cheers, simon.

Sorry about that. I guess I got confused with all the ‘Rick’s here – and I’m not making it any simpler. Well, the compliment still stands!

I’ll come back to this site, I really like it (took the RSS feed).

Bye
Rick.

mr mcgrath is here:
http://www.rickmcgrath.com/jgb.html

Great site you have here! I just wanted to let you know I included a link to this page in a recent blog post concerning ‘Crash’ and its role in the conception of the Mute record label. I hope you don’t mind, and keep up this wonderful, informative site.

Goodbye,
Rick.

Re: JGB’s rejection, I’m afraid I don’t recall the precise reasons as I wasn’t involved in the discussion. It was a surprise, however, since Ballard has known one of Savoy’s directors, Michael Butterworth, since the late 60s when they were both writing for New Worlds. Not only that, he provided a quote on request for the Savoy reprint of The Exploits of Engelbrecht by Maurice Richardson, a book he counts as a personal favourite. There may have been some extra material planned since this has been the case with other Savoy editions–the Engelbrecht book included all the illustrations from the original printings of the stories and an extra story of Richardson’s. Not sure what was planned for Crash as it required the permission issue to be sorted out first.

I suspect some of it may be down to Ballard’s stated dislike of “special editions” of books, which this would have been by default since all Savoy titles are limited runs. But he had no problem with the large format illustrated edition of The Drowned World that Dragon’s Dream produced in 1981 so it’s difficult to say.

Incidentally, I can’t seem to follow that link you gave for the Penthouse spread -I get a ‘this domain name has been registered with easyspace’ message. I can find your home page though … which bit is the Penthouse picture on?

Regarding the remark about pornographic content, Mr. Ballard may like to know that the proposed Savoy Books edition he rejected last year would have been designed by me. Since Savoy likes to take chances and doesn’t operate according to the usual commercial imperatives I was fully intending on foregrounding the explicit nature of the book’s content. Not sure exactly how I would have gone about this since the project was spiked but I was disappointed to miss the opportunity.

Conversely, the fact that Ballard likes the Foss cover — which I find hideous — makes me glad that I’m able to conjure up my own mental images when I read his work. It reminds me of the reason that Flaubert objected very strongly to illustrations in books: they defined too much and thereby limited the ability of the reader to make associations with the words.

All of which takes me back to the comment I left on the Rick McGrath piece. The more I think about it, the more I’m inclined to say that the best Ballard cover is the one with no illustration at all.

On the French licking tongue cover: “New to me – pretty awful, though Crash was a very big publishing success in France, so the artist probably felt free to be playful.”

On the Dutch shattered windscreen cover: “The woman looks frightened, when she should look aroused.”

On the American woman-in-the-desert cover: “. . . stylised but weak – the desert landscape appears nowhere in the novel, nor the faceless woman in the vest – it gives no clues to the novel itself.”

On the Spanish rolling car cover: “Weak.” (No other comment.)

In the course of two letters about Crash’s cover designs, Ballard made quite a few more dismissive comments about other covers not shown above. His second letter concluded:

“Looking through this, I see I’ve been rather negative, though probably no more than most writers – Crash is a special case, in the sense that the artist and designer have to decide how explicit they are going to be, how true to the novel, which in many ways is openly pornographic (a key part of the strategem that sustains it) – most of the jackets/covers either compromise or evade the problem, with predictable results.”

I suspect the main reason that image is on the movie tie-in edition is that it was on most of the film posters.

But I wonder how many people picked up the ‘Now a major motion picture’ edition after seeing that godawful LA ‘Ooh, racial issues!’ film that nicked the title? Wonder how many read it?

If we’re going for subtlety, I prefer the film still of James Spader reaching up and adjusting the rear view mirror, which was used on the cover of the BFI’s book about Cronenberg’s Crash by Iain Sinclair. This image perfectly suggests the character’s voyeurism: there is no one else in the car and all you can see behind him is a hot red glare, leaving you to speculate about what he is looking at and why it fascinates him.

John, thanks for showing us the Penthouse spread. I hadn’t seen that before.

I’ve got a copy of Penthouse from 1974 (vol. 8, no. 10) with the first chapter of Crash as a story feature. I wonder what the one-handed readers made of that? You can see the opening spread here:

http://www.johncoulthart.com/images/crash_penthouse.jpg

Illustrator is uncredited but for a barely-discernible signature: Dean Vararecky? Vakarecky? The aviator-style helmet and goggles makes the driver seem connected in some way to Ballard’s dislocated pilots.

Bottom line: the “job” of a book cover is not to represent the contents, but to get you to pick the book off the shelf. How well it does that, alas, is its real raison d’être. Everything else is subjective.