Blue of Noon

Blue of Noon
by Georges Bataille

Blue of Noon
List Price: $14.95
Our Price: $8.67
You Save: $6.28 (42%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $8.25 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions


or

Book Summary Information

Author: Georges Bataille
Translator: Harry Mathews
Introduction: Ken Hollings
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); French (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-05-01
ISBN: 0714530735
Number of pages: 162
Publisher: Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd

Book Reviews of Blue of Noon

Book Review: De Sade's nephew gets all sociopolitical.
Summary: 1 Stars

"Blue of Noon" is the story of Henri, an amoral man living in Europe during the 1930s. He is supposedly married, but spends his time with similarly amoral women, lacking clothing, inhibition, shame, and even proper hygeine at times. He zips between London, Paris, Barcelona, and Frankfurt, and frankly, engages in nothing but immoral self-satisfying activities in every spot.

At various times, he agonizes over his relationships with his wife, his sexual partners, and his deceased mother. He becomes embroiled in a Communist revolutionary plot in Barcelona, with one of his sexual partners, a Jewish woman, involved in its planning and execution. He reveals his necrophilic obsession to two of his partners, further revealing the exact, even more sickening, subject of his obsession to one of them. He has sex, he gets sick, his women have sex, they get sick, everybody has sex, everybody gets sick. For the punchline, near the end of the novel, Bataille throws Nazis into the picture, showing us that all the depravity of fascism is comparable to the depravity he has shown us all along. Though published in 1957, the book was originally written in 1936.

This reviewer isn't buying it. Not a word of it. Not the story, not even the "1936" part. For one thing, the writing style is actually more mature than that of "L'Abbe C", published in 1950. Bataille is most probably trying to show off that he detected the evil inherent in the Nazis "way back when". I don't give him that much credit.

For another thing, I think he uses Nazis as an easy way to score "scary" points. One might intellectualize his choice by saying Bataille is trying to tell us that no matter how disgusting humans may act, at least we're not as bad as Nazis. Imagine a murderer begging leniency because he's not a Nazi. He's still a murderer. It seems Bataille is using Nazis to justify the pornography he just wrote, as if the world is such a horrible place that pornography is just another little bit of it, and tries to throw a philosophical wrench into the works, as if saying life is meaningless in the face of all the horrible things fascism is doing to us in Europe, but I suspect it was all done just for the hell of it. I frankly don't see any rhyme or reason to the thematic choices he makes.

I have nothing against the depravity or explicit nature of the book. "Been there, done that", right? It's not even all that explicit, there's probably less sex in this book than the average mainstream novel today, and he's certainly not advocating committing even the slightest harm to anyone. There are a few disturbing or distasteful ideas here and there, but one never gets the sense Bataille really means what he's writing. One gets the sense he's simply trying to come up with every juxtaposition of immoral behavior and social taboo he can, just to tweak the reader's moral compass a bit, trying to get a cheap rise out of his audience. Maybe this was an interesting exercise in 1957 (or "1936"), but given the state of depravity which existed in Germany during the 1920s, and the state of sexual liberation which swept Europe from the late 19th century through the early 20th century, I strongly doubt it.

Perhaps the target reader for this book will be the person interested in twisted versions of 19th-century literature (Bataille wrote like someone living 50 or 100 years before his time), or the works of De Sade (albeit in highly shortened format, this book being only 126 pages).

Summary of Blue of Noon

Set against the backdrop of Europe?s slide into Fascism, this twentieth-century erotic classic takes the reader on a dark journey through the psyche of the pre-war French intelligentsia, torn between identification with the victims of history and the glamour of its victors. One of Bataille?s overtly political works, it explores the ambiguity of sex as a subversive force, bringing violence, power and death together in a terrifying unity.

