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Story of the Eye | 
 enlarge | Author: Georges Bataille
Publisher: City Lights Publishers
Category: Book
List Price: $9.95
Buy New: $5.30
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Avg. Customer Rating:  54 reviews
Sales Rank: 19762
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 104
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.4
Dimensions (in): 7.9 x 5.4 x 0.4
ISBN: 0872862097
Dewey Decimal Number: 843.912
EAN: 9780872862098
ASIN: 0872862097
Publication Date: January 1, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
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Amazon.com Review
Only Georges Bataille could write, of an eyeball removed from a corpse, that "the caress of the eye over the skin is so utterly, so extraordinarily gentle, and the sensation is so bizarre that it has something of a rooster's horrible crowing." Bataille has been called a "metaphysician of evil," specializing in blasphemy, profanation, and horror. Story of the Eye, written in 1928, is his best-known work; it is unashamedly surrealistic, both disgusting and fascinating, and packed with seemingly endless violations. It's something of an underground classic, rediscovered by each new generation. Most recently, the Icelandic pop singer Björk Gudmundsdottir cites Story of the Eye as a major inspiration: she made a music video that alludes to Bataille's erotic uses of eggs, and she plans to read an excerpt for an album. Warning: Story of the Eye is graphically sexual, and is only for adults who are not easily offended.
Product Description
In 1928, Georges Bataille published this first novel under a pseudonym, a legendary shocker that uncovers the dark side of the erotic by means of forbidden obsessive fantasies of excess and sexual extremes. A classic of pornographic literature, Story of the Eye finds the parallels in Sade and Nietzsche and in the investigations of contemporary psychology; it also forecasts Bataille's own theories of ecstasy, death and transgression which he developed in later work.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 49 more reviews...
So different and interesting read October 11, 2008
This is the strangest book I have ever read. But I am learning now as a grown women that not every thing in a is about Monsters or happy endings. This is a dark and disturbing book that is very thought prevoking. I feel as though I am reading a secret diary and I love it. Makes me look at me and how society views sexuality. Yes, the main charactors are a little crazy but it is a erotic fantasy many of us would like to visit if only for an afternoon. PS What's up with the eggs???
 Great First Novel August 19, 2008
This was Bataille's first novel and it is the first novel by Bataille that I've read. It was recommended to me by a friend as well as Amazon.com after I informed them both that I had read Venus in Furs, which I love. Initially I found Bataille's open pornographic style a bit surprising and it took me while to adjust. Because of this I missed the literary significance in the first few chapters. However, once I adjusted I saw what wonderful modern scenes he was creating, and how complete they were. All I can do is offer a panegyric for this book, which I would recommend to anyone interested in sexual deviance.
 Haunting Endeavor Plunging Across Literary Boundaries (featuring medicore storytelling) August 18, 2008
Well, chances are probably good that if you're reading this then you've heard of the classic erotic Story of the Eye. It's sheer outrageous absurdity in the form of sensation overload. Pornographic endeavors of the most grotesque, extraordinary, and perverse leads the narrative (i. e. bulls and eggs) and drives the main themes straight to the point. Mr. Bataille's work is mostly driven on his philosophy that, like de Sade, focuses on violence, death, isolation, irrationality versus rationality (the will to life of Schoepenhauer, and the spirit of Nietzsche) and of course passion (through sex and desire). At times the book was arousing, at times disgusting, but inevitably the story becomes so numbing that I lost sense of my own human characteristics. If that sounds like a stretch to you, read the book and see what you think. This book is a shocker that disables social and literary boundaries, though the form of the book (13(?) chapters, linear narrative) is only clouded over by some poor narration. For fans of Henry Miller, Marquis de Sade, Anais Nin's erotica, and the Story of O, check this out, but be weary that this book is more meta than you might care for.
Grotesque and Astonishing June 29, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
George Bataille's brief Sade-esque novella is a mordantly brilliant dip into the post-Nietzschen world modernity. The Story of the Eye is a pornographic disintegration of the Western ethical code. It is both magnificent and foul; a more daring and original work than his later philosophy/anthropology. A seminal piece of 20th century literature; although it was published well before the cultural abominations of our current nihilism, we are still not ready for this bleak and punkish work of literary debauchery.
Thought Provoking, Brilliant and Grotesque ... June 29, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
What causes a mind to embrace gross sexual abstractions? When does a moment of teenage reckless abandon turn into a debauched nightmare? What causes a young mind to lean towards fetishism?
Professionals have grappled with those questions for decades, and many of these and similar questions will forever remain unanswered in The Story of The Eye. And yet, even with its horrific and gruesome imagery, one cannot help but desire to know the answers. However, one must understand the human shadow with some semblance of clarity for those answers to make any sense. Georges Bataille is one philosopher who truly understands, and he does not leave us wanting. In part two of this edition, he offers some clarity as he mulls over a few of the aberrations of his own childhood - how he came to understand his own shadow and its relationship to events and images within the story itself.
While Story of The Eye chronicles the deviant sexual escapades of two young lovers, this is not what I would consider a pornographic novel, as it was originally labelled. Yes, the erotic scenes are quite intense - intense enough to make the faint of heart put the book down in order to vomit. But the erotica is not the true bite of the story. The deep emotional, psychological, and pathological attachment between the two main characters is what drives this story. Their disdain for the banal is apparent in everything they do.
The narration is surreal, slipping in an out of conscious thought and action so fluidly it's like sinking into quicksand - struggle against it and drown or remain still and experience this work as the true artistic endeavour that it is. If you dare to remain still, you certainly will not be disappointed.
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