Collected Essays - video

Planet Zhelanie - Video

COLLECTED ESSAYS

I am really rather fond of my hinterland. Hence, I have written a book called 'Collected Essays,' where I explore it. In this book I write about literature, music, film, philosophy, history and politics. I will print and bind twenty copies for anyone who's interested. I won't charge you any money for it and it comes for free by post.

Contents:

1. 2001: Cinema as a Platonic Ideal
2. Jazz and Democracy
3. It’s a Wonderful Life and the New Deal
4. Literary Creativity in Cinema
5. The 1950s and the 1990s: Prosperous Complacency
6. The Communal Town and the Liberal City
7. Paganism in the Fiction of J. G. Ballard
8. The Library of Babel and the Internet

If you would like a copy, send an email to simonking19965@gmail.com 

The Library of Babel and the Internet

‘The Library of Babel’ is part of Jorge Luis Borges’ collection of short stories, Ficciones, which was published in 1944. It is about a vast, nearly infinite library which constantly expands and which contains every possible permutation of language and lived experience. Borges was a tremendously erudite author and he was extremely well-read. Books and libraries were a central part of his life since an early age: ‘Borges's father, had a large library of English and Spanish books, and his son, whose frail constitution made it impossible to participate in more strenuous activities, spent many hours reading. "If I were asked to name the chief event in my life, I should say my father's library," Borges stated’ (Poetry Foundation 2019). Although Borges was Argentinean, his writing has been called cosmopolitan, as he synthesised ideas from several literary cultures. His writing was self-referential, intertextual and has been called ‘metafiction.’ ‘The Library of Babel’ is one of Borges’ most famous stories and encapsulates all of these elements. In the contemporary world, the vastest source of knowledge could possibly be the internet. The purpose of this essay is to compare Borges’ library with aspects of the internet. 

This essay will begin by defining the technical and conceptual principles of the internet. The internet can be broadly defined as a network that connects people all over the world (Porter 2018). It works according to a set of agreed protocols, which are the Control Protocol (TCP) and the Internet Protocol (IP). The internet is partly enabled by a ‘packet switching system,’ where a message is broken into a packet that is transmitted independently across the internet. These packets are called ‘Datagrams,’ although the messages are sometimes transmitted across different routes. The information is comprised of the number of protocols in use, the IP address of the sender and the IP address of the recipient (Porter 2018). Conceptually, the internet had very clear principles. The internet was founded by Tim Berners-Lee, who had egalitarian principles in mind. He wanted the internet to be decentralised, where ‘no central authority could post anything on the web,’ (Web Foundation 2012) which also applies to freedom from censorship and surveillance. Bernes-Lee wanted the internet to be free from discrimination; that is, everyone should be on an equal level. He said: ‘This principle of equity is called net neutrality.’ (Web Foundation) Additionally, the internet would be governed by wholly democratic principles. Instead of the code being written by a distant group of experts, anyone could write code for websites. Finally, the internet would also be universal; it would be open to all people, regardless of their culture, their languages and the software that they used. Different cultures would be able to interrelate and true ‘diversity’ would ‘flourish.’ (Web Foundation). In order for all of this work, a consensus would have to be established, as everyone would have to agree with each other to make these principles work (Web Foundation). However, these principles have not been adhered to. Decentralisation has not occurred, as monolithic corporations and governments keep the data of individuals. Individuals are often abusive on social media platforms and discriminate others on the grounds of gender and race. The internet has not created greater democracy, universality and consensus, as groups become more polarised and vitriolic. They create their own ‘safe spaces’ and do not engage with one another. Indeed, Stuart Jeffries of The Guardian writes as to how big companies take over our data, infringe over our civil liberties and how the internet has facilitated the spread of misogyny, revenge porn, racism and bullying (2014).

