This is part seven of a forthcoming book called Collected Essays.
************
This essay will examine how aspects
of paganism are recreated in The
Drowned World (1962),
Crash
(1973) and The Unlimited
Dream Company (1979) by
J. G. Ballard. It will begin by offering a definition of paganism,
which is a broad term. Close readings of The
Drowned World will
examine how the novel recreates Heidegger’s ideas on ‘being.’
It will argue that pagan memories from centuries ago recur in the
minds of its protagonist and it will argue that the novel deals with
circular notions of time which are pagan. Following this, this essay
will examine transgression in Crash.
It will argue that transgression has been identified as pagan, as
many pagan rituals involved sacrifices and trespassing borders.
Finally, this essay will examine how Dionysian rituals from Ancient
Greece resemble scenes in Crash
and The Unlimited Dream
Company.
Paganism is a broad term. Most
commonly, it refers to polytheism, which is the belief in multiple
gods, rather than one god. In contemporary parlance, it refers to any
religion other than the main religions, especially those that predate
Christianity. ‘Neo-pagans’ usually venerate pre-Christian
religions from Antiquity and follow its practices. Additionally,
pagan religions often worship nature (Jones). The Merriam-Webster
dictionary uses the terms heathen and pagan interchangeably. The
terms were the worst possible insult and crime in the Christian
world, as it meant ‘an irreligious or hedonistic person’ and
‘someone who does not believe in the God of the Bible’ (2018).
The transition from Paganism to Christianity came when the Roman
emperor Constantine became a Christian. Although he did not make
Christianity the official religion, Constantinople became a Christian
city in 325. Legal privileges were bestowed upon the Christian
church, although it retained pagan iconography (Fletcher 1997, p.
22). Christianity became the prevailing orthodoxy, apart from a brief
period when Julian the Apostate attempted to reverse it between 361
and 363 (Fletcher, p. 38). Paganism was considered heretical and it
was marginalised by Christianity. As such, it has been associated
with irrational excess:
‘Greek respect for the irrational
in the form of music and Dionysian frenzy do not fit into an
efficiently ordered technological world. Indeed, such “pagan”
practices did not even fit into the Christian understanding of being
and were marginalised in the name of disinterested agape love and
peace. These Christian practices in turn were seen as trivial or
dangerous given the Enlightenment’s emphasis on individual
maturity, self-control and autonomy’ (Dreyfus 1993, p. 359).
J. G. Ballard’s novels often
follow this prerogative, as they are set in a technological modernity
which is post-Christian and post-Enlightenment. Irrational, deviant,
immoral and ritualistic incidents occur in a world imbued with
Christian values that prescribe compassion and Enlightenment values
that prescribe rationality and autonomy. As such, they mirror the
kind of Dionysian rituals practised in Ancient Greece. Ballard’s
novels often surprise and jar contemporary readers, as they describe
incidents and carnage that does not take place in most western
societies. For instance, eroticising car crashes in Crash
seems incongruous and so do the deviant rituals described in The
Unlimited Dream Company. This
essay will try to determine why they are pagan.
This
essay will look at the ideas of Heidegger on the concept of Being and
it will gauge how they come through in The
Drowned World.
The character in the novel, Kerans, experiences history from the
earliest dawn in history. Heidegger’s concept of Being involved
experiences which are always there and persist without changing
(Blattner 1993, p. 153). As such, early pagan experiences persist in
the minds of individuals without changing. Heidegger argued that the
social world makes things intelligible, but we still cannot see
things objectively, as our understanding of representations –
images in our own mind – are shaped by the social world (Guignon,
p. 4). Hence, we use objects from the natural world for social
relations and for own personal fulfilment (Guignon, p. 4). Like
language, we can only speak constrained by the resources of that
language. Actions and thoughts are constrained by the practices of
that culture, but these practices make it intelligible (Guignon, p.
13). Therefore, ‘Being’ is comprised of the ontology of these
entities – their existence and why they exist (Frede, p. 42).
