, Maps, Trees
[Throughout December I'm going to talk about my favorites books that I read in 2011. These aren't necessarily 2011 releases, though a lot of them are.]
Let’s start this off with something a little different: Crash by J.G. Ballard and Remainder by Tom McCarthy. I pair them because Remainder is obviously McCarthy’s attempt to rewrite Crash.
Crash is the story of a man whose sexuality is changed radically after he gets into a car crash. What I think is most interesting about this book is how Ballard attempts to make this shifting of sexuality into a shifting of reality—the narrator sees automobiles as entirely different objects before and after the car crash, and his perception of reality re-organizes itself around this new sexuality. In other words, this is a bold, bold book that takes on one of the most fundamental objects to our world order, assigns it a new meaning, and attempts to create a story set within this new world. I think Ballard succeeds, which makes Crash a work of impressive imagination.
Remainder also begins with a crash—the book’s narrator is hit on the head by a mysterious object, for which he receives a cash settlement of some million British pounds. The settlement enables him to carry out an obsession that seems to have come to him when he gets hit on the head. So obviously here we have the same framework—mysterious accident creates new sense of reality—but instead of toward sex, McCarthy takes it toward memory and death. The book comprises one of the most original and engrossing narratives I read this whole year. My only complaint is that it’s marred by a few stretches of slack prose and some contrived set-pieces. If those had been edited out it would have been an amazing debut; but, scars intact, it’s still a remarkable novel.
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Both novels also provoke a sense of horror, each in its own way. In “Crash,” it’s because of how convincing Ballard is at showing the protagonist’s sexual attractions to cars and car accidents. In “Remainder,” the protagonist’s relentless push towards realizing his reproductions — and his almost autistic disregard for any problems they might engender — is often quite disturbing, even villainous.