Although Mr. Gemerchak's insight into Bataille's critical synthesis of Hegel is outstanding (the most lucid and edifying to date), his personal obsession with custard, women's shoes, and bats may be distracting (albeit entirely amusing) to the majority of readers. To the expert, however, Gemerchak's link between nocturnal, egg-based footwear and his subject serve as a reflexive articulation of desire, authenticity, subjectivity, and fetish, likening his work to those of Garcia-Marquez or St. Augustine. To be certain, this freshman endeavor places him well on the way to reaching (surpassing?) the recognition and significance of Lacan, Baudrilard, or even DiCaprio.

This reviewer's life of the mind and basting techiniques have been significantly altered by Mr. Gemerchak. One leaves his book with a strong desire to be hosed down by a fire extinguisher, blamed for unattributable sins, and left to rot in the trunk of a Buick. I highly recommend "The Sunday of the Negative" as well as his sophomore tome "Mr. Binky Gets a Bump" to anyone longing for a deeper understanding of metaphysics, self-awareness, or flan.

Georges Bataille's work varies wildly in quantity. His early essays, collected in "Visions of Excess", are interesting but by now rather amusing blood-and-thunder manifestoes, swirling with Nietzschean rhetoric, the kind of thing that makes certain young male academics feel the blood rising in their nads so that they'll write anguished tomes on postmodernism that no-one but their students will ever read. His slightly later "Literature and Evil" is one of the silliest and shallowest books of litcrit ever inflicted on an undeserving public. His novel "Story of the Eye" is insubstantial as literature and uninvolving as pornography. This late work consists of a sober essay on the French nobleman Gilles de Rais and the documents from Gilles' trial in 1440. I think it's the best book Bataille ever wrote.

Gilles de Rais was a genuine nutcase. Born into great wealth, he was raised by his brutal and amoral great-grandfather and was a natural knight - i.e., he was violent, addicted to luxury and spectacle, and appeared not to give a toss about anyone. He distinguished himself in battle alongside Joan of Arc, but when the wars were over, Gilles appears to found life a bit lacking in savour. So, with the help of some of his entourage, he found a new way of spicing things up. He would typically ride to the nearest village, select a handsome young person between the age of 8 and 20 (usually male, but female where no boys were available) and bring the child back to his castle to be tortured, raped and murdered. He particularly liked to cut the body open and gaze on the insides. Then he'd go to sleep and his associates would dispose of the body.

Nobody is quite sure how many children he killed this way, but the estimates run into hundreds. The locals were scared because Gilles was a rich and powerful nobleman, Marshal of France, and the nobility tolerated the rumours for exactly the same reason. The Bluebeard legend became attached to his name (in spite of the fact that it was much older than him) and he certainly lived up to it.

Bataille's analysis of Gilles' character is hard to argue with. The Marshal of France was a vain, reckless, gullible, almost incredibly stupid young man - and yet the delirious extravagance of his crimes lends him a horrible grandeur. Gilles very quickly got completely out of control. The stories of his giggling at the dying bodies of his victims make him almost pathetic, as well as disgusting. He was finally arrested when he gratuitously insulted the men of the last person willing to protect him. He was tried for the murder of several children, found guilty and hanged. His body was to be burned, but it was pulled out of the flames and buried not without honour. He seems to have inspired a weird pity in people.

On the evidence of the trial documents, it's hard to doubt that Gilles was either mad or evil. Yet he lacked the true psychopaths' instinct for self-preservation, and his repentance seems to have been as tearfully sincere as his crimes were remorseless. Maybe he just had absolutely no imagination. Either way, this is a rigorously truthful and forensic book about one of the most frightening people who ever lived, far above the level of the average true crime potboiler. My only objection is Tom Dolan's cover design (at least in the Amok Books edition) - apparently a close-up photo of a bare torso with a nasty case of chickenpox, pointless and icky compared to the Grand Guignol within. Richard Robinson's translation is admirable in style; not having read the original French, I can't vouch for its accuracy, but I see no reason to doubt it.

