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A review by hux
Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille
4.0
This is a very famous erotic novella. Written in 1928 and detailing the narrator (a young male) and his sexual escapades with a girl called Simone.
They begin having a sexual relationship but don't engage in full intercourse, only masturbation and exhibitionism. Eventually, they manipulate a local girl, Marcelle, into joining them in their games. This leads to an orgy which in turn leads to Marcelle having a mental breakdown resulting in her going to a sanitorium. Eventually, she commits suicide and the narrator and Simone go on the run to Spain with the help of an Englishman called Sir Edmund (another like-minded pervert). In Seville, Simone seduces a priest and with the two men helping her, she rapes and murders him, taking a unique pleasure from removing his eye.
As you might expect, this book has a lot of gratuitous language and sexual imagery. There's milk and eggs and bull's testicles and, of course, the titular eye ball.
When I first read it, I assumed it was supposed to be a true story. As the story goes on, however, you quickly understand that it's too fantastical to be true, a classic male fantasy which puts the power in the hands of the female protagonist. Bataille himself confirms that it was indeed 'a mostly' manufactured story, a kind of wish fantasy about women being as dirty, as sexual, and as aggressive as the men. Women, After all, have all that sexual capital yet never seem to exploit it. Hence Simone is always the instigator in the sexual acts, always the leader in their games.
There was a moment when Bataille seemed to be equating semen with urine because, in his interpretation, that's what orgasm is to a man -- it's not something we build up to like women, but something we relieve ourselves of. Like so many other bodily functions it is primitive, basic, nothing more meaningful than eating, defecating, breathing, sleeping. They all exist on a spectrum of pleasure.
I actually laughed out loud at the final chapter with the priest. It was so utterly unreal, so visually crisp, that it developed a distinct comedic element.
I loved this book. The prose was quite sincerely beautiful at times.
If you're a fan of piss (and who isn't?) you'll love this. Highly recommended.
They begin having a sexual relationship but don't engage in full intercourse, only masturbation and exhibitionism. Eventually, they manipulate a local girl, Marcelle, into joining them in their games. This leads to an orgy which in turn leads to Marcelle having a mental breakdown resulting in her going to a sanitorium. Eventually, she commits suicide and the narrator and Simone go on the run to Spain with the help of an Englishman called Sir Edmund (another like-minded pervert). In Seville, Simone seduces a priest and with the two men helping her, she rapes and murders him, taking a unique pleasure from removing his eye.
As you might expect, this book has a lot of gratuitous language and sexual imagery. There's milk and eggs and bull's testicles and, of course, the titular eye ball.
When I first read it, I assumed it was supposed to be a true story. As the story goes on, however, you quickly understand that it's too fantastical to be true, a classic male fantasy which puts the power in the hands of the female protagonist. Bataille himself confirms that it was indeed 'a mostly' manufactured story, a kind of wish fantasy about women being as dirty, as sexual, and as aggressive as the men. Women, After all, have all that sexual capital yet never seem to exploit it. Hence Simone is always the instigator in the sexual acts, always the leader in their games.
There was a moment when Bataille seemed to be equating semen with urine because, in his interpretation, that's what orgasm is to a man -- it's not something we build up to like women, but something we relieve ourselves of. Like so many other bodily functions it is primitive, basic, nothing more meaningful than eating, defecating, breathing, sleeping. They all exist on a spectrum of pleasure.
I actually laughed out loud at the final chapter with the priest. It was so utterly unreal, so visually crisp, that it developed a distinct comedic element.
I loved this book. The prose was quite sincerely beautiful at times.
If you're a fan of piss (and who isn't?) you'll love this. Highly recommended.