Meanwhile, the library of Babel claims to store every book ever written. Allegedly, it stores every possible permutation of all the letters in the alphabet and its permutations are nearly infinite. This essay will try to establish the characteristics which it shares with the internet. It will start by comparing the workings of Borges’ library with algorithms of the internet. In Borges’ case, the library is of such perfection that is of divine provenance: ‘[It] can only be the work of a God’ (Borges 1944, p. 59). The library has librarians, but they are ‘fallible’ and ‘may be the work of chance’ (p. 59). Meanwhile, the internet is obviously created by man, but it uses systematic networks which surpass human fallibility. For instance, this essay has already established that it uses ‘Control’ and ‘Internet’ protocols. Indeed, Borges claims that the library has ‘exact, delicate, intensely black, inimitably symmetric’ (p. 59) principles, which mirrors the kind of algorithms that the internet adheres to. However, like the fallible users of the library of Babel, the users of the internet are imperfect and abuse the principles that Bernes-Lee proposed. However, although its principles are ‘exact,’ the library ends up producing books comprised of pure gibberish. Certain books are ‘chaotic, random, formless’ (p. 60). The library stores several books which are only comprised of variations of the letters MCV. Although the books are largely meaningless, they occasionally include something intelligible (p. 60) However, they are largely meaningless: ‘There are leagues of insensate cacophony, of verbal farragoes and incoherencies’ (p. 60). These books do not seem to be entirely arbitrary, as they are comprised of the same letters and the librarians try to look for meaning in them. Indeed, the librarians recognise patterns in the books: ‘Each letter could influence the next’ (p. 60). This is similar to bots on the internet, which end up producing gibberish. These internet bots are ‘software that performs an automated task over the internet. […] A bot is an automated application used to perform simple and repetitive tasks that would be time-consuming, mundane or impossible for a human to perform. Bots are also frequently used for malicious purposes’ (Technopedia).

The texts in Borges’ library probably mean nothing, but this does not prevent the librarians from interpreting them. Those librarians who do not look for meaning in them are the exception, as there is a ‘wild region that repudiates’ (p. 60) looking for meaning in them. For instance, many people look for meaning in the work of French post-modernist philosophers like Gilles Deleuze, which are in all likelihood meaningless. For instance, Alan Sokal wrote an article filled with gibberish, sent it to a post-modernist journal and they published it without peer-reviewing it (Goldacre 2003). Indeed, there is even a ‘post-modernist bot’ which produces texts that resemble the writings of post-modernist philosophy. It is an automated application produced by coding, but it still follows grammatical rules and the result is meaningless. (The website generated the following essay when I clicked on it: ‘The Consensus of Paradigm: Subtextual Dialectic Theory in the Works of Fellini.’) (Bulhak 2000) This is similar to the ‘MCV’ books in Borges’ library, as they generate meaningless texts which adhere to patterns.

Bernes-Lee wanted the internet to be multilingual and cosmopolitan, a true bastion of diversity. The same is true for Borges’ library, as it produces books which are a composite of several languages. It produces a book which is ‘written in a Samayed-Lithuanian dialect of Guaraní with classical Arabic inflections,’ Guaraní being an aboriginal Paraguayan language. The library is cosmopolitan, as it is comprised of a plurality of languages. It even produces books which amalgamate several obscure languages together and which are multilingual. One of the five central principles established by Bernes-Lee included universalism. Cultural and political beliefs and software should not be an impediment to plurality and diversity. Different cultures should mingle together, the software should enable this and cultures should not be at war with one another. This is also facilitated by the widespread use of English, which many people from different cultures can speak. As Borges mentions in his story, this peculiar text can be deciphered because it is ‘made up of uniform elements: the period, the comma, the space, the twenty-two letters of the alphabet’ (p. 61). The book can eventually be deciphered because most languages share similar grammatical rules. Likewise, anthropologists, linguists and archaeologists can decipher extinct languages for this reason (Pye 1988, p. 123). Indeed, Noam Chomsky formulated his idea of ‘Universal Generative Grammar’ partly for this reason. According to Chomsky, all human languages are innate since all humans have the capacity to learn them, which accounts for the grammatic similarity of languages (Nordquist 2018). Bernes-Lee wanted the whole world to unite, as the uniformity of human cognition and language would enable them to communicate with each other and overcome cultural and tribal divisions.

Although the library of Babel and the internet are vast, each book in the library and each page on the internet is different. Borges writes: ‘Everything can be expressed in all languages’ (p. 61) meaning that every possible permutation is realised in the library. Despite this, every single book in the library is different: ‘There are not, in the whole vast library, two identical books’ (p. 61). This is similar to the internet, as on the internet each page has a different URL. Each URL differentiates one page from other pages. Each URL is comprised of the protocol which is used to access the source, the location of the server, the port number of the server and the location of the server (Technopedia). Additionally, pages on the internet are written by individuals who all have different DNA. Every DNA strand is different: ‘Each DNA strand contains a unique sequence or code of genetic information’ (University of Leicester). However, each DNA strand is made up of the same twenty-three chromosomes. This is similar to the library of Babel, as Borges points out that each book is made up of the same orthographic symbols (p. 61). Every individual, with his own strand of DNA, creates the content of each individual page on the internet. There are billions of individuals and, indeed, the internet is also vast, as it is comprised of 4.45 billion pages with its own individual URL (Newcomb 2015).