I wasn't sure what to make of The Story of an Eye when I first read it as an undergraduate in college twelve years ago. Recently rereading the book, I now have a clearer interpretation. I think the most interesting aspect of this book comes in Bataille's linking of his own "sexual perversions" to his childhood experiences with his father's eyes, urination, and the whole association of these experiences with eggs. It is facinating that Bataille apparently wrote this novella without the knowledge that he was dealing with parts of his childhood, but that all of this psychological material came through anyway. It made me contemplate my own childhood experiences and associations they have with my conceptions of sexuality as an adult. Another interpretation I have of this novella is that it is just a better-written version of de Sade. The Story of an Eye seeks to shock and offend in way that breaks down the repression of shame-based morality. In many respects, The Story of an Eye is just a listing of morally crude/violent sexual experiences. It's giving the finger to perceived patriarchal institutions such as the Catholic Church, mental hospitals, the government, parents, etc. by means of graphically describing perceived sexual "aberrations" in the eyes (no pun intended) of these institutions. The problem I have with this "sexual extremism = destruction of patriachy" philosophy is that this type of rebellion only creates the same type of violence and shame that it seeks to liberate people from. In my mind, the characters in The Story of the Eye become that which they rebel against. Still, this novella is well worth a read if you're a fan of rebellious sexual literature in the de Sade vein. It's also funny to think that The Story of the Eye was written around the same time of F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby and Ernest Hemingway's The Sun Also Rises.

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."

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.

although i certainly appreciate the above reader's take on bataille's work, there really aren't that many parallels between georges bataille and friedrich nietzsche. they have a distinctly different writing style, very different ideas, and almost diametrically opposed visions of the future. (i would also say, although this would be nothing more than a personal opinion, that in terms of the quality of his prose work, bataille is nowhere near nietzsche's league, however much we may debate the legitimacy or merit of nietzsche's controversial ideas.) while bataille is more about apocalypse and exploring the possibilities of extreme decadence, nietzsche was about nothing of the sort. indeed, he would have in all likelihood abhorred bataille's work, and more than likely written him off as a "decadent" of the worst kind, although i would certainly not agree. the similarities are small, if any indeed exist at all. while nietzsche will certainly have a place in history as one of the greatest philosophers to ever live, it would not surprise me if bataille faded into obscurity, as shock value lessens as sensibilities become more hardened.

bataille's "on nietzsche" is at times incomprehensible and far too much like the author talking to himself than the reader, but it is nonetheless a must-read by any standards. like heidegger, at times we find ourselves lost and simply not knowing what the hell he is talking about, but every once in awhile we achieve a moment of understanding that made all the mental confusion and frustration worth it and then some. bataille takes the death of transcendence to the ultimate conclusion, absolute meaninglessness and hedonism, reaching far different conclusions than nietzsche did about how the individual should live in the absence of any underlying metaphysical meaning. indeed, bataille, while many see him as a kind of modern nietzsche, might be called an anti-nietzschean in that he not only rejected the idea of 'the superman' but, through his novels and philosophical works, created characters for whom the ideas of discipline and so called 'becoming' flew out the window along with any sense of morality or sanctity. bataille says, 'ah, to hell with some future! the future no longer exists, anyway', and the frightening thing is that for a moment we are tempted to say it with him. as with all of bataille's work the intensity of his aggressive amorality is chilling, but it is perhaps among the best literature ever written if we want to gain insight into the nature of the intelligent rebel and the sadean libertine. to make a long story short, read it.

