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485th out of 899 books
—
2,368 voters
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, b...more
Paperback, 162 pages
Published
May 1st 2002
by Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd
(first published 1957)
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Histoire de l'oeil was quite a bit better; this one dragged on a bit. However, the last 35 pages or so were definitely worth the price of admission. Poor Xenie...
Numerous reviews, interpretations and film adaptations of Bataille's fiction experience his writing as something akin to an epiphany assisted through an aphrodisiac and in extreme cases as an ideological enhancer. A wise friend once remarked that Bataille was strong medicine -to be administered with caution; perhaps within the context of his sometimes contradictory, philosophically informed oeuvre. In other words, Le Bleu du Ciel impels a return upon the author’s avowal in the 1957 Foreword to t...more
Went searching for a Bataille novel at my local library and this was the only one currently available; in retrospect, it probably wasn't a great place to start. The style and structure is fascinating--poetic, elliptical, potent, sometimes (often?) disturbing--but I could never muster up much interest in the subject matter, which is less about sexual politics (as Bataille is famous for) and more about the perils of fascism (though this often extends to sex in Bataille's vision). I've not given up...more
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it,
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Sep 29, 2012
Amerynth
rated it
2 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
1001-books,
abusive-relationships,
fiction,
france,
read-2012,
sexuality,
spain,
spanish-civil-war,
alcoholism
While I didn't actually hate Georges Bataille's "Blue of Noon," I really didn't get it either. This supposed to be a novel that used eroticism to show how sex, violence and power is intertwined and that message really never came together for me.
The narrator is Henri Troppmann, who lives life to excess when it comes to alcohol and the debauched women who flit in and out of this life. Each woman is also on the decline for her own reasons. Henri is terrified of death and the novel is set against a...more
The narrator is Henri Troppmann, who lives life to excess when it comes to alcohol and the debauched women who flit in and out of this life. Each woman is also on the decline for her own reasons. Henri is terrified of death and the novel is set against a...more
I've read this book three weeks ago in scarce hours, but its female characters still haunt my mind - Lazare, Dirty. The book strongly reminded me of all the fiction I have read by Henry Miller, but it is far more elegant. The text is definetely kindred, my-poetry-like with this natural and bright promiscuity. Book includes several descriptions of somebody's or author's dreams. Intimate and not at all political, there's nothing radical in this book but its historical context barely dimly seen. Ac...more
A nihilist novel by Georges Bataille, Blue of Noon, is set during the Spanish Civil War and the early years of Nazi movement. The protagonist, Henri Timmermann is a sick man (physically and emotionally). This book is thankfully short, it is so horrible and not enjoyable in any sense of the word. The author has tried and achieved to include every human excretion and depravity in this novella. There are three women, Lazare--a political activist, Dirty--an alcoholic and Xenia--a young woman who nur...more
When I started the book, I didn't think that I'd enjoy it at all. However, it did get to be more interesting as it stopped being all shock and more introspective. I'm not really sure what to make of the way that Bataille sets his debauchery against the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War and the rise of Hitler... I feel like there's some commentary being made, but I can't quite grasp it. So, while there were moments where I found the writing interesting, in the end I was left feeling empty of much...more
L'azzurro del cielo si scorge solo nelle ultime pagine (ma è molto simile al nero della notte)
L'azzurro del cielo è una cupa storia d'amore che si svolge nel 1934 tra Vienna, Parigi, Barcellona e la Germania. In quell'Europa scossa dai presagi della catastrofe Henry e Dirty si amano e vivono in prima persona l'atmosfera che segue l'assassinio di Dollfuss, i prodromi della guerra civile spagnola, l'ascesa al potere assoluto del nazismo. Tuttavia il libro, almeno nella prima parte, non decolla, e...more
L'azzurro del cielo è una cupa storia d'amore che si svolge nel 1934 tra Vienna, Parigi, Barcellona e la Germania. In quell'Europa scossa dai presagi della catastrofe Henry e Dirty si amano e vivono in prima persona l'atmosfera che segue l'assassinio di Dollfuss, i prodromi della guerra civile spagnola, l'ascesa al potere assoluto del nazismo. Tuttavia il libro, almeno nella prima parte, non decolla, e...more
Death, sex and despair - that's what Bataille deals in, and Blue of Noon is no exception. The narrative follows Troppman, a deviant drunk who struggles to decide whether or not he should lead a productive, respectable life, or embrace decadence in all its depraved ugliness. Not that he suppresses much of his twisted desires to start with; right from the beginning there are the consciousness altering substances, the prostitutes, the violence. Troppman enjoys his savage lack of inhibitions and enj...more
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Jan 18, 2013
M.
