Chuck Palahniuk and the Violence of Beauty

Abstract

As part of the appendix to his Atrocity Exhibition, J. G. Ballard includes a short piece entitled “May West’s Reduction Mammoplasty.” In it, he initially describes the “surgical challenge the reduction in size of Mae West’s breasts presented,” given that she wanted her nipples to be retained as “oral mounts during sexual intercourse.”¹ He, then, continues with a minute description of the procedure of the operation as well as the adjustments that proved to be necessary after several months of healing. Yet, the piece ends on a different note, meant as a counterpoint to the clinical representation of beauty surgery. “Still fondly remembered,” Ballard explains, “Mae West was one of Hollywood’s most effective safety valves, blowing a loud raspberry whenever the pressures of film industry self-inflation grew too great. No one in her admiring audience was ever in any doubt about the true purpose of that splendid body. Yet, despite her earthiness, she retained a special magic of her own, and ended her days as a pop icon who might have been created by Andy Warhol.”²