The world of car-crash-sexual-fetishism is so bizarre, there needs to be a new world for these characters and their passions for automotive annihilation to seem even somewhat plausible. JG Ballard manipulates his settings, and his various descriptions of place to highlight and even affirm the twisted desires of his characters. By omitting certain visual cues, he delocates the reader in space and time and allows for a blank slate on which a new city can be sculpted. This sort of de-recognition by omission reminds me a lot of George Saunders writing style, especially in his short story (which I would certainly deem transgressive) 'Sea Oak'. He creates a stark depressing world of strip malls and highway overpasses, that seems close enough to reality, but not exactly so. While Saunders uses the imagery of grim, destitute, sometimes comically depressing pedestrian suburban landscapes, Ballard uses grandiose and futuristic imagery to set the stage for automotive violence. By limiting his world, he expands the platforms for his content.
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