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Title: Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille, Joachim Neugroschel ISBN: 0-87286-209-7 Publisher: City Lights Books Pub. Date: September, 1987 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $9.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.15 (34 reviews)
Rating: 4
Summary: Porn as art? Why not?
Comment: If you take this book, open it to a random page and read a random paragraph, you'll get some sort of twisted sexual image every time (I actually did this with a group of friends for about half an hour, and it worked). Bataille is a good writer, and it's a kick to see a serious author write some disturbingly graphic pornographic prose.
Taken alone, the porn in this book is really entertaining because it's so imaginative (I'd love to see a film version of this novel), and its shock value is high enough to get you to either throw the book away or seriously contemplate what's going on in Bataille's writing. I suggest the latter.
If aestheticism and nihilism had a baby, it would be Georges Bataille, at least when he writes novels like this. Does that sound infeasible? To quote from *The Deadman,* a more philosophical work by Bataille's:
"I believe that truth has only one face: that of a violent contradiction."
Rating: 4
Summary: Odd little gem of perversion and eros.
Comment: Georges Bataille often falls between the cracks of literary identificaton because his work straddles so many uncomfortable realms. A sometime-Surrealist who had a falling out with Andre Breton, Bataille's books are often compared to the Marquis de Sade's. Reading "Story of the Eye" it's not hard to see why: two teenage lovers experiment with their bodies and with foreign objects; eventually their erotic adventures include madness, torture, murder and the death of a bullfighter.
This is strange, heady stuff--fortunately the book is barely 100 pages long. This is underground literature at its finest, mocking the pretensions of culture, of decency, morality, and healthy sexuality. Bataille's style can be obtuse but can also illuminate dark, forbidden corners of humanity. If you're into de Sade, Wm. Burroughs, Surrealism, Clive Barker, the psychology of fetishism, or just want something to read that is light years from the crappy bestseller lists, read "The Story of the Eye" and introduce yourself to the unholy world of Georges Bataille.
Rating: 2
Summary: On some levels it works
Comment: Actually I would probably give it 2 1/2 stars but since it wasn't an option I rounded down. I can't deny that this is an interesting book on a few levels, the problem is that the interesting elements just don't make the story as a whole that interesting.
Let me start with the "ick" factor. Yes there is one but i've read much worse so I could easily stomach this without a flinch. There's nothing that's horrifically violent, just really a few scenes. Mostly the ick comes from urination. And let me tell you, there's a lot of it! I don't think two pages go by where someone isn't urinating on themselves or another person. I don't really mind a few fetishes here or there in a book but this book takes it to the point where urinating becomes the most boring thing in the entire story.
The second thing I want to mention is the plot. Yeah there really isn't one. The truth is that it doesn't really even start going anywhere until close to half-way through the book. The first half of the book is really just two teenagers "getting off" by urinating and playing with boiled eggs (no i'm not kidding). The second half you finally start going somewhere but by this time it's too late to actually get you to really care about the story or the characters. If it is one thing I wish this book would have given me is character development. We're given no reason or hints for why these two kids act the way the do or what motivates them. I would have liked just maybe a little psychology to help understand. But then maybe that would have taken away everything and if we really knew them then perhaps we would have been disgusted by them instead of just not caring.
Ok so i've only talked about the bad points. I'll speak about the good points. The best thing this book has going for itself is the length, it's very short so you can easily finish it in one sitting. I'll give props to the author for not dragging on (with exception of the urination on every page almost) and getting to the point. The second thing it has going for itself is how weird it is. I don't believe many people can read this book and think "This really reminds me of..." because there really isn't anything else like it. And finally the third thing is that it does manage to have some humor in it. There is a particular scene with a priest that can make you chuckle for a second.
I don't know whether I would say it wasn't worth the read. I do think perhaps it was but it just wasn't worth the buy. I can't ever see myself picking it up again and I wasn't very satisified by the short story that I thought I got my money's worth. I do think that Georges Bataille wanted to express some deep psychological meaning behind all of this but for the life of me I couldn't find it anywhere. If you can find some other way to read it without having to buy it then you should give it a try but otherwise I think you should save your money.
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Title: The Torture Garden by Octave Mirbeau, Alvah C. Bessie ISBN: 0965104265 Publisher: Juno Books Pub. Date: 31 August, 2000 List Price(USD): $12.99 |
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Title: The Tears of Eros by Georges Bataille, Peter Connor ISBN: 0872862224 Publisher: City Lights Books Pub. Date: December, 1989 List Price(USD): $18.95 |
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Title: Erotism: Death and Sensuality by Georges Bataille, Mary Dalwood ISBN: 0872861902 Publisher: City Lights Books Pub. Date: June, 1991 List Price(USD): $16.95 |
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Title: Story of O by Pauline Reage ISBN: 0345301110 Publisher: Ballantine Books Pub. Date: 12 May, 1981 List Price(USD): $7.50 |
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Title: Venus in Furs (Penguin Classics) by Leopold Von Sacher-Masoch, Joachim Neugroschel, Larry Wolff ISBN: 0140447814 Publisher: Penguin USA (Paper) Pub. Date: 05 June, 2000 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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