THE STORY OF THE EYE - GEORGES BATAILLE

Very insane. Bataille is one of those guys that you hear about more than you actually hear from and, since I’d never read anything specifically by him, I decided to ignore the serious philosophical work and jump into this porno-novel which comes highly reviewed. Plus, this thing was only 90 pages and physically small so one could easily read it in a single, horny, sitting. It follows a pretty basic porno-novel plot. A young man starts fucking and won’t stop. He links up with some friends and travels around France and Spain, committing scandalous acts. What makes the novel most interesting is Bataille’s obsession with certain images, which are not super common in smut, and the way he keeps returning to them. He’s got a big thing for oval shaped objects which manifests itself as eyes, eggs, and testes. He’s got a big thing with liquids generally and piss specifically. “Marcelle dismally sobbing alone, louder and louder, in the makeshift pissoir that was now her prison,” is a quote that jumps to mind. He would be very pleased with the “piss is stored in the balls” meme. There’s also an obsession with death, seen in this quote, “It struck me now that death was the sole outcome of my erection.” Of course, since he’s French, his sexual subconscious is deeply Catholic and “liberté” focused. Would it surprise you to know that they rape and murder a priest? French porno cannot get out of the shadow of de Sade. I will say that this book really nails the ending. Bataille summons a truly deranged and off-the-wall image to leave you with. Normally, I don’t worry about spoilers but this book is so short and the ending is so bizarre that I’d really suggest you just read the book before reading this, but, either way, the book ends with the eye of the dead priest removed, and then used in various ways for sex before being inserted into a character’s pussy so that when she pisses it looks like the eye is crying. An image that will stay with me for a while. There’s been a lot written about this book. Sartre loves it, as does Barthes and Sontag and I’m sure dozens more French intellectuals. I read a few things they wrote but they all, of course, gloss over the more minor racial aspects of the books. First, there’s this quote, “These orgasms were as different from normal climaxes as, say, the mirth of the savage African from that of the Occidental. In fact, though the savages may sometimes laugh as modestly as whites, they have long-lasting jags, with all parts of the body in violent release, and they go whirling, willy-nilly, flailing their arms about wildly, shaking their bellies, necks and chests, and chortling and gulping horribly.” Followed by the fact that the last sentence of the book is, “We set sail towards new adventures with a crew of Negroes.” Taken together, these quotes do reveal something about “Western” ideology and sexuality. Namely, an obsession with the sexualities of the colonial Other. You can see that the author/narrator considers non-YTs so different that even the way the experience joy is different from the rational Western man. And that the only way that a Western could experience this mode of living is to give himself over to the most violent fantasies that he can dredge out of his subconscious. Obviously, this is not at all how non-Western views of sexuality actually function in the real world. This belief, and others like it, are an integral piece of the ideological support of colonialism. Western chauvinism is so deep it’s infected the darkest recesses of Western man’s desires and created a worldview where he, the Westerner, is the restrained one, even while engaging in a multi-century long pillaging and raping tour of the world. It’s an interesting paradox and one I’ll keep considering. Irregardless, a very crazy book and one I’d totally recommend. I’m not sure I’m interested in this guy’s philosophy, he seems like every edgelord I’ve ever encountered, but I do think he’s a gifted pornographer. 97 eyeballs