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Story of the Eye by George Bataille (1928)



"Extreme seductiveness is at the boundary of horror"


DESCRIPTION

Bataille's first novel, published under the pseudonym 'Lord Auch', is still his most notorious work. In this explicit pornographic fantasy, the young male narrator and his lovers Simone and Marcelle embark on a sexual quest involving sadism, torture, orgies, madness and defilement, culminating in a final act of transgression. Shocking and sacrilegious, Story of the Eye is the fullest expression of Bataille's obsession with the closeness of sex, violence and death. Yet it is also hallucinogenic in its power, and is one of the erotic classics of the twentieth century.

PRAISE


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.



Warning: Story of the Eye is graphically sexual, and is only suited for adults who are not easily offended. "Simone is a character in Story Of The Eye by Georges Bataille. It’s basically a book that proves that you should do what you want, no matter what. " Bjork


FACT - Björk cites Story of the Eye as a major inspiration: she made a music video that alludes to Bataille's erotic uses of eggs

-Marilyn Manson referenced Story of the Eye in its 2012 music video for "Born Villain".



Hans Bellmer, L’histoire de l’oeil, 1940
Hans Bellmer, L’histoire de l’oeil, 1940




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