Story of the Eye
by Georges Bataille

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Book Reviews of Story of the Eye

Book Review: On some levels it works
Summary: 2 Stars

Let me start with the "ick" factor. Yes there is one but i've read much worse so I could easily stomach this without a flinch. There's nothing that's horrifically violent, just really a few scenes. Mostly the ick comes from urination. And let me tell you, there's a lot of it! I don't think two pages go by where someone isn't urinating on themselves or another person. I don't really mind a few fetishes here or there in a book but this book takes it to the point where urinating becomes the most boring thing in the entire story.

The second thing I want to mention is the plot. Yeah there really isn't one. The truth is that it doesn't really even start going anywhere until close to half-way through the book. The first half of the book is really just two teenagers "getting off" by urinating and playing with boiled eggs (no i'm not kidding). The second half you finally start going somewhere but by this time it's too late to actually get you to really care about the story or the characters. If it is one thing I wish this book would have given me is character development. We're given no reason or hints for why these two kids act the way the do or what motivates them. I would have liked just maybe a little psychology to help understand. But then maybe that would have taken away everything and if we really knew them then perhaps we would have been disgusted by them instead of just not caring.

Ok so i've only talked about the bad points. I'll speak about the good points. The best thing this book has going for itself is the length, it's very short so you can easily finish it in one sitting. I'll give props to the author for not dragging on (with exception of the urination on every page almost) and getting to the point. The second thing it has going for itself is how weird it is. I don't believe many people can read this book and think "This really reminds me of..." because there really isn't anything else like it. And finally the third thing is that it does manage to have some humor in it. There is a particular scene with a priest that can make you chuckle for a second.

I don't know whether I would say it wasn't worth the read. I do think perhaps it was but it just wasn't worth the buy. I can't ever see myself picking it up again and I wasn't very satisified by the short story that I thought I got my money's worth. I do think that Georges Bataille wanted to express some deep psychological meaning behind all of this but for the life of me I couldn't find it anywhere. If you can find some other way to read it without having to buy it then you should give it a try but otherwise I think you should save your money.

Summary of Story of the Eye

Erotica Books

• Subjects > Literature & Fiction > Erotica