The librarians who populate Borges’ library share similar characteristics as users of social media. The library harbours ‘Inquisitors,’ who look for a book which will vindicate their particular worldview: ‘Covetous persons leave their hexagons and look for their vindications’ (p. 62). This is similar to platforms like Twitter, where people stay in their particular political tribes and safe space and post material that vindicates their worldview. Indeed, Borges writes the following about the Inquisitor’s books: ‘The universe was justified’ (p. 62). Indeed, the search is highly personal: ‘finding his own book’ (p. 62). Websites like Twitter are highly partisan and divided, where people from certain political persuasions read the same news sources and are highly vitriolic to each other. Indeed, people tend to read material that confirms their world-view, like the Inquisitors in the library of Babel. According to Levi Boxell, this creates ‘enclave extremism’ and ‘enclaves of like-minded people’ (2017). Indeed, empirical data confirms that like-minded people tend to read the same political blogs (Adanic and Glance 2005), visit the same websites (Gentzkov and Shapiro 2011) and share the same political retweets (Conover et. Al. 2014) (Boxell). Whilst Twitter is highly vitriolic and abusive, the Inquisitors in the library are violent: ‘Strangled each other on the stairway. […] [They] died as they were thrown into space’ (p. 62). Users of Twitter are also abusive and harassing and their behaviour often violates the rules of the website (Mac 2019). Of course, this violates one of Bernes-Lee’s central principles – that users of the internet should treat each other as equals.

The Library contains a sect that tries to create canonical books, which this essay will argue is similar to the illegal activities of the website Wikileaks. There is a sect which cannot access certain canonical books and these books resemble classified documents: ‘That these books were inaccessible seemed almost intolerable’ (p. 63). As such, a ‘blasphemous sect’ tries to replicate them: ‘A blasphemous sect suggested that all searches be given up and that men everywhere shuffle letters and symbols until they succeeded in composing, by means of an improbable stroke of luck, the canonical books’ (p. 63). This act is considered to be illegal by the authorities of the library: ‘The authorities found themselves obliged to issue several orders’ (p. 63). ‘Shuffling’ letters in this case is similar to the hacking of confidential documents. Confidential information is important because it secures the collective well-being of society, even if it infringes on the civil liberties of the individual. These canonical books are inaccessible and hard to find, like confidential information. They are lost in a sea of vast information; it might possibly be concealed because releasing it might be equally inflammatory. For instance, the Inquisitors kill each other to find their vindications. The societal damage in the library of certain books is enormous, as it leads to violence and civil strife. Meanwhile, Wikileaks is illegal because it published confidential information on Iraq, Hillary Clinton’s emails and information that the NSA kept on individuals. They did this by hacking into confidential classified kept by government computers (Stack, Cummings-Bruce, Kruhly 2019). They broke the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act and the Espionage Act (Groll 2019). Governments increased their surveillance after 9/11: ‘A greater governmental control of information, fewer procedural protections for people linked to terrorism (as either suspects or material witnesses) and enhanced governmental surveillance’ (Baker 2003, p. 549). In this case, the collective security of the nation was considered more important than the civil liberties of the individual. When Wikileaks hacked into this information, it posed a threat to several individuals and put the collective security of the nation in jeopardy, as it made confidential information readily available to terrorists. The collective security of the library is also put under threat by the activities of this sect, as it could potentially lead to more civil strife.

The library also harbours another illegal activity – the burning of books. This is a highly treacherous act, as the ethos of the library is constant expansion, breadth and totality. Burning books and reducing its scope contrary to its ethos. They are called ‘Purifiers,’ which suggests that they are ideologically pure and that they are fanatics. Their intentions are sinister and, like the inquisitors who try to recreate the canonical books, blasphemous: ‘Groups of people would invade the hexagons. […] [They would] condemn entire bookshelves to destruction: their ascetic, hygienic fury is responsible for the senseless loss of millions of books’ (p. 63). However, Borges claims that they burn unimportant books, as they ‘eliminate useless works’ (p. 63). Similarly, the internet harbours a lot of illegal activity, which is called ‘the dark web.’ Kristin Finkles writes that the deep web includes material that is not indexed by search engines (2017, p. 1). Similarly, the book burners in the Library of Babel seek obscure material that is not easily accessible: ‘They were spurred by the delirium of storming the books in the Crimson Hexagon: books of a smaller than ordinary format’ (p. 63). Meanwhile, the dark web is intentionally hidden and cannot be accessed unless someone uses special software (Finkles, p. 1). The dark web is used for a variety of illegal activities, such as drugs, weapons, stolen goods, hired thieves, hired assassins and child pornography (p. 9). The social harm of these kind of activities is enormous and covert, which is similar to the activities of the Purifiers. 

