A review by corvuscorax
Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille

challenging reflective fast-paced

3.5

And it struck me that death was the sole outcome of my erection, and if Simone and I were killed, then the universe of our unbearable personal vision was certain to be replaced by the pure stars, fully unrelated to any external hazes and realizing in a cold state, without human delays or detours, something that strikes me as the goal of my sexual licentiousness: a geometric incandescence (among other things, the coinciding point of life and death, being and nothingness), perfectly fulgurating.

This was one of the books that push you to reconsider your interpretation of art, vulgarity and how the two can (or can't?) combine. It was a tough read to be sure, but there was a certain aspect of playfulness generated by the sheer absurdity of the scenarios that were being presented. The essay at the end felt like a breath of fresh air, but then the almost mathematical correspondence that Bataille wanted to establish between details of his biography and elements of the metaphorical chains in the book made me feel uneasy, because they so contradicted my aversion to authorial "implication", especially when it comes to such intense and almost grotesquely exaggerated scenarios. It felt as though putting a real, living, breathing author next to the text would've been an insult to both.

Sontag's essay was interesting, but I found Barthes's takes to be more substantive and truly add to my experience of the book. This is one to chew on for a while, I think.
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