Story of the Eye (urspr publ 1967; utgåvan 1987)

Erótico

Eyes, eggs, etc. ( )

Een allesverzengend seksueel ontwaken van 3 tieners, gaande van guitig staren tot het vaginaal inbrengen van uitgerukte oogballen. Perversie ten top, vol betekenisverschuivingen die het verhaal een merkwaardig biografische lading geven. ( )

Highly erotic at first, after several chapters it became merely tiresome until, finally, it was too gross even for me. ( )

The scene in the church with the narrator, Simone, Sir Edmond, and Father Aminado reminded me of a passage from Against Nature by Joris-Karl Huysmans:

"...sacrilege depends on the existence of a religion, it cannot be deliberately and effectively committed except by a believer, for a man would derive no satisfaction whatever from profaning a faith that was unimportant or unknown to him."

Does this mean that Father Aminado is the only one committing sacrilege? I had many unanswered questions about this novel. What was the cause of Simone's laughter in the church? What is the true meaning behind the symbolism of the eyes and eggs?

I expected the obscenities of this novel to disturb me, but if the reader reads with "absolute dispassion" like the Yukio Mishima character in The Sailor Who Fell from Grace With the Sea, then it doesn't bother oneself.

I would try reading an explicitly philosophical work by Bataille next. ( )