No disrespect intended, but the above review's take on this text was just so radically different than how I read it that I felt compelled to make a few comments. Bataille is in some sense writing "on Nietzsche", but more/instead of that he is using Nietzsche's work to explore the dynamics of communication and the limits of language, to question at a very fundamental level whether communication is even possible and if so how it takes place. In this exploration, of course, pain, suffering, loss, lack, desire, etc. all come into play, as they must since this is a work of Bataille's. But to speak of this pain as "sadistic" might be misleading... for (to essentialize perhaps too much) Bataille's "argument" centers more on what the individual must do to itself, its own subjectivity, in order to even approach community. When one inflicts pain on onesself, is that sadism? Masichism? The intense introspectivity of this work, much in tune with Nietzsche's, opens the door for the destruction of these very types of subject/object relationships, perhaps even to the point of obliterating the categories altogether. So despite the biographical and stylistic quirks of the author, which some might find troubling, others amusing, others entirely inconsequential, and yet others absolutely essential to the questions at hand (a la F.N.), ON NIETZSCHE is quite a provoking work if any of the issues mentioned are of concern.

In this short (and at times very difficult) collection of essays, Bataille challenges Sartre's view that "literature is innocent". A selective survey of key writers - including Bronte, Genet and Sade - shows that literature is a necessary antidote to the overarching Superego and Capitalism's emphasis on the Reality Principle. In this way, Bataille shows that literture is in fact evil, in that it is anti-utilitiarian and thus embedded in the childish Pleasure Principle. While Bataille seems to alternate between ascribing the driving force of literature to both the Life Drive (Eros) and the Death Drive (Thanatos), he does succeed in showing how Freud - although he never explicitely invokes the name - can be used for a new method of reading literature.

If you're into postmodernism and literary theory, you can't go wrong by reading this book. And what makes this book a cut above most books in po-mo literary theory is that it's got an accessibe layer that any fool can understand. There's also an esoteric underbelly that only people who've read Nietzsche closely will get. But the only time the esoteric underbelly becomes important is in the chapter on Genet.

Bataille claims Genet did not know how to give, because he liked to betray people. And since he did not know how to give, he wasn't truly evil because he sacrifices nothing. By which Bataille means that he doesn't know how to take. There's no collusion with doing a 100% gratuitous act, like committing suicide. (Let's face it: the suicide is the most selfish person around. The subway system in my city is frequently held up by them, preventing all sorts of people from going to work on time. All because their life is depressing.) Bataille's entire oeuvre is a celebration of paradoxes and the idea of give = take is not so far from his idea in Inner Experience of the subjectobject.

Apparently contemporary postmodern theory finds itself in crisis. Any outside observer could tell you why: the thinkers are opaque. The reason they are opaque is because they like to give. What Bataille knew is that in order to give, you also have to take. Hence his exoteric, loquacious facade and his esoteric, unutterable interior. If you are an American postmodernist, you ignore this advice at your peril.

Georges Battaille throws down a challange to Jean-Paul Sartre, who held that "literature is inncocent". Bataille, in his examination of such figures as Emily Bronte, Sade, Baudelaire, Genet, Kafka and Michelet, and the component of "evil" in their works, argues that literature is, in fact, "guilty" and that, moreover, it must acknowledge itself as such. In his reading of these literary figures, Bataille proceeds to analyse literature's complicity with evil and how this enables it reach a fuller level of communication. Drawing on Freud, he "eroticises" literary creativity and contends that the notion of "Art for art's sake", which emerges as a reaction to a fragmented and reified social world dominated by utilitarianism and commodity fetishism, is actually a subterfuge, literature masquerading as innocent under the mantle of "pure art", in order to rechannel the forces that are dammed up owing to the repressions imposed by culture. Though elliptical and opaque, this book is a challenging and fascinating study, which has a potential for laying the foundations for a philosophy of composition that underwrites the aesthetic of evil and explores its relation to the overarching forces of institutional and administrative surveillance.

Interesting associations made by the author. The initial chapters are somewhat opaque, but careful reading will allow for understanding. Overall, pretty good, although a bit pretentious. To paraphrase the concept, 'if your deriving utility, you've lost the essence or true reality... that is, if you moved from object to subject, well you've embraced capitalism, you dog! (well, i think thats what he is trying to say...smile).