Things are either natural or holy resources, but we apprehend them in
a certain way and this apprehension is shaped by our own historical
culture (Guignon, p. 13). Thus, real Being would be primordial – in
other words, the earliest experiences that shaped western people
(Guignon, p. 13). ‘Being’ (Dasein) are the actions from the dawn
of history and something which is always there and which always
endures. It is the enduring essence, existence and substance of the
object/subject (Blattner, p. 153). These ideas are also similar to
Nietzsche’s ideas on the eternal recurrence, which argued that all
previous eras recurred and that time was one continuum. Both ideas
are similar to Greek, Hindu and Buddhist ideas, which went out of
fashion after the rise of Christianity and the end of paganism.
Nietzsche argued that if this were true it would make individuals
love life more and make the most of their lives. Hence, it was a
secular substitute for the kind of immortality that Christianity
offered (Westacott 2019). Kerans in The
Drowned World
lives in 2145 and claims to experience moments from the pre-Triassic
period, the pagan era and the 19th
century. He clings to a pagan notion of time, where the dawn of
history underpins our actions.
Having
examined Heidegger’s ideas on Being, this essay will turn to close
readings of The
Drowned World.
‘Being’ is described by Heidegger as something which is
primordial and that persists without changing. However, Kerans often
describes things taking place in his present that predate human
civilisation: ‘A large sail-backed lizard with a gigantic dorsal
fin which had been seen cruising across one of the lagoons, in all
respects indistinguishable from the Pelycosaur, an early
Pennsylvanian reptile’ (Ballard 1962, p. 9). Kerans describes a
return to the Triassic age, which seems to be displacing human
civilisation. This is closer to pagan, Hindu and Buddhist ideas on
circular time than the linear idea of time derived from Christianity.
Later on, Kerans makes allusions to the 19th
century: ‘Even the rich blue moulds spouting from the carpets in
the dark corridors adding to the 19th
century dignity’ (p. 10). He also adds: ‘He gestured at the suite
around them. Perhaps it appealed to my fin de sieclé temperament,
[…] The nearest I get to this sort of thing will be “Bouncing
with Beethoven” on the local radio’ (p. 10). The vegetation and
the surroundings even appear to add to the quality to something that
came thousands of years prior. The character even speaks about his
‘fin de sieclé temperament,’ which suggests that even his
personality has been derived from the 19th
century. It also suggests that his personality has remained unaltered
and unchanged throughout history, as Being would be an entity that is
unaltered by its social environment. Kerans alludes to 19th
century touchstones – the architecture, corridors and its music.
However, Kerans does not seem to be imbued with the cultural values
of his time. He seems to see objects through the prism of past eras,
which in some sense does not conform to the earlier definition of
Being. Natural or holy objects are made intelligible by the cultural
practices of a particular era, but Kerans makes them intelligible
with the cultural values of previous eras. Indeed, Kerans mentions
that he jettisons conventional ways of perceiving things: ‘Sometimes
he wondered what the zone of transit he himself was entering, sure
that his own withdrawal was symptomatic not of a dormant
schizophrenia, but of a radically new environment. […] where old
categories of thought would merely be an encumbrance’ (p. 14).
Kerans does not specify what the new categories of thought are, but
the text perennially mentions how he experiences moments from
primordial history.
