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Over the past 30 years the writings of Georges Bataille have had aprofound influence on French intellectual thought, informing the work ofMichel Foucault, Jacques Derrida, Roland Barthes, Jean Baudrillard, andothers. Against Architecture offers the first seriousinterpretation of this challenging thinker, spelling out the profoundlyoriginal and radical nature of Bataille's work. It has already becomethe standard critical work in Bataille in France, where it was publishedin 1974 as la Prise de la Concorde.

Denis Hollier, who has written a new introduction to this edition, setsout Bataille's ideas in a way that is lucid and dazzling yet faithful toBataille's own commitment to the formally elusive and heterogeneous.Taking into account the Bataillian requirement that such a commitmentoperate not only on the theoretical plane, Hollier's own writing echoesBataille's position that writing is always linked to discord ordisharmony. Against Architecture opens, in fact, with twobeginnings, the second of which is bent on undoing the first.

The initial beginning is a theoretical excursus on Hegel's aesthetics,showing how the commanding position architecture is given in Hegel'sphilosophical edifice underlies a deeper and more fundamental modelingof his philosophical system according to the pattern of architecture--amodeling that turns philosophy itself into the servant of architecture.the second beginning is an analysis of Bataille's earliest text: afervent prayer for the restoration of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame atReims after its bombing during World War I. This religious meditationHollier sees as the paradoxical origin of the long series of violationsat work in Bataille's later writings.

In the second half of the book, "The Caesarean," Hollier analyzes theinterplay between two modalities of built space--the pyramid and thelabyrinth. The labyrinth was the elusive, almost invisible model ofspatiality through which Bataille induced the undoing of structureslinguistic as well as architectural. Hollier looks at the way thatBataille went on to map the space of the labyrinth onto the space of thebody, and at the myths--the Pineal Eye, the Solar Anus--that hedeveloped to project this complementary system. ... Read more

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illustrated edition, tr "Jayne Austen" ... Read more

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Confrontation with death with drunken sex
"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 shortsegments titled with a summary of the action - the titles themselves bearmuch of the meaning of the story as if they formed a poem of which the textis a commentary 2) the text is extremely well written - a lesson ineffective use of words 3) the text is thought provoking - the sexual,drunken crudeness is demanded of the text not a superficial addon.Youwill be forced to reconsider your notion of death, evil and pleasure. 4)the drawings capture the madness (darkness} of the tale

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

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Told in a series of first-person accounts, L'Abbe C is a startling narrative about the intense and terrifying relationship between twin brothers, Charles and Robert.Charles is a modern libertine, dedicated to vice and depravity, while Robert is a priest so devout that he is nicknamed 'L'Abbe'.When the sexually wild Eponine intrudes on their suffocating relationship, madness and death ensue. ... Read more

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A Portrait of Projection, Deception, and Deceit ...
Our story begins in the voice of the editor as he explains how he received a mysterious and unfinished manuscript from his acquaintance, Charles.This manuscript depicts the untold events of Charles' Brother Robert and his final days.

Charles and Robert are identical twins, and as in many stories of this nature, they are complete opposites, or so it appears on the surface.Charles denies himself nothing, and Robert is a priest.One might assume that this would be a story of conflicting principles or maybe even a story of dysfunctional sibling rivalry ... but no, this story is much more corrupt than that, for it is a story of perception, projection, and deceit.

True to form, Bataille offers us, not just a grazing of the skin, but a deep penetration into the void of depravation and obscenity.His style is that of a clinical master, as he dissects the bloody entrails of human desire, selfishness, conceit, and delusion.Charles is written as an open wound, and he bleeds his confession onto the pages.But as we have come to expect from Bataille, the prose is restrained, the imagery subtle and often obscured by the characters' emotions.He leaves the details to the imagination and focuses purely on the internal emotional turmoil of the characters.Those emotions are bludgeoning in their corruption and confusion.

Charles, upon finding that his brother is ill, sets out to prove a theory.Charles has been convinced all his life that his brother Robert is a fraud.That his piety is a masterful deception and that Robert, beneath the cassock and his own flesh, is exactly like Charles himself. He conspires with his mistress, the local whore, to seduce Robert.The whore is willing to oblige, as she has been in love with Robert since childhood.She is wounded and vengeful.She and Robert had been close at one time, but her chosen lifestyle of sexual and moral freedom caused Robert to completely extricate her from his life.His rejection was so final and so complete that she vowed an eternal pledge to destroy him, and Charles is more than willing to help in order to satisfy his own demented curiosity and emotional needs.

