"She pissed noisily on the bobbing eggs with total vigor and satisfaction."

Well, on my walk home yesterday I stopped at the bookstore to pick up The Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille (published under the pen name Lord Auch 1928, "Lord Auch" being derived from aux chiottes, "to the shitter," and Lord in reference to God- "God going to the shitter"). I didn't realize what a tiny volume it was, ending in about 100 pages of rather large font. I decided to read it and completed the whole thing in an hour or two, my mouth open in surprise the entire time.

(Warning: spoilers) This book is a marvel, grotesque and visceral. It's exceedingly pornographic, violent, and surreal. The main characters, Simone, Marcelle, Lord Edmund, and our narrator, partake in all kinds of bizarre and disturbingly masochistic sexual acts, making manifest the interesting relationship and discourse between sex and death. In the book, one is hardly able to be experienced without the other intruding in some way. Marcelle's death, the death of a bullfighter, and the death of the padre are closely bound with the sexual gratification of Simone and the narrator. The recurrence of eyes and eggs (and even the similarly shaped bull balls that appear near the end of the book) add to the surrealism of the book and connect to the author's troubled past. Simone's "deep sexuality" is piqued by the shape and texture of the eggs, and the mystery of the eye, not dissimilar to the former. She thrills at death and violence, as does the narrator. Interestingly, there exists a deep love on the part of the narrator for Simone, suggesting that perhaps their supposedly deviant behavior is actually one type of manifestation of romantic love. I'm still trying to wrap my head around a lot of the concepts in the book, like the eggs and eyes, and especially how religion plays into the story, and what Simone's mother's appearances may mean.

I'd say read it. It's certainly provocative and would be great to discuss in a class. Another interesting fact: Bjork read this in 1983 and said it changed her life. I don't know if it changed mine, but I'm betting I won't forget about it for a long time.

Now I'm starting Dracula.
With both eyes intact.