Georges Bataille (1897–1962)

"¿Qué clase de fulgor emana de una pintura prehistórica, con qué potencia y alcance, o con cuánta suficiencia como para cuestionar ese momento perdido en el pasado en que el hombre se vio como un animal y, al mismo tiempo, dejó de serlo? Esta breve antología reúne varios textos (por primera vez traducidos al español), sobre los que Georges Bataille trabajó al final de su vida y en los que construye un punto de vista completamente nuevo para pensar ese instante de pasaje entre la imagen que la piedra devuelve y el hombre que la contempla. Precedidos por un esclarecedor y lúcido ensayo de Silvio Mattoni (a cargo también de la traducción), transmite todo lo que de arriesgado y conjetural tiene una reflexión en proceso: aquella que desdeña la simple oposición entre humanidad y animalidad, y se atreve a concebir el origen de lo humano como una idea del animal que habla, piensa y compone figuras sobre la pared de una caverna". (Descripción editorial).… (mere)

Before I read this work, I'd already read Bataille's "Erotism Death and Sensuality" (1957) ("EDAS") which amazed and confounded me. "Story of The Eye" ("SOTE") was written twenty-nine years before EDAS and yet the link between the two works is obvious. As other reviewers / critics have noted, it appears that Bataille ultimately derived his fully fleshed-out concepts (pun intended) from the ideas that are present in SOTE. This book ends up resembling a satire of pornography; it's so extreme as to be ridiculous. The reader is introduced to vaguely-sketched characters whose participation in drastic objectification overtakes their respective personalities. All of these "non-characters" are very young, precocious and seemingly lacking in innocence. They use each to other live out their fantasies, by means of bizarre fetishes, that fuel an ongoing excitement that inevitably doubles as torment. By doing so, the main players melt and meld into a Dionysian "oneness" where personality disappears and the reptile brain takes over. Within SOTE, the characters break away from the confines of any previous social conditioning. Nothing herein is appropriate; the artifice of civilized decorum plays no part in this work. The reader immediately becomes the "voyeur" in a world where behavior resulting from uninhibited sexual appetite can result in grave consequences -- Particularly within the context of transgression. In Closing: the moral of this story is: Since sexuality is amoral -- Anything goes. Although hopefully one can accept the fact that "anything goes" can be disgusting as well as inhuman. But to each his own: One man's / woman's revulsion is another's stimulation.… (mere)

I can say with certainty that this is a life changing book for me. I've started reading it for a second time as I'm sure there's a lot that I've missed. I can see how many readers could be repelled by Bataille's deconstruction of the heavy, harsh realities he grapples with. The subject matter, by itself, is brutally real. Some sentences jump out at me with absolute clarity; others remain murky and mysterious, refusing to give up their secrets -- Even after a second reading. Contradictions exist within the space of a sentence in this work. Bataille breaks down concepts that are at once elemental yet complex -- For example, "continuity" versus "discontinuity". This is an oversimplification, but in essence, Bataille examines the overlap between life and death; between existence and non-existence; and the role eroticism plays within that arena.

Bataille has been referred to as the "metaphysician of evil", a moniker that I find to be sensational. According to Bataille, eroticism moves man towards death; or alternatively, man moves towards death in pursuing the erotic, which he cannot help but doing, since eroticism is intrinsic to his very nature. Work acts as a barrier against the potentially malign influence of decadent eroticism. Although sex and sexuality in themselves are amoral -- Bataille makes use of a moral perspective in his study of the connection between eroticism and death. Human sacrifice (and its evolution into pastel Christianity / puritanical monotheism) and the writings of Marquis DeSade appear as two memorable themes in this work; as several other Goodreads reviewers have noted -- The chapter on DeSade is compelling.

While reading "Erotism" I asked myself the question: "Must I now view life through Bataille's dark prism? And the answer was unequivocally: "Yes". On a technical note, I find the translation to be problematic [this has been observed by other Goodreads reviewers as well]; typos abound and while many of them are innocuous -- There are instances where both the typos and the mistranslations possibly contribute to misinterpretation of specific shades of meaning.… (mere)