George Bataille's "Theory of Religion" is an attempt to sum up religion in as succinct a manner as possible. To be all things to all religions, the book is very vague and difficult to understand. Bataille created a chart or table to explain what he was doing and to give body to the work. ALAS! The chart is not in the book, lost to time. Thus, as it exists, Bataille's book is a glimpse into the inner workings of a genius mind. It is a colorful attempt to understand "religion," whatever that is. Further, it is an off-the beaten path romp through the daisies of the study of religion, sweet flowers that often remain unromped.

In On Nietzsche Bataille became Nietzsche. Here Bataille becomes the reader and consumes her/him/it(the thing). Who knows why Bataille never published this mistresspiece in his lifetime. Maybe even Bataille didn't know....

Bataille's poetry is often beautiful, using words and ideas to paint vague emotional pictures. You might get bored when he goes on and on about immensity or death, but it's worth it for the good parts.

"Confrontation with death with drunken sex" may not sound appealing as a book. However, this book has several positives that make it worth reading and rereading: 1) the book is very well structured into short segments titled with a summary of the action - the titles themselves bear much of the meaning of the story as if they formed a poem of which the text is a commentary 2) the text is extremely well written - a lesson in effective use of words 3) the text is thought provoking - the sexual, drunken crudeness is demanded of the text not a superficial addon. You will be forced to reconsider your notion of death, evil and pleasure. 4) the drawings capture the madness (darkness} of the tale

While the book can be read quickly, multiple readings are needed to tease out meaning(s) ... and it is well worth those multiple readings.

Designed from cover to back with many diagrams, photos, etc. this is a nice piece of book. It contains writings by Bataille that were published separately in a surrealist type group's periodical which is fantastic when put together here. From A to Z Bataille defines in a dictionary/encyclopedic type style various terms, objects, actions, and in this format really grabs a reader by his perspective and YANKS, turns ya around to see things differently than you could've ever imagined. There's much more than that though, other writing, including an introduction that mentions Bataille's attempt at creating a secret society. A great book to not just read, BUT TO OWN, whether a frequent reader of Bataille or as just a curious soul. "Acephale", by the way, means without head, and as you might know: Decapitation is really in these days so buying this Book will make you cool.

This translation of Surya's 1992 biography of the notoriously contradictory French writer contains nearly 500 pages of text supported by 86 pages of notes. It is the first full-length biography in either English or French. Bataille is decidedly an acquired taste, and this book may well persuade you to admire this neo-Sadean thinker who spent his nearly sixty-five years (1897-1962) as a "paleographic archivist" at the Bibliothèque Nationale and, finally, as the director of the Orléans Municipal Library. Anyone who can weave together Bataille's scatophilic and necrophilic obsessions with his literary themes and debauched private life as Surya has without sensationalism or prurience surely earns my admiration. Surya does full justice to his subject's innovative claims concerning the role of consumption in capitalist civilization; the negative features of so-called inner experience; the alleged links between eroticism and death; and the impossibility of community. Indirectly, Surya shows how Bataille's persistent preoccupation with the "informe" (formless) not only illuminates some of the most cutting-edge academic work in art history and literary criticism today, but also eerily foreshadows recent scientific theories of catastrophe, chaos and cosmic evolution. Surya is particularly good at displaying the development of Bataille's "impossible" thought against the background of French left-wing political activity and so successfully distances Bataille from any easy embrace of French (or German) fascism, a predilection for which hasty readers infer from his "The Psychological Structure of of Fascism" (1933)--the first analysis of its subject from a psychoanalytical point of view, according to Surya (p.177).
Surya's book is not an easy read, however, if you're expecting the straightforward prose of Deirdre Bair's studies of Samuel Beckett, Simone de Beauvoir and Anaïs Nin. Surya's is the prose of a philosophically trained literary man and not an historian. I would buy this book only if I were already pretty familiar with Bataille's work and wanted to situate it in his life and times. For a first look, I would turn to Allan Stoekl's introduction to a collection of Bataille's major essays entitled, "Visions of Excess" (1985).