O Ânus Solar

by Georges Bataille

«Os grandes símios e os homens nunca chegaram colectivamente a uma ambição tão desmedida como a de Prometeu e de Ícaro. Não poderem enfrentar o Sol com a sua visão baixa apenas os levou a tentativas fracassadas de um terceiro olho especializado na afoiteza suprema da contemplação solar. Nos símios de maior estatura a cauda desapareceu para mostrar um ânus colorido e de uma evidência gritante, paródia do olho solar que enfrenta o astro e lhe faz a homenagem dos seus excrementos expelindo-os como vulcões, ânus da Terra que atiram ao Sol as suas fezes. O homem, esse, teria iniciado uma estratégia mais exigente: no alto do crânio começou por formar uma glândula chamada pineal, projecto abortado de um verdadeiro olho com direito a fixar directamente o Sol.»

Genres: Philosophy, Poetry, Fiction, France, Classics, Essays, Surreal

126 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1931

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

[Ipsa · Rating 3 out of 5]

There is an unspeakable force of the erotic that exists at the very limit of law and language -- at the loss of language that the closure of dialectics entails. Throughout this bizarre, filthy, excremental work runs the undercurrent of a cramped, violent wrestling of the glorious solar Bataille, with the language-evading nature of transgressions, to keep language at an arm’s length. This tension seeps into the metaphors and the imagery he uses; moving beyond the dialectical binary requires immense violence, so it shows.

When my face is flushed with blood, it becomes red and obscene. It betrays at the same time, through morbid reflexes, a bloody erection and a demanding thirst for indecency and criminal debauchery. For that reason I am not afraid to affirm that my face is a scandal and that my passions are expressed only by the JESUVE.

Jesuve is a word made-up by Bataille: a collection and simultaneously the negation of the Cartesian, Hegelian, Artaudian, and many other conceptions of the subject, the nature of pain and ecstasy, and the limits of experience.

Bataille’s self-obliterating language shines through the constant inversion of the binaries in order to make way for the anal abject. The brilliance of this short work is in how it unabashedly uses the Hegelian dialectics that he seeks to overturn, contrasting the glorious, life-giving sun and the dark, excremental anus. As Allan Stoekl writes, “The blinding, organic, life-giving love of the sun and the a-rhythmic, violent love of the anus.” It is so difficult to verbalise and articulate the myriads of philosophical undertones that cut through this seemingly nonsensical work; but I have read it thrice since yesterday, and it has kept me thinking. I went “whutt” on every other sentence. Terse and aphoristic, philosophical and poetic at once, I WOULD NOT recommend it to anyone who isn’t already interested in and/or familiar with Bataille’s philosophy.

Disasters, revolutions, and volcanoes do not make love with the stars. The erotic revolutionary and volcanic deflagrations antagonize the heavens. As in the case of violent love, they take place beyond the constraints of fecundity. In opposition to celestial fertility there are terrestrial disasters, the image of terrestrial love without condition, erection without escape and without rule, scandal, and terror.

3.5

[Aung Sett Kyaw Min · Rating 2 out of 5]

>tfw no 18 y/o qt gf with a resplendent anus

[Rosie]

French philosophers just be saying shit. 5 stars

[m]

i wish i were him honestly life seems so fun with a mind like that

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

It can sometimes carry itself as academic, or stochastic Continental philosophy, but mostly it feels like a surrealist provocation, a demented horny homily that slips into prosaic free verse too easy and too often to be building an argument or an altar call. I haven't a clue what to make of it, and I am cynical enough to wonder if I was being had, but the man knows how to put a sentence together.

[Adriana Scarpin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nessa edição constam dois textos: O Ânus Solar e O Olho Pineal, ambos contém uma prosa poética que vão além da metafísica e se encontra nos limites da consciência. Ponto extra para a personagem Jesúvio.

[andrea . · Rating 4 out of 5]

"O mar está continuamente a masturbar-se.

Os elementos sólidos contidos e agitados dentro de uma água que se anima de movimento erótico, brotam sob a forma de peixes voadores.

[...]

O globo terrestre está coberto de vulcões que lhe servem de ânus.

E ainda que este globo nada coma, às vezes deita fora o conteúdo das entranhas.

Conteúdo que salta com estrondo e cai e escorre nas faldas do Jesúvio, a espalhar morte e terror por todo o lado.

Na verdade, o movimento erótico do solo não é fecundo, como o das águas, mas muito mais rápido.

Às vezes a terra masturba-se com frenesi, arruinando por completo a sua superfície."