Having
examined Heidegger’s ideas, this essay will now turn to Nietzsche’s
eternal recurrence and examine how they come through in Ballard’s
text. The world in the novel has returned to the Triassic age: ‘Rises
in temperature, humidity and radiation levels the flora and fauna of
the planet are beginning to assume the forms they displayed the last
time such conditions were presents – roughly speaking, the Triassic
period’ (p. 42). The Triassic age returns, but it displaces humans
and reptilians. Previous ages recur and there is also the sense that
time is circular. Time goes back to the genesis of existence in the
planet. Indeed, Kerans says: ‘The brief span of an individual life
is misleading. Each one of us is as old as the entire biological
kingdom, and our bloodstreams are tributaries of the great sea of its
total memory’ (p. 8). The entire history of the planet appears to
be part of the same single moment and humans constantly experience
past, present and future. Indeed, Kerans later speaks about ‘total
neuronic time’ (p. 48). Not only is the psychological history of
time circular, biology also becomes circular and returns to its
Triassic roots. Additionally, natural selection does not progress as
a result of random selections. Rather, it reverts back to its
pre-historic state:
Everywhere
there’s been an avalanche backwards into the past – so much so
that a few complex organisms which have managed to retain a foothold
unchanged on the slope look distinctly anomalous – a handful of
amphibians, the birds, and man.
It’s a curious thing that although we’ve carefully catalogued the
backwards journeys of many planets and animals, we’ve ignored the
most important creature on this planet (p. 42)
The
natural world and biology revert back to its Triassic origins, which
goes against idea that organisms adapt and progress. Biology returns
to its origins, which is similar to the kind of circular pagan
notions of time that Nietzsche suggested with his idea of eternal
recurrence.
This
essay will now turn to analyses of the novel Crash.
It will look at how the novel is transgressive. Anthony Julius
defines transgression as follows:
Four
essential meanings emerge, then: the denying of doctrinal truths;
rule-breaking, including the violating of principles, conventions,
pieties or taboos; the giving of serious offence; and the exceeding,
erasing or disordering of physical or conceptual boundaries (2002, p.
19).
Although
this essay will use this definition of transgression, it will first
of all try to establish why transgression is pagan. As this essay
already mentioned, paganism was for a long time one of the worst
crimes that someone could be charged with in the western world, as
magic and witchcraft were linked to the devil. Additionally, simply
adhering to pagan practices and beliefs was considered an aberration,
as it meant that one did not believe in the Christian God. Pagan
rituals also often involved sacrifices – in other words, they did
things which trespassed borders. Therefore, paganism is synonymous
with the denial of Christian doctrinal truths, the violation of
Christian principles and pieties, the giving of offence and the
disordering of physical and conceptual boundaries.
The
characters in Crash
wilfully subject themselves to danger and their potential deaths. It
offends pieties and taboos, as it contains highly graphic
descriptions of sex, death and injury. It also mixes the two
together, which exceeds our conceptual boundaries of what is
tolerable. Andrzej Gasiorek writes that the novel is transgressive
because it links sex with desire, links sex with death, it
depersonalises sex and that it subverts the existing social order
(2005, p. 96). In a striking scene, the main character Ballard
crashes into the car of Dr. Remington, which kills her husband.
Although this scene involves the death of Remington’s husband, the
scene is described as a sexual experience between Ballard and
Remington. In most normal circumstances, the death would be a tragedy
and the moral thing to do would be to mourn the death. Instead, it is
described as an exciting sexual encounter between Ballard and
Remington. All this is highly shocking to conventional social mores.
No sense of loss is described about his death; instead, it is
descriptive and deadpan: ‘he died on the bonnet of my car, his
blood sprayed through the fractured windshield across my face and
chest’ (Ballard 1973, p. 20). The descriptions are very medical and
refer to human organs, as if they were a case study: ‘[…] [they]
assumed that I was bleeding to death from a massive open-heart wound.
[…] My only serious injury was a severed nerve in my scalp’ (p.
20). There is no moral judgement on the event, as if it is good or
bad. It is simply described in a matter-of-fact way. No emotion is
expressed, when the occasion clearly calls for it: ‘[Dr. Remington]
has a blank and unresponsive look […] only once did emotion cross
it’ (p. 21). Disturbingly, Ballard says that she should accept the
‘miracle’ of the event (p. 21). He continues to focus on her
sexuality, even though her husband has just died: ‘the untouched
sexuality of this woman […] presided over the tragic events of this
evening’ (p. 24). This scene is highly transgressive, as it
eroticises the death of a character and no moral condemnation of this
is offered.
