From Library Journal
Bataille (1897-1962), French avant-garde critic, editor, and novelist, is best known for provocative "erotic" novels and offbeat philosophical theories. His overlooked poetry, here translated into English for the first time, mingles religious and scatological imagery. Nonbelieving, anti-Puritan, aspiring to freedom of thought without "moral and social constraint," Bataille's world is one in which love and passion are obstacles to openness of mind. Using X-rated erotic motifs, Bataille turns visceral functions into a "headless bird with wings that beat the night"; idealism becomes the "funereal immodesty of dead bones," and stars "anguish beyond compare." Like the better-known Jean-Paul Sartre, Bataille fends off "self-annihilation" by envisioning a beleaguered and austere existence: "the immense universe is death/ I am the fever/ the desire." Confronting "the void," Bataille bravely concludes, "I was grimacing and laughing, lips wide apart, teeth naked." This is the audacious, frightful side of surrealism.?Frank Allen, Northampton Community Coll., Tannersville, PA
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.
