In another condensed novel entitled The Great American Nude, the key to Travers/Talbert/Traven’s pathology lies at the center of a very particular type of labyrinth that Ballard identified with the bodily shape of Elizabeth Taylor and the myth of Theseus and Ariadne (0.5):

Central Casting. Dr Nathan edged unsteadily along the catwalk, waiting until Webster had reached the next section. He looked down at the huge geometric structure that occupied the central lot of the studio, now serving as the labyrinth in an elegant film version of The Minotaur. In a sequel to Faustus and The Shrew, the film actress and her husband would play Ariadne and Theseus. In a remarkable way the structure resembled her body, an exact formalization of each curve and cleavage. Indeed, the technicians had already christened it ‘Elizabeth.’ He steadied himself on the wooden rail as the helicopter appeared above the pines and sped towards them. So the Daedalus in this neural drama had at last arrived.¹

The labyrinth from which the hero emerged with the fasces, symbol of sovereignty and imperium (1.3), has become the sovereign/celebrity itself. The figure of Elizabeth Taylor, the last of the old-style Hollywood stars, becomes the body, the very flesh of the curvilinear labyrinth of modern sovereignty. The liminality that made the Minotaur an intermediate figure between the world of animals and men, opens up and becomes an ambiguity that makes celebrity the complementary pole of the world.

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1. Ballard, The Atrocity Exhibition, 86-87. ↩︎