L'Abbe C
by Georges Bataille
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Book Summary Information
Author: Georges BatailleTranslator: Philip A. Facey
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); French (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2001-04-01
ISBN: 071452848X
Number of pages: 158
Publisher: Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd
Book Reviews of L'Abbe C
Book Review: A Portrait of Projection, Deception, and Deceit ...
Summary: 5 Stars
Our story begins in the voice of the editor as he explains how he received a mysterious and unfinished manuscript from his acquaintance, Charles. This manuscript depicts the untold events of Charles' Brother Robert and his final days.
Charles and Robert are identical twins, and as in many stories of this nature, they are complete opposites, or so it appears on the surface. Charles denies himself nothing, and Robert is a priest. One might assume that this would be a story of conflicting principles or maybe even a story of dysfunctional sibling rivalry ... but no, this story is much more corrupt than that, for it is a story of perception, projection, and deceit.
True to form, Bataille offers us, not just a grazing of the skin, but a deep penetration into the void of depravation and obscenity. His style is that of a clinical master, as he dissects the bloody entrails of human desire, selfishness, conceit, and delusion. Charles is written as an open wound, and he bleeds his confession onto the pages. But as we have come to expect from Bataille, the prose is restrained, the imagery subtle and often obscured by the characters' emotions. He leaves the details to the imagination and focuses purely on the internal emotional turmoil of the characters. Those emotions are bludgeoning in their corruption and confusion.
Charles, upon finding that his brother is ill, sets out to prove a theory. Charles has been convinced all his life that his brother Robert is a fraud. That his piety is a masterful deception and that Robert, beneath the cassock and his own flesh, is exactly like Charles himself. He conspires with his mistress, the local whore, to seduce Robert. The whore is willing to oblige, as she has been in love with Robert since childhood. She is wounded and vengeful. She and Robert had been close at one time, but her chosen lifestyle of sexual and moral freedom caused Robert to completely extricate her from his life. His rejection was so final and so complete that she vowed an eternal pledge to destroy him, and Charles is more than willing to help in order to satisfy his own demented curiosity and emotional needs.
During the story, events unfold as one would assume, but they gradually build to an unexpected and blinding conclusion, exposing a truth about Robert that Charles cannot comprehend nor deal with. This is not a story about Robert, and the whore is merely a catalyst ... This is a portrait of Charles and his unrealized and unreconciled need to not only compare himself to his brother but his need to reduce an ideal he feels convinced is false and yet cannot and will not face the undeniable truth of his own theory. What happens when a man realizes his ideal is a lie? This is by far Bataille's best story ... deftly portrayed, the portraits of these two men and their relationship is left raw and uncompromising. Deeply emotional and psychologically devastating, this is what discerning readers have come to expect from Bataille, the seamless merging of fiction, psychology, and philosophy. Deviant and Damaged is Bataille's speciality, and with each book, he leaves the reader wanting for more. If you have only read 'Story of The Eye', do not expect the same blunt and vulgar prose from this book, 'Eye' was a deviation from Bataille's norm - equally exceptional but very different in its intent. One of the true masters of the Novella form, Bataille's stories require a bit of effort from the reader, but the treasure discovered, humanity's sense of self, is well worth that effort.
Summary of L'Abbe C
Told in a series of first-person accounts, L'Abbé C is a startling narrative about the intense and terrifying relationship between twin brothers. Charles is a modern libertine, dedicated to vice and depravity, while Robert is a priest so devout that he is nicknamed L'Abbé'. When the sexually wild Eponine intrudes upon their suffocating relationship, anguish, delirium, and death ensue.
Other works by Georges Bataille published by Marion Boyars include Blue of Noon and My Mother Madame Edwarda and the Dead Man.
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