"Georges Bataille is one of the most important writers of the century"?Michel Foucault

[box]

Also available:

My Mother Madame Edwarda and the Dead Man,

TP $14.95, 0-7145-3004-2 ? CUSA

Literature and Evil

TP $14.95, 0-7145-0346-0 ? CUSA

L?Abbé C

TP $14.95, 0-7145-2448-X ? CUSA

Erotica Books

Book Subjects
Most talked about in Erotica Books
Indiscreet Memoirs ImageIndiscreet Memoirs
by Alain Dorval
Nexus; Published: 1985-12-05; Paperback; Book
Voyeur ImageVoyeur
by Phillip Mason
Hodder & Stoughton; Published: 1999-06; Paperback; Book
Price in other shops: $11.99
Sensual Memoirs of Edwardian 2 (v. 2) ImageSensual Memoirs of Edwardian 2 (v. 2)
by Anonymous
Hodder & Stoughton; Published: 1999-06; Hardcover; Book
Price in other shops: $11.95
Topping From Below ImageTopping From Below
by Laura Reese
St. Martin's Griffin; Published: 1996-04-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $18.94
Salt On Our Skin ImageSalt On Our Skin
by Benoit Groult; Mo Teitelbaum
Hamish Hamilton; Published: 1992; Paperback; Book
Erotic Stories by Women, The Penguin Book of ImageErotic Stories by Women, The Penguin Book of
by Various
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1997-05-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $396.81
The Seduction (Notorious) ImageThe Seduction (Notorious)
by Nicole Jordan
Ballantine Books; Published: 2010-05-25; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.99
Price in other shops: $5.99
Burning Up: Tales of Erotic Romance ImageBurning Up: Tales of Erotic Romance
by Nina Bangs, Kimberly Raye, Cheryl Holt, Patricia Ryan
St. Martin's Griffin; Published: 2003-07-03; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.20
Price in other shops: $16.99
In the Cut (Vintage Contemporaries) ImageIn the Cut (Vintage Contemporaries)
by Susanna Moore
Vintage; Published: 2007-08-14; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.99
Price in other shops: $14.00
The Average American Male: A Novel ImageThe Average American Male: A Novel
by Chad Kultgen
Harper Perennial; Published: 2007-03-13; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.98
Price in other shops: $13.99
Similar Books and other products
Don Juan de la Mancha ImageDon Juan de la Mancha
by Robert Menasse
Alma Books; Published: 2009-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.50
Price in other shops: $16.95
Visions Of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927-1939 (Theory and  History of Literature) ImageVisions Of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927-1939 (Theory and History of Literature)
by Georges Bataille
Univ Of Minnesota Press; Published: 1985-06-20; Paperback; Book
Best price: $21.57
Price in other shops: $22.50
Accursed Share, Vol. 1: Consumption ImageAccursed Share, Vol. 1: Consumption
by Georges Bataille
Zone; Published: 1991-03-26; Paperback; Book
Best price: $13.59
Price in other shops: $21.95
Theory of Religion ImageTheory of Religion
by Georges Bataille
Zone; Published: 1992-06-29; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.00
Price in other shops: $19.95
Inner Experience (SUNY Series Intersections: Philosophy and Critical Theory) ImageInner Experience (SUNY Series Intersections: Philosophy and Critical Theory)
by Georges Bataille
State University of New York Press; Published: 1988-04-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $22.94
Price in other shops: $22.95
L'Abbe C ImageL'Abbe C
by Georges Bataille
Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd; Published: 2001-04-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.95
Price in other shops: $14.95
Erotism: Death and Sensuality ImageErotism: Death and Sensuality
by Georges Bataille
City Lights Publishers; Published: 1986-01-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.97
Price in other shops: $16.95
The Tears of Eros ImageThe Tears of Eros
by Georges Bataille
City Lights Publishers; Published: 2001-01-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $10.29
Price in other shops: $18.95
My Mother, Madame Edwarda and The Dead Man ImageMy Mother, Madame Edwarda and The Dead Man
by Georges Bataille
Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd; Published: 2000; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2,218.19
Story of the Eye ImageStory of the Eye
by Georges Bataille
City Lights Publishers; Published: 2001-01-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.59
Price in other shops: $9.95