During the story, events unfold as one would assume, but they gradually build to an unexpected and blinding conclusion, exposing a truth about Robert that Charles cannot comprehend nor deal with.This is not a story about Robert, and the whore is merely a catalyst ... This is a portrait of Charles and his unrealized and unreconciled need to not only compare himself to his brother but his need to reduce an ideal he feels convinced is false and yet cannot and will not face the undeniable truth of his own theory.What happens when a man realizes his ideal is a lie?This is by far Bataille's best story ... deftly portrayed, the portraits of these two men and their relationship is left raw and uncompromising. Deeply emotional and psychologically devastating, this is what discerning readers have come to expect from Bataille, the seamless merging of fiction, psychology, and philosophy.Deviant and Damaged is Bataille's speciality, and with each book, he leaves the reader wanting for more.If you have only read 'Story of The Eye', do not expect the same blunt and vulgar prose from this book, 'Eye' was a deviation from Bataille's norm - equally exceptional but very different in its intent. One of the true masters of the Novella form, Bataille's stories require a bit of effort from the reader, but the treasure discovered, humanity's sense of self, is well worth that effort.

Morally candid, but overdone.
"L'Abbe C" is the story of Robert, a priest who is so upstanding he is called "L'Abbe" ("the abbot"), and his twin brother Charles, a "libertine" (i.e., a playboy, or man of loose morals). Charles has a sexual relationship with Eponine, a woman whose morals approach his, but Eponine is attracted to Robert, making for sexual tension. Worse, Robert is secretly attracted to Eponine, making for psychological tension. We learn early in the book that the story will turn out badly for all parties involved, each suffering in their own way, so it is not revealing a secret to say the tensions in this multi-faceted relationship do not lead to a healthy outcome. The story is told mostly from Charles's point of view.

Robert breaks down psychologically, fainting at a church service he is attempting to deliver with Eponine in the congregation. Robert begins drinking heavily, and begins stalking Eponine's home in the dead of night, leaving behind sick signs of his presence. He can no longer discern good from evil, nor morality from immorality, and eventually cracks altogether, leaving town for a hotel on the outskirts, where he stays with two semi-professional ladies of looser morals than Eponine's. The novel twists a few more times from there, then resolves itself tragically.

The book is essentially a reflection on morality and cowardice, the latter being the human element required for maintaining morality, but also for being true to one's self, which can sometimes oppose what we believe to be moral. While it has an interesting theme, it is written almost entirely for shock value (or at least what passes for shock value for an author born in 1897, and writing in 1950), but does not convincingly expound upon or communicate its theme to the reader. For one instance, we are never convinced Robert was so pious to begin with. He does not earn his title "L'Abbe" in our eyes, so we are not affected by his supposed turning away from piety during the book.

Bataille has written this book in an old-fashioned style, almost Victorian, using wrenching emotional adjectives, and over-romanticized means of communicating inner thoughts. It is a bit overdone for the "been there, done that" reader of today, and not handsome enough for the admirer of 19th-century literature. (Also, there is some reference to Nazis near the end of the story. Judging from another Bataille book, "Blue of Noon", Bataille seems to throw Nazis into the bargain when he can no longer figure out where to go, and when he needs to show someone else as depraved as his other characters. The reference to Nazis is unecessary and superficial.)

This is a very short work, 158 pages, written in a halting diarized style in most parts. It's almost a pamphlet, hardly a full book. In the final analysis, this is a sexually frank and morally candid tale, but one that is philosophical and even memorable. It may not be great literature, the ending may be a bit incongruous, and it may read as though it is fifty years older than it really is, but it was an interesting little volume nonetheless. I subtract a star, however, because it is a tiny little book at a full-size price.

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Bataille's L'Abbe C provides you with a reading atmosphere of unsettling density akin to that of the more famous Story of the Eye, while lacking the flood of relentless pornographic imagery that can be witnessed in thatnovel. The book can be tedious and pretentious at times (as with anythingby Bataille), but it remains a rather fascinating literary diversion. Thestory, which seems to concern the muddled web of feelings existing betweena pair of brothers who are in love with the same mysterious woman, ispresented in too surreal a fashion to be particularly coherent; however,the most immediately accessible merits of Bataille's literature have lessto do with understanding specifically what is happening, and more to dowith the dream-like sense (or rather nightmare-like sense) of profundityprovoked. Think of one of David Lynch's better films in the form of afrench novel from the early part of the century, and you'll be on the righttrack. L'abbe C isn't as compulsively readable as the disturbingpornographic masterpiece Story of the Eye, but will still provide thepatient reader with numerous rewards. The mad priest's diary, at the end ofthe novel, is of particular interest. ... Read more

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This work contains Bataille's own research into eroticism, its origins of taboo, religious ecstacy and the erotic impulse. He includes his comments on Freud, Sade, Saint Theresa and Kinsey. ... Read more

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An elegant introduction to Bataille's major concepts and concerns, Bataille: A Critical Reader underlines the powerful impact his work has had, in different ways, on an entire generation of thinkers.It reveals a fascinating genealogy, marking Bataille's pivotal position for theorists whose own work has enabled the transformation of literary and cultural studies in the Anglo-American academy in the last twenty years.The Critical Reader thus redresses what has been a gaping oversight in the reception of French thought since the 1960s.Keying their selections to The Bataille Reader, the editors provide students and general readers of both volumes with an essential and consistently clear source of reference and elucidation.Chapters included are by: Jean Baudrillard, Maurice Blanchot, Mikkel Borch-Jacobsen, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Jean-Joseph Goux, Denis Hollier, Jurgen Habermas, Philippe Sollers, with an extensive introduction by the editors. ... Read more

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The transgressive writing of George Bataille (1897-1962) and the rigorous ethical philosophy of social activist and Christian mystic Simone Weil (1909-1943) seem to belong to different worlds. Yet in the political ferment of 1930s Paris, Bataille and Weil were intellectual adversaries who exerted a powerful fascination on each other. Saints of the Impossible provides the first in-depth comparison of Bataille's and Weil's thought, showing how an exploration of their relationship reveals new facets of the achievements of two of the twentieth century's leading intellectual figures and raises far-reaching questions about literary practice, politics, and religion.

Considering the seeming antithesis between Weil's heroic political engagement and Bataille's antipolitical aestheticism, Saints of the Impossible brings out the insufficiently recognized performative dimension of Weil's politics, while revealing the political reach of Bataille's mystical writings. As it opens a new perspective on both Weil and Bataille, the book also points to a new way of understanding the uses and abuses of sacred power and the performative in an era of philosophical disorientation, social chaos, and war.

Alexander Irwin is assistant professor of religion at Amherst College and a research associate of the Boston-based Institute for Health and Social Justice. ... Read more

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In the 1930s, Georges Bataille proclaimed a "ferociously religious" sensibility characterized by simultaneous ecstasy and horror. Ecce Monstrum investigates the content and implications of this religious sensibility by examining Bataille's insistent linking of monstrosity and the sacred.Extending and sometimes challenging major interpretations of Bataille by thinkers like Denis Hollier and Rosalind Krauss the book reveals how his writings betray the monstrous marks of the affective and intellectual contradictions he seeks to produce in his readers. Charting a new approach to recent debates concerning Bataille's formulation of the informe ("formless"), the author demonstrates that the motif of monstrosity is keyed to Bataille's notion of sacrifice--an operation that ruptures the integrality of the individual form. Bataille enacts a "monstrous" mode of reading and writing in his approaches to other thinkers and artists--a mode that is at once agonistic and intimate. Ecce Monstrum examines this monstrous mode of reading and writing through investigations of Bataille's "sacrificial" interpretations of Kojève's Hegel and Friedrich Nietzsche; his contentious relationship with Simone Weil and its implications for his mystical and writing practices; his fraught affiliation with surrealist André Breton and his attempt to displace surrealism with "hyperchristianity"; and his peculiar relations to artist Hans Bellmer, whose work evokes Bataille's "religious sensibility."With its wide-ranging analyses, this book offers insights of interest to scholars of religion, philosophers, art historians, and students of French intellectual history and early modernism. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Inspired, riveting work
This is a redemptive, haunting work of genius.Don't be dissuaded by the academic overlay; it will change your life.

"brilliant, exquisitely written"
Georges Bataille was an epistolary friend of the historian of religion Mircea Eliade, whose thoughts on the sacred provide one entrance to the labyrinth of Bataille's life work.In this brilliant, exquisitely written analysis of Bataille's religious thought, Jeremy Biles has not only immersed himself in the philosophy and fiction of Bataille but also his contemporaries Andre Breton, Simone Weil, and Hans Bellmer, all of whom prove critical for an understanding of such concepts as the "monstrous," the "formless," "hyperchristianity," and Bataille's "ferociously religious" relation to the world.Like Amy Hollywood's excellent "Sensible Ecstasy," which integrates Bataille's seemingly peculiar meditative techniques within Christian tradition, Biles is intensely interested in not only what Bataille says about religion but how his ideas can inform a rigorous and functional theology.

This book will prove indispensible for anyone seriously interested in Bataille, Weil, surrealism, or the dynamics of the sacred in modern European thought, but while academics in everything from art history to literary criticism will make use of this text for years to come, it should also prove, with its obvious passion and erudite-yet-enthralling untanglings of otherwise complicated and esoteric ideas, of real enjoyment for the lay reader, for anyone interested in what it might mean to live a "ferociously religious" life outside the bounds of traditional community.

... Read more

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