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Shelves:
2006-or-before,
own,
2009,
second-reading,
fiction,
bataille,
favorites,
with-me-in-ca,
2012
Third reading, I believe. Boyfriend bought it and read it and was underwhelmed so I, of course, stepped up to the plate to re-read it so I could argue with him. I still think it's fantastic, and a great example of meting the problems of theory within a fictional narrative construct. The ending is sublime, and the weird intersect that insists upon inserting Simone Weil into the narrative fascinating.
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I like this more fitting with the context of Dirty and Inner E...more
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I like this more fitting with the context of Dirty and Inner E...more
Bataille: Blue of Noon
(This review includes a cautionary spoiler that does not divulge the ending or ruin the narrative tension.)
Nothing is flattered in “Blue of Noon.” The backdrop of Europe’s march towards jingoism and war seems to be offered as cover fire for the unrepentant mess of Bataille’s frivolous, cruel and debauched characters. The various women on whom the parasitic narrator feeds are at different stages of their own personal decomposition, up to and including his own dead mother. Ye...more
(This review includes a cautionary spoiler that does not divulge the ending or ruin the narrative tension.)
Nothing is flattered in “Blue of Noon.” The backdrop of Europe’s march towards jingoism and war seems to be offered as cover fire for the unrepentant mess of Bataille’s frivolous, cruel and debauched characters. The various women on whom the parasitic narrator feeds are at different stages of their own personal decomposition, up to and including his own dead mother. Ye...more
My friend told me about all the attention she got from older men while reading Bataille on the Paris Subway. I wonder if it will provoke the same kind of reaction in NY?
No one seemed to notice the book, despite it's erotic cover (not the same you see on the picture here). I am probably lucky they didn't.
I picked up Blue of Noon because I was interested in the way Bataille supposedly wrote about sex as a subversive force. I say supposedly because I don't think he did. Sex to Bataille is certainly...more
No one seemed to notice the book, despite it's erotic cover (not the same you see on the picture here). I am probably lucky they didn't.
I picked up Blue of Noon because I was interested in the way Bataille supposedly wrote about sex as a subversive force. I say supposedly because I don't think he did. Sex to Bataille is certainly...more
This is probably the least pornographic Bataille book I've read. Which means the kinky sex isn't constant, merely occasional.
When I read L'Histoire de l'Oeil, I was an acid-dropping 19 year old, and extremely receptive to all things transgressive and French. I was somewhat afraid that an older, soberer self would be unimpressed by Bataille. But, if anything, he's become more powerful. The Blue of Noon is a fairly remarkable, fairly funny novel about everything and nothing. And the ending... oh m...more
When I read L'Histoire de l'Oeil, I was an acid-dropping 19 year old, and extremely receptive to all things transgressive and French. I was somewhat afraid that an older, soberer self would be unimpressed by Bataille. But, if anything, he's become more powerful. The Blue of Noon is a fairly remarkable, fairly funny novel about everything and nothing. And the ending... oh m...more
I love this weak,neurotic man who flirts with madness and women--the drunken, liberated beauty; the serious unattractive Jewish political radical; the blonde picked up at a restaurant who brings her kind attention if not love to the pneumoniatic deathbed. Bourgeois lunacy and narcissism meet the stirrings of revolution and the Spanish civil war.
Less disgusting than The Eye, but Bataille's measured is still more Maldoror than most. I'd still say it was worthwhile. It really hinged on one scene for me--the Jungen band scene near the end was, upon consideration, more horrifying, more darkly absurd than anything else in the book.
This book paints an exceedingly ugly portrait of a man who lives life at the extremes of excess. Along the way he has dysfunctional relationships with several women, one of which, Dorothea, whom he calls, affectionately, Dirty, lives as much on the edge as he. The book is full of disturbing images, thoughts of death, and despair.
Fantastic story. The more you read it, the more it holds you. The book is on the short side (some 115 or so pages), but that did'nt dilute my interest for it.
I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a beautiful, inspiring story!!
I highly recommend this book to anyone looking for a beautiful, inspiring story!!
I reckon Bataille must have some true sense of the erotic, for even when his work is on the surface quite out of sorts with the world, or disturbing, there is some genuine arousal within his words...
The first half was really bland but the last 50 pages seems like he was writing in Vangogh's Blue stage very descriptive
read it on the way to Italy from Kenya, talked about it here:
http://www.5cense.com/Italy/TM_1.htm
http://www.5cense.com/Italy/TM_1.htm
Bataille makes me feel like rats are gnawing at my guