Editing Crash (Ballard novel) (section)

==Critical reception==
The novel received divided reviews when originally published. One [[publisher's reader]] returned the verdict "This author is beyond psychiatric help. Do Not Publish!"<ref>{{Cite magazine|url=https://www.newyorker.com/books/page-turner/j-g-ballard|title=J. G. Ballard|last=Halford|first=Macy|magazine=The New Yorker |date=2009-04-20|access-date=2019-08-01|language=en|issn=0028-792X}}</ref> A 1973 review in ''[[The New York Times]]'' was equally horrified: "''Crash'' is, hands-down, the most repulsive book I've yet to come across."<ref>{{Cite web|url=http://movies2.nytimes.com/books/98/07/12/specials/ballard-crash.html|title=Crash|website=The New York Times|access-date=2019-07-31}}</ref>

However, retrospective opinion now considers ''Crash'' to be one of Ballard's best and most challenging works. Reassessing ''Crash'' in ''[[The Guardian]]'', [[Zadie Smith]] wrote, "C''rash'' is an [[existential]] book about how ''everybody uses everything''. How everything uses everybody. And yet it is not a hopeless vision." On Ballard's legacy, she writes: "In Ballard's work there is always this mix of futuristic dread and excitement, a sweet spot where dystopia and utopia converge. For we cannot say we haven't got precisely what we dreamed of, what we always wanted, so badly."<ref>{{Cite news|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/jul/04/zadie-smith-jg-ballard-crash|title=Sex and wheels: Zadie Smith on JG Ballard's Crash|last=Smith|first=Zadie|date=2014-07-04|work=The Guardian|access-date=2019-07-31|language=en-GB|issn=0261-3077}}</ref>