The knowledge in the Library of Babel is all-encompassing and it is endless. For instance, there is a ‘total book,’ which comprises all other books: ‘A perfect compendium of all the rest’ (p. 63). Anyone who reads the book becomes a God (p. 63). This is similar to Immanuel Kant’s idea of ‘total experience.’ The knowledge of an individual is limited to his possible experience. Having ‘total experience’ would mean that an individual would have transcendent omniscient experience of everything that has ever happened. In other words, an individual would have to be God (Scruton, p. 55).  The libraries can never find this individual: ‘Many pilgrimages have sought him out. For a century they have tried the most diverse routes in vain’ (p. 64). This is similar to God and religion, as God never reveals himself to his followers. However, even this omniscience is not enough. Even if one were to read the entire library, it would keep repeating itself: ‘The library is limitless and periodic. If an eternal voyager were to traverse it in any direction, he would find, after many centuries, that the same volumes are repeated in the same disorder’ (p. 66). One reading of a text is not sufficient; each text lends itself to a plethora of interpretations. Even if one were to read every single book ever written, even then one’s knowledge of all of these books would not be sufficient. The internet has aspects which are similar to both of the notion of the total book and the infinite breadth of the library. The total book is similar to a search engine such as Google, which encompasses almost the entirety of the internet. It contains hundreds of billions of pages – it virtually contains every single page on the internet (Fisher 2019). The web browser collects all data related to the page. It also contains information as to how often the page is updated, how trustworthy the domain is and how many times the page is updated on the internet (Fisher). This is similar to the kind of ‘total experience’ that the librarian attains after reading the total book, as the search engine contains information about almost the entirety of the internet and relevant information. Similarly, the internet contains endless interpretations of books. It contains a vast body of secondary criticism on literature, which proves that texts lend themselves to endless interpretations and that multiple readings reveal new insights. However, the rise of blogs and social media provides an outlet for limitless interpretations. This does conform to one of the principles that Bernes-Lee offered for the internet, as it democratises knowledge. For instance, there are 85 million users on Goodreads, a website that lets its users to list and review books (Clement 2019).

‘The Library of Babel’ and the internet share many similarities. The internet was created to disseminate and democratise knowledge, although it has not adhered to its egalitarian principles. The internet creates many bots that produce unintelligible writing, which also occurs in Borges’ story. The library creates books solely comprised of the letters MCV, although they are also generated by patterns. The internet was created by Bernes-Lee, who wanted it to be a multilingual and cosmopolitan environment were different cultures would treat each other as equals. This is also recreated in the short story, as the library of Babel produces books which are a synthesis of several languages. The languages are composed of the same grammatical rules whilst, similarly, all pages on the internet can be accessed by the same software. Borges claims that, although the library is vast, each individual book is different. This is similar to the internet, as each page as its own individual URL and each page is created by an individual with his own DNA. Although the internet was founded on egalitarian principles, where people would treat each other as equals, it has since led to abusive behaviour, particularly on platforms such as Twitter. This is similar to the Inquisitors in Borges’ library who, like many Twitter users, want to vindicate their particular world-view. The fights between the Inquisitors are similar to many Twitter spats. This essay also compared illegal behaviour in the library to illegal behaviour on the internet. There is a sect that tries to recreate canonical books that cannot be accessed, which leads to the authorities stamping it out. This essay compared this to Wikileaks, as they hacked into classified documents. The other type of illegal activity that lurks in the internet is ‘the dark web’ which, to a greater degree than Wikileaks, poses a threat to society. This essay compared this to book burning in the library, as this activity is also transgressive and occurs in obscure and underground parts of the library. Finally, the library of Babel lends itself to multiple interpretations. For instance, it contains a total book that encompasses all other books. The individual who reads this book becomes a God, although none of the other librarians can find him. This essay compared this with search engines such as Google, which encompass almost the entire internet. The library of Babel keeps repeating itself, since it can never be understood even if an individual reads each book. This is because each individual book lends itself to so many interpretations. The internet stores limitless interpretations and its archive of secondary criticism is enormous. These are the similarities that this essay identified between the internet and ‘The Library of Babel’ by Jorge Luis Borges.

Works Cited

            Borges, Jorge Luis. (1944) Ficciones. Translated by John Sturrock. London: Everyman’s Library.

