Autogeddon

by Heathcote Williams

Book by Williams, Heathcote

Genres: Poetry, Nonfiction, Social Issues

151 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1991

About the author

John Henley Jasper Heathcote-Williams was an English poet, actor and award-winning playwright. He was also an intermittent painter, sculptor and long-time conjuror. After his schooldays at Eton, he hacksawed his surname's double-barrel to become Heathcote Williams, a moniker more in keeping perhaps with his new-found persona. His father, also named Heathcote Williams, was a lawyer. He is perhaps best known for the book-length polemical poem Whale Nation, which in 1988 became "the most powerful argument for the newly instigated worldwide ban on whaling." In the early 1970s his agitational graffiti were a feature on the walls of the then low-rent end of London's Notting Hill district. From his early twenties, Williams has enjoyed a minor cult following. His first book, The Speakers (1964), a virtuoso close-focus account of life at Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park, was greeted with unanimous critical acclaim. In 1974 it was successfully adapted for the stage by the Joint Stock Theatre Company.

Reviews

[Olethros · Rating 4 out of 5]

-Un posible cara a cara con la realidad anormal que nos rodea, por incómodo que pueda llegar a ser.-

Género. Novela corta (en absoluto, claro que no, porque es poesía; pero como no tenemos esa categoría en el blog, pues habrá que arreglarse con lo que sí hay).

Lo que nos cuenta. El libro Autogedón (publicación original: Autogeddon, 1991) nos muestra, mediante la poesía, como los vehículos con motor de combustión son los amos de nuestro mundo sin que nos demos cuenta, unos amos irreflexibles, crueles y desalmados, quizá un reflejo de sus siervos, que reinan en ciudades grises, con sociedades grises y destinos grises, como los gases del escape (qué poético me he puesto, ¿no?).

¿Quiere saber más de este libro, sin spoilers? Visite:

http://librosdeolethros.blogspot.com/...

[Vit Babenco · Rating 5 out of 5]

Trying to investigate nature of a word ‘autogeddon’ which seems to be coined by J. G. Ballard I have come across this magnificent poem by Heathcote Williams written in tortuous verse libre.
“If an alien was to hover a few hundred yards above the planet
It could be forgiven for thinking
That cars were the dominant life-form,
And that human beings were a kind of ambulatory fuel cell:
Injected when the car wished to move off,
And ejected when they were spent.”
The author considers automobiles to be absolute evil murdering more people than gory wars.
“Interconnecting roads, laid out like lattice-work,
Might sometimes strike a moderately subtle viewer
As a predatory web.”
Cars seem to be reigning the world turning into dangerous predators devouring human will and lives.
Autogeddon is rather a poetical verdict than a poem.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Just as hard hitting as Williams' "Whale Nation", and just as relevant now as it was 30 years ago. Both books emphasise the industrial need for lubrication and energy as driving environmental exploitation and ecological degradation.

Half the book is poetry, the other half extracts from Williams' sources of information and inspiration. Both elements are viscerally effective, as Williams doesn't shy away from the physical and psychological injuries caused by the apocalyptic holocaust of Autogeddon.

According to the surveillance device I'm writing this on, I spent 24 hours driving last month, during which I had 2 weeks' annual leave when I was fairly stationary, so typically that would be closer to 2 full days driving per month, practically a whole month behind the wheel in a year 🤯

[Anna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was recommended ‘Autogeddon’ because it echoes the theme of my PhD - the need for less car ownership and use, particularly on environmental grounds. As such, I found it a wonderful contrast and complement to the dry academic literature I trawl through. The book has two sections: a poem and an anthology of writing on the subject of cars. Photographs are also included throughout, some of which are absolutely stunning. On pages 54 & 55 is a photo of a drive-in movie at sunset, crowded with vehicles all turned towards a vast screen watching Charlton Heston part the Red Sea. A really striking image. It is the words that really bring the message home, though, that the system of automobility (as John Urry calls it) is appallingly destructive and dysfunctional, yet entirely normalised and taken for granted. When you consider its true social costs - to our health, to the natural environment, to the built environment, to the air, to the climate, to politics, to society, and to emotional wellbeing - car dependence appears disastrous. Heathcote Williams captures the various facets of this beautifully.