This
scene is highly shocking; however, the novel is strewn with several
transgressive phrases. The novel manages to be so disturbing because
it insistently deals with taboo material. For example, Ballard often
mentions bodily fluids, excrement and faeces: ‘Traces of smegma and
vaginal mucus on their hands merging with the splashed engine
coolant’ (p. 27). The protagonist is sexually aroused by death and
severe bodily injuries: ‘The delicious tremours of our erectile
tissues, the spilt blood of students with the genital fluids that
irrigated our fingers and mouths’ (p. 33). Indeed, the character
waits for a sexual partner to rub his ‘limp penis’ onto his
bandage (P. 34). The protagonist masturbates himself as he looks at
blood splattered across the car. All this is highly transgressive, as
it eroticises fluids, excrements and human waste that commonly
invokes disgust. This offends our taboos and it also trespasses on
our physical boundaries, as we would not usually tolerate the
eroticisation of these types of fluids. Additionally, cars are an
object of sexual attraction. In one instance, the protagonist likens
the body of a crippled woman to a damaged car: ‘Deformed body of
the crippled young woman, like the deformed bodies of the crashed
automobiles’ (p. 87). This is transgressive, as it once more
challenges doctrinal truths. Humans are not endowed with any value,
rights or dignity – they are just as disposable as a car. It also
suggests that the human body should be used like a piece of
machinery, regardless of its personality and humanity. This is a
criticism that is commonly levelled at pornography (Gras and Salom
2012) and Crash
has been called a pornographic novel (Gasiorek 2005).
Finally,
this essay will examine how scenes in Crash
and The
Unlimited Dream Company
resemble Dionysian rituals. These pagan rituals involved sacrifice,
drink and excess and resemble scenes in Ballard’s novels. Dionysian
rituals were centred around Dionysus, the ‘God of intoxication and
ecstasy’ (Nasstrom 2003, p. 139). This god characterised the
essence of the drama and it helped the participants of the rituals
transgress borders between the divine and human world (p. 139). Its
followers were called ‘meneads,’ which is derived from ‘madness’
(p. 139). Participants in the ritual would don masks, which would
help them cross the border between reality and fantasy (p. 139).
Dionysus would make ‘sudden appearances,’ where he would ‘spread
ecstasy and madness’ across towns and cities (p. 139). These would
be random moments of chaos and madness, which resemble many Ballard
novels. The rituals would involve dancing in mountains and attacks on
wild animals (p. 140). Holy objects were used in the rituals, which
would include a new-born child, an ear or an oat (p. 140). Ancient
Greek tragedy would represent Dionysus as a ‘transgressor of
borders,’ who would make people do deviant and immoral things. Of
course, this description is very similar to Anthony Julius’
definition of transgression and the kinds of immoral and random acts
which are enacted in Ballard’s novels.
These
are some of the activities which were enacted in Dionysian rituals.
Several of these activities resemble scenes in both Crash
and The
Unlimited Dream Company.
For instance, the characters in Crash
are middle-class professionals. Ballard is an architect and Dr.
Remington is a medical doctor. Their rationality is eroded and they
enact fantasies which cross the limits of what is acceptable. Indeed,
Ballard says that the unusual proceedings have a ‘nightmare logic’
(p. 24). Also, the characters fetishise objects in their performative
rituals, although they are not holy. Heidegger write about the role
of technological objects in secular societies. Objects can be used in
a variety of different contexts and people respond to the essential
properties of those objects (Dreyfus 1993, p. 351). The essential
properties of those objects are an inherent part of those objects;
otherwise, what is done with those objects is contingent on the
choices made by humans. The things that individuals and society do
with these objects is called ‘ostensive,’ as conceptual and
natural entities can be brought off and realised by technology (p.
351). Additionally, humans themselves become entities who are used to
achieve efficiency. The ‘ostensive’ purpose of cars is to
facilitate transport. It uses raw materials to create an object which
also acquires conceptual meanings. They are primarily associated with
transport in our culture, although they have other connotations (p.
