Byron the Bulb, Blade Runner and other topics (was Re: Death) (fwd)

[Charles A. Baldwin]

I think the Atrocity Exhibition would be interesting to compare to GR --
considering what an "atrocity" and an "exhibition" might be vis a vis the
rocketry or cinematics of GR.

>Personally, I've always thought a comparison b/w Pynchon and J.G. Ballard
>would be most interesting, esp. since the two discuss very similar
>themes.  Of course, Pynchon seems to retain a certain morality which
>Ballard seems to eschew...i.e. Baudrillard's comment that "nowhere [in
>Crash] does that moral gaze surface": Ballard's chars. tend to be
>completely dehumanized, whereas Pynchon's still contain the possibility
>of redemption (even Blicero).

But I have to admit that as much as I like Ballard, I find a sort of
residual purience in his writing, that IMHO is a "certain morality" --
not in the characters, but in that very same "surface" that JB refers to,
the surface that always leaves characters dead or in some onanistic mirror
state with a tv or something like that -- there's an element of the
"guilty pleasure."