Some quotes that especially appealed to me from the poem:

Were an Alien Visitor
To hover a few hundred yards above the planet
It could be forgiven for thinking
That cars are the dominant life form,
And that human beings were a kind of ambulatory fuel call,
Injected when the car wished to move off,
And ejected when they were spent. [...]

The Visitor follows up the court reports:
Hit someone over the head with a discarded chrome fender
And kill them:
Life.

Take the precaution of attaching the fender to a car
And kill them:
Six months,
License to drive briefly suspended. [...]

The only green car
Is skeletally rusted and overgrown. [accompanied by a beautiful photograph of such]

And some memorable parts of the anthology:

The motorist straying off the main roads is driven by a need to escape from modern civilisation. He is a man seeking to withdraw himself, in quest, though he may not know it, of a retreat, a retreat bathed in the impalpable fragrance that is distilled by old and traditional things. He finds it, but only for a moment, for, in the act of finding it, he transforms it into something other than what he sought. It is a lane, say, leading to a village; yet scarcely has he passed that way, when the lane is widened to accommodate him... The motorist’ is, indeed, the true anti-Midas touch. [Written in 1946!]

The car is a weapon in the hands of those who choose to use it as such. The driver rattles his symbolic sabre and announces himself as lord of the highway. His inflated sense of confidence and his appreciation of the deadly features, both real and symbolic, transform his emotions and his behaviour. In a car, even the meekest of men has, like James Bond, a licence to kill. [1986]

Motor trucks [in New York] average less than six miles per hour in traffic, as against eleven miles per hour for horse drawn vehicles in 1911. [1961]

‘Autogeddon’ was published in 1991. Since then, cars have continued to conquer the world. Nonetheless, there are signs of growing ambivalence towards them in European and some American cities. Growth in car use has stopped, whilst in some cities (notably London) a quiet renaissance in public transport has taken place. Increasingly smartphones and other such technology are seen as a more important status symbol than a car, especially among the young. Some academics suggest that in cities a new era of transport may be upon us, one in which owning a car is unnecessary as your phone provides a choice of cheaper and just as convenient mobility options. (See Peak Car: The Future of Travel.) This somewhat utopian vision elides the fact that cars still dominate the Western world, figuratively and literally. Dislodging them may take more than a few apps. It will happen, though. Roads existed millennia before the car was invented, and roads will still exist when cars are nothing but rust. Quasi-mystical statements of that sort are discouraged in social science PhD theses, however maybe I could sneak in a quote from this book. It would be extremely appropriate.

[Julian Yaqub · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wondering if perhaps Jeremy Clarkson isn't quite the hero you once imagined? Maybe wanting to reflect on the place of the car in the contemporary world? Here's the place to start. Williams' poem, illustrated by photographs, is informed, witty, troubling and evocative. The second half is a compendium of car quotes, from Orwell to newspaper extracts. Read it, buy a bike, then join the carfree movement. Time to save the world!

[Duncan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A seminal work. Shocking and revealing.

[Caroline Geer · Rating 2 out of 5]

Strange..

[Pierre_menard · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book proves how powerful 'polemical poetry' can be. Should be considered a classic.

[Mary Dawson · Rating 5 out of 5]

a classic i found spelunking through a bookstore.

[Daniel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this when I was young, and still think of it from time to time. I sometimes think it may be part of the reason I don't drive. Either that, or I was drawn to it because I'd already decided the automobile was a poorly designed menace to public safety, the unreasonable dangers of which are bizarrely overlooked by other humans because it provides a socially acceptable outlet for the death-wish.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Like "Wisconsin Death Trip" but about cars:

"The Visitor senses the eviction of the genius loci
From every place the car had invaded
In the dispiriting cause of turning the world
Into an interconnected no-place-at-all." [p.42]

[Doris Raines · Rating 4 out of 5]

This. Is. A. Good. Book.