Story of the EyeA masterpiece of transgressive, surrealist erotica, George Bataille's Story of the Eye was the Fifty Shades of Grey of its era. This Penguin Modern Classics edition is translated by Joachim Neugroschal, and published with essays by Susan Sontag and Roland Barthes. 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. This edition also includes Susan Sontag's superb study of pornography as art, 'The Pornographic Imagination', as well as Roland Barthes' essay 'The Metaphor of the Eye'. Georges Bataille (1897-1962), French essayist and novelist, was born in Billom, France. He converted to Catholicism, then later to Marxism, and was interested in psychoanalysis and mysticism, forming a secret society dedicated to glorifying human sacrifice. Leading a simple life as the curator of a municipal library, Bataille was involved on the fringes of Surrealism, founding the Surrealist magazine Documents in 1929, and editing the literary review Critique from 1946 until his death. Among his other works are the novels Blue of Noon (1957) and My Mother (1966), and the essays Eroticism (1957) and Literature and Evil (1957). If you enjoyed Story of the Eye, you might like Anaïs Nin's Delta of Venus, also available in Penguin Modern Classics. 'His black masterpiece ... [a] brilliant, exquisitely fetishistic tale of sexual agitaion' |
From inside the book
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... toss off again by myself ( we had met on top of a cliff ) , than she pulled down my pants and had me stretch out on the ground . She tucked her dress up , mounted my belly with her back towards my face , and let herself go , while I ...
... tossed off in bed with such a disorder of her senses that she had entirely inundated herself , and it was then that we saw her hang the sheet from the window to let it dry . As for myself , I was at a loss about what to do in such a ...
... tossing me off . I too stretched out on the carpet . It was impossible to do otherwise ; Simone was still a virgin , and I fucked her for the first time , next to the corpse . It was very painful for both of us , but we were glad ...
Contents
Part Two COINCIDENCES | 69 |
The Pornographic Imagination | 83 |
The Metaphor of the Eye | 119 |
Copyright | |