<3

[John Christy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This little piece is a great example of aphoristic writing that progresses to a conclusion. Concept of the Jesuve is interesting. Great writing. Check it out - it's online and free. You get the feeling Bataille's bizarre dualisms are taking root in your brain

[Fotis Ips · Rating 4 out of 5]

Δοκίμιο ειρωνικό μέχρι το κόκκαλο σε θέματα ζωής και θανάτου, τόσο του ανθρώπου όσο και της υπόλοιπης ζωής/ύλης.

Ιστορικές αναφορές σε πολιτικά και καλλιτεχνικά πρόσωπα από μία πολύ ενδιαφέρουσα και τελείως διαφορετική οπτική απο την συνηθισμένη. Ο Μπατάιγ έχει απαιτητική ροή γραφής και σκέψης, αλλά σίγουρα ανταμείβει. Το συγκεκριμένο αποτελεί μία εναλλακτική τροφή για σκέψη.

Ξεχωριστός!

[Woke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kind of shitty, to be honest.

[kybrntcbarock · Rating 3 out of 5]

and when I scream I am the sun, an integral erection results

[kewl · Rating 2 out of 5]

"The sea continuously jerks off. Solid elements, contained and brewed in water animated by erotic movement, shoot out in the form of flying fish."

i'm sorry, great use of imagery and all but what the actual hell did i just read.

[Marzipan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted to write a review for this piece, but my hands were too busy being a penguin, a laser printer, a red fleck of paint on the wall, the speckled vomit of rainbow frogs...

[Saul Walt · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's not good as porn, but it's definitely poetic and food for thought.

[ª · Rating 4 out of 5]

mm

[d]

I - Texto breve y algo críptico.
II - Es griego (el dios asiático nacido dos veces,..), es hegeliano-heracliteano, es sexy y da miedo.
III- En mi humilde opinión, tiene la mejor línea de la obra de Bataille.
IV - Creo que el B novelista no es el mejor B. Aquí se muestra en top form.

Luego estas líneas deliciosas, lujosas:

An abandoned shoe, a rotten tooth, a snub nose, the cook spitting in the soup of his masters are to love what a battle flag is to nationality.

An umbrella, a sexagenarian, a seminarian, the smell of rotten eggs, the hollow eyes of judges are the roots that nourish love.

A dog devouring the stomach of a goose, a drunken vomiting woman, a slobbering accountant, a jar of mustard represent the confusion that serves as the vehicle of love.

[Tine! · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hello, my new friend.

[Hebdomeros · Rating 4 out of 5]

I want to have my throat slashed while violating the girl to whom I will have been able to say: you are the night.

[kvikna · Rating 5 out of 5]

the blacker the sun, the darker the dawn

[Zach Irvin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don’t ever say philosophy isn’t interesting.

Very short, very surreal. It’s like Bataille is trying to stretch language and meaning to the breaking point and find what lies there. It’s erotic, decaying and regenerative. It’s also kind of sexist, which is probably to be expected from a man writing at this time.

I particularly liked the bits about our minds being mirrors and made for reflections. World and image as one, lost in a maddening infinity.

[alt · Rating 3 out of 5]

"In bed next to a girl he loves, he forgets that he does not know why he is himself instead of the
body he touches."

Danieliau, this one's for you.
You thought I would be surprised? Well guess what. I've read Bataille.
This is a perfectly tame Bataille text.

[Laurel]

At a minimum, Bataille never fails to make me laugh, and then in the next moment my smile fades and it seems like he might be onto something…then it gets a bit poetic, and then hilarious all over again.

[buttercup · Rating 4 out of 5]

The sea continuously jerks off.
Solid elements, contained and brewed in water animated by erotic movement, shoot out in the form of flying fish.

[Meg Powers · Rating 4 out of 5]

"The sea continuously jerks off. "

[Linda]

What a freak

[Héctor Mora · Rating 5 out of 5]

HAHAHAHA DUALISM REIGNS

LE SOLEIL M’AIME ET DIRIGE SA LUMINEUSE VERGE IGNOBLE VERS MOI.

DONC JE DIS: OUI;
¡OUI!

[Ivan Arena · Rating 4 out of 5]

Life is a cycle of sex and death.

[jadov · Rating 3 out of 5]

u citanke

[Marius Haugstad · Rating 5 out of 5]

i came, i saw (i sea), i came

brilliant

[Nicolò Grasso · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Love and life appear to be separate only because everything on earth is broken apart by vibrations of various amplitudes and durations.
However, there are no vibrations that are not conjugated with a continuous circular movement; in the same way, a locomotive rolling on the surface of the earth is the image of continuous metamorphosis."