Boxell, Levi. (2017) ‘The Internet, Social Media and Political Polarisation.’ [Online] Vox. Available from:

Bulhak, Andrew C. (2000) [Online] Communications from Elsewhere. Available from: http://www.elsewhere.org/journal/pomo/

Clement, J. (2019) ‘Number of Registered Users on Goodreads from May 2011 to March 2019’. [Online] Statista. Available from: https://www.statista.com/statistics/252986/number-of-registered-members-on-goodreadscom/

Fisher, Tim. (2019) ‘Do Search Engines Search the Entire Web?’ [Online] Lifewire. Available from: https://www.lifewire.com/do-search-engines-search-entire-web-3482878

 Goldacre, Ben. (2003) ‘The Sokal Affiar.’ [Online] The Guardian. Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/science/2003/jun/05/badscience.research

Groll, Elias. (2019) ‘Julian Assange’s Legal Troubles, Explained.’ [Online] Foreign Policy. Available from: https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44101.pdf://foreignpolicy.com/2019/04/11/julian-assanges-legal-trouble-explained/

Jeffries, Stuart. (2014) ‘How the Web Lost its Way – and its Founding Principles.’ [Online] The Guardian. Available from: https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/aug/24/internet-lost-its-way-tim-berners-lee-world-wide-web

Mac, Ryan (2019) ‘Trump Tweets that Violate Twitter’s Rules Will Now Get a New Label.’ [Online] BuzzFeed News. Available from: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/ryanmac/twitter-world-leader-trump-tweets-warning-label

                Newcomb, Alyssa. (2015) ‘How Many Pages It Would Take to Print the Entire Internet’ [Online] ABC News. Available from: https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/pages-takes-print-entire-internet/story?id=30956365

Nordquist, Richard. (2018) ‘Universal Grammar (UG).’ [Online] Thought Co. Available from: https://www.thoughtco.com/universal-grammar-1692571

Pye, Clifton. (1988) ‘Towards an Anthropology of Language Acquisition.’ In Language Sciences. 10:1, p. 123-146.

Scruton, Roger. (2001) Kant: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Scobey, Porter. (2018) ‘Basic Internet Principles.’ [Online] Saint Mary’s University. Available from: http://cs.smu.ca/~porter/csc/465/notes/net/internetprinciples.html

Stack, Cumming- Bruce and Kruhly. (2019) ‘How Julian Assange and WikiLeaks Became Targets of the U. S. Government.’ [Online] New York Times. Available from: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/world/julian-assange-wikileaks.html

Unknown Author. (2012) ‘History of the Web.’ [Online] World Wide Web Foundation. Available from: https://webfoundation.org/about/vision/history-of-the-web/

Unknown Author. ‘Internet Bot.’ [Online] Technopedia. Available from: https://www.techopedia.com/definition/24063/internet-bot

Unknown Author. Uniform Resource Locator (URL) [Online] Technopedia. Available from: https://www.techopedia.com/definition/1352/uniform-resource-locator-url

Unknown Author. ‘Genetic Fingerprinting Explained. [Online] University of Leicester. Available from: https://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/genetics/jeffreys/explained

            Unknown Author. Jorge Luis Borges 1899-1986. [Online] Poetry Foundation. Available from: https://www.lifewire.com/do-search-engines-search-entire-web-3482878

Fischer

Winamop has published another story of mine, which is called 'Fischer.'. Here's the description on the website: 'Simon King looks into the lives of famous characters and imagines a pivotal day. This time it's chess grandmaster Bobby Fischer in his hotel on the day before his match against Boris Spassky.'

Part six of a forthcoming book called Fifteen Characters: Loners and Altruists.

http://www.winamop.com/sk1902.htm

Bielsa

Winamop has kindly published another short story of mine - it's called 'Bielsa.' This is the description that the editor used on the site: 'Simon King goes inside the heads of famous names from the past. This time he imagines the night before a big match in the hotel room of Argentinian soccer manager Marcelo Bielsa back in 2002 as he prepared for the FIFA World Cup in Tokyo.' 

Part five of a forthcoming book called Fifteen Characters: Loners and Altruists. 

http://winamop.com/sk1901.htm

Paganism in the Fiction of J. G. Ballard

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 19^th 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 19^th century: ‘Even the rich blue moulds spouting from the carpets in the dark corridors adding to the 19^th 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 19^th 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 19^th 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 19^th 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

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Ballard. J. G. (1973) Crash. London: Paladin.

Ballard, J. G. (1979) The Unlimited Dream Company. London: Paladin.

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Westacott, Emerys. (2019) Nietzsche’s Idea of Eternal Recurrence. [Online] Thought Co. Available from: https://www.thoughtco.com/nietzsches-idea-of-the-eternal-recurrence-2670659