352). Hence, this is why it seems so incongruous when they are
associated with sex and death in Crash.
Pagan Dionysian rituals were similar, as they used unusual objects –
such as new-born infants – for their sacrifices. At one point,
Ballard says this about the events: ‘A new sexuality born from a
perverse technology’ (p. 15). This goes against logic and reason,
as Dionysian rituals did. It defies our cultural understanding of
what cars are and how we have used these physical and conceptual
entities for technological purposes. Certain objects acquire
resonances – cars have multiple resonances, as they predominate in
advertising – and Ballard subverts our understanding of these
objects.
This
essay will now turn to close readings of The
Unlimited Dream Company
and will try to determine how they resemble Dionysian rituals.
Indeed, Gaziorek writes: ‘The
Unlimited Dream Company’s
Blake is the unheralded avatar of pantheism, a pagan God come to
fecundate this pale God of animate world with his phallic power’
(p. 137). Gasiorek also calls its central character Blake a
‘Dionysian tragic hero’ who ‘affirms all that is questionable
and terrible in existence’ (p. 138). Indeed, unlike Crash,
the novel has perennial references to the divine and the
supernatural. Although Blake is indeed styled as ‘a pagan God,’
he himself recognises that he is delusional: ‘My messianic
delusions’ (Ballard 1979, p. 95). He believes that he is endowed
with supernatural powers and that this belief is reciprocated by the
people who surround him: ‘His deference towards me’ (p. 95). Like
Dionyisan rituals, the border between the human and divine world is
crossed. The natural world world starts to acquire supernatural
properties, although these properties are presumably imputed by the
delusional narrator. The character crosses the border between the
natural and supernatural world by spreading his semen across the town
of Shepperton, which turns it into a primeval forest: ‘The
blood-milk flowers, like the blossom of an aberrant gladiolus,
effloresced between my legs, as if in response to my own sex’ (p.
98). In the end of the novel, the whole town – including the
animals in the zoo – acquire supernatural powers and fly away from
Shepperton. All humans, animals and plants become a single entity and
overcome the limits between the natural and supernatural. Biological
and natural limitations are transcended, as the border between
natural and divine is transcended, which Dionysian rituals sought to
achieve. Everything become one organism: ‘Celebrating the last
marriage of the animate and inanimate, of the living and the dead’
(p. 220). Additionally, flying into the air has divine connotations,
as it suggests that they are leaving the natural world and flying
into heaven.
Another
Dionysian aspect in the novel, which the previous paragraph touched
on, is madness. This is in keeping with Dionysian rituals, as their
followers were called mad and their rituals were an act of collective
madness. To begin with, Blake has an unusual psychiatric case history
and is most likely schizophrenic. He was expelled from his school for
trying to have sex with a cricket pitch (p. 12). A common cause of
schizophrenia is for the subject to feel like he is another person
(NHS 2016). Blake says the following about his formative years: ‘I
was acting a part to which someone else had been assigned’ (p. 11).
Blake writes at one point: ‘The sun was hallucinating’ (p. 96),
which suggests that his surroundings are part of his own mind, a
schizophrenic symptom. A doctor tells him: ‘You’re a pagan God,’
although she later states ‘From the inside of your own head, most
likely’ (p. 97). Although Blake himself is in all likelihood
schizophrenic, the rituals which are later enacted in the novel could
be described as acts of collective madness.
This
essay will now analyse a ritual which is enacted in the novel. The
characters in the novel transform into animals, which was a common
occurrence in Dionysian rituals, as they sought to don masks and
assume personas. During a ritual, the following happens: ‘Fish can
fly as well as humans. Cloud of silver fish fly from the river. […]
Moles and squirrels, snakes and lizards, a myriad insects were
sailing upwards. We merged together’ (p. 219). Indeed, as the
previous paragraph described, all animals become a single organism
and transcend their biological limitations. People become animals and
acquire powers that their biological natures would not otherwise
enable. It is clear that the enterprise is ritualistic and
performative, as Blake mentions that he is ‘performing for them’
(p. 85). He assumes the persona of a whale: ‘I became a right
whale’ (p. 85). He assumes its biological characteristics: ‘I
searched for my legs and arms, but they had vanished, transformed
into a powerful tail and fins (p. 85). This experience is not
confined to Blake, as the other residents of Shepperton also become
able to swim: ‘Crossed by a dozen bars of light, he broke the
surface, transformed into a svelte and handsome swordfish’ (p. 86).
Indeed, the rituals become a communal experience, as families
participate in the unusual occurrences together: ‘A father and
mother waded through the waves, each holding a child, and were
transformed into a carp’ (p. 86). In many cases, their
transformations are similar to their own physical characteristics,
which is in keeping with the Dionysian desire for personas to reflect
their visions. In one instance, an overweight woman becomes a manatee
(p. 87). The rituals which are enacted in the novel are in keeping
with Dionysian practices which sought to cross the border between the
natural and the divine, acts of collective madness and assuming
animalistic personas.
The
Drowned World
deals with circular notions of time, which defy the linear conception
of time which we have inherited from Christianity. The ideas on time
in the novel are similar to Heidegger’s ideas on ‘Being,’ as
Heidegger speculated that being remain unaltered and unchanged since
primordial times. As such, the character retains experiences that
date back to the Triassic age. However, his understanding of the
world is not shaped by his historical culture; instead, it is shaped
by previous eras. Similarly, Nietzsche’s idea of eternal recurrence
is similar to pagan ideas on time. This comes through in the novel,
as the Triassic age returns and the protagonist experiences the 19th
century. Indeed, Kerans speaks about ‘total neuronic time,’ as if
past, present and future were a single moment. This essay also dealt
with ideas on transgression, which is in some sense pagan, as pagan
rituals often trespassed borders. This essay argued that Crash
is transgressive, as no moral condemnation is offered of the actions
enacted by characters, such as the eroticisation of death. The novel
insistently includes taboo material and it fetishises bodily fluids.
This essay finished by looking at Dionysian rituals. The rituals used
unusual objects, which is similar to the use of cars in Crash. This
essay analysed scenes in The
Unlimited Dream Company
and concluded that they are similar to Dionysian rituals. This is
because they cross the border between reality and fantasy, enact acts
of collective madness and assume personas by becoming animals. These
are the pagan aspects that this essay has identified in the three
novels.
Works
Cited
Ballard,
J. G. (1962) The
Drowned World.
London: Harper Perennial.
Ballard.
J. G. (1973) Crash.
London: Paladin.
Ballard,
J. G. (1979) The
Unlimited Dream Company.
London: Paladin.
Fletcher,
Richard. (1998) The
Conversion of Europe: From Paganism to Christianity 371-1386 AD.
London: Fontana Press.
Gasiorek,
Andrzej. (2005) J.
G. Ballard.
Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Gras,
Patricia and Salum, Rose Mary. (2012) ‘The Objectification of Women
with Martha Nussbaum.’ In Literal.
Volume 29.
Guignon,
Charles B. Ed. (1993) The
Cambridge Companion to Heidegger.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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Guignon, Charles B. ‘Introduction.’ pp. 1-41.
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Frede, Dorothea. ‘The Question of Being: Heidegger’s Project.’
pp. 42-69.
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Blattner, William. ‘Laying the Ground for Metaphysics: Heidegger’s
Appropriation of Kant.’ pp. 149-176.
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Dreyfus, Hubert L. ‘Heidegger on the Connection Between Nihilism,
Art, Technology, and Politics. pp. 345-372.
Julius,
Antony. (2002) Transgressions:
The Offences of Art.
London: Thames & Hudson.
Naastrom,
Britt-Mari. (2003) ‘The Rites in the Mysteries of Dionysus: The
Birth of the Drama. In Ritualistics.
Volume 18.
