The Overloaded Man by J.G. Ballard

Tick tock, tick tock.

2015 was a tumultuous time in my life and yet, I still thought it would be possible to read a massive collection of JG Ballard short stories and review them all. Ah, the charming follies of youth, brimming with unattainable reading aspirations! Well, truth be told, I was in my earlier thirties at the time but that's not important. Regardless, "The Overloaded Man" by J.G. Ballard confirmed that my earlier enthusiasm for this author's work has slightly waned. While this short story remains commendable, and Ballard's works undoubtedly retain their value, I might not indulge in devouring his stories with the same relentless fervor as before.

"Faulkner was slowly going insane" is a great opening line and effectively sets up the protagonist's mounting paranoia and fragmented psyche. The writing has a fever-dream and surreal quality that captures his descent into madness. There are some minor science-fiction elements here but this is not a time-traveling narrative. Rather, the author is interested in Faulkner's inner world and subjectivity that he is trying to erase. This process involves "stepping out of time", an attempt to escape capitalist oppression through complete self-effacement. As he moves further and further away from a coherent and stable identity, his objective reality begins to transform into abstraction. Things start to get even more weird once he learns to rearrange objects in his mind into geometric forms. 

The story's underlying pessimism highlights the profound disillusionment pertaining to individual freedom, human subjectivity and agency. The individual has been reduced to a nonhuman entity, an insignificant peon within the machinations of capitalist control. Or, at least, that's what I think Ballard is trying to convey here. Faulkner's inevitable demise is tragic but also an act of resistance through resignation, a final release from the capitalist system's controlling grasp.