The Bataille Reader

by Georges Bataille, Fred Botting (Editor), Scott Wilson (Editor)

Since the publication in France of his Oeuvres Completes in the mid-1970s, the breadth of Bataille's writing and influence has become increasingly apparent across the disciplines in, for example, the fields of literature, art, art history, philosophy, critical theory, sociology, economics, and anthropology.

Genres: Philosophy, Theory, Nonfiction, Economics

368 pages, Paperback

First published September 16, 1997

About the author

French essayist, philosophical theorist, and novelist, often called the "metaphysician of evil." Bataille was interested in sex, death, degradation, and the power and potential of the obscene. He rejected traditional literature and considered that the ultimate aim of all intellectual, artistic, or religious activity should be the annihilation of the rational individual in a violent, transcendental act of communion. Roland Barthes, Julia Kristeva, and Philippe Sollers have all written enthusiastically about his work.

Reviews

[Brian]

Across Bataille's oeuvre, represented in this volume by essays touching on fields of intellectual inquiry from sociology to metaphysics, as well as literary works of phenomenological introspection and erotic surrealism, the refrain to which he constantly returns might be summed up as a search to define the conditions of human freedom. This liberty which he pursues, as the reader ultimately discovers, transcending banal notions of social relations or even personal will, exists only in our capacity to live beyond utility and purpose, beyond reasons – indeed, beyond reason, that very ability to reason and plan for an intuited future which, as Bataille acknowledges, determines our humanity as such. Nevertheless, what Bataille suggests is neither a regression to animality, nor a quixotic diversion bearing no relevance to real social life. As he illustrates, more or less explicitly, in works exploring fascism, archaic religion, and his own speculative meta-economics, the irruption of an irrational, unassimilable excess of energy occurs continuously and ineluctably. Bataille, whose writings bookend the rise and fall of fascism and the second World War, was issuing a warning: unless we recognize and engage that excess, unless we find ways to successfully live excessively on our own terms, then heterogeneous force will blindly overtake us in the forms of social disintegration, cults of personality, and war.

[xDEAD ENDx]

This is the first book where I really started to "get" Bataille (which isn't to say that I never understood him before–though there's some truth to that–but to say that things started to click a nd I began to feel that revulsion of which so many speak). The arrangement and categorization of texts was done in a way where there seemed to be some sort of fluidity or conversation between independently published or written pieces.

The biggest downsides are that about half the pieces are from The Accursed Share, which left me wanting more, and I felt like some of the pieces could have used some sort of commentary to better locate them within Bataille's thought.

[vermillioncore]

Hmm, this compels me to delve deeper into Bataille. Erotism left me lingering in a state of detached fascination, its weight lingering but never quite pressing deep enough perhaps the fault was mine for approaching it too cautiously.

This collection, with its additional notations, offers an intriguing entry point. Yet one must understand: Bataille is not to be read in the conventional sense. He is to be surrendered to, unraveled by, consumed from within.

If you hesitate, you are not ready. If you are ready, do not hesitate. Let it devour you.

[Leonardo]

Para finalizar, diremos que nuestro análisis tiene muchos puntos de convergencia con el de Georges Bataille en su conocido trabajo sobre estructura psicológica del fascismo". "El momento de la homogeneidad, de la manera como él lo presenta, coincide, casi punto por punto, con lo que hemos denominado la "lógica de la diferencia": Homogeneidad significa la conmensurabilidad de elementos y la conciencia de esa conmensurabilidad: las relaciones humanas son sostenidas por una reducción a reglas fijas basadas en la conciencia de la posible identidad de personas y situaciones definibles; en principio, toda violencia es excluida de este curso de existencia".
La razón populista Pág.196

[Brian]

Great overview of classic texts and obscure pieces. Includes the Programme relative to Acephale. Most excellent.

[sologdin]

after reading this, I'm of the opinion that teabaggers are the accursed share of the production of a democratic polity.

[Lisa]

The Bataille Reader (Blackwell Readers) by Georges Bataille (1997)

[Mills College Library]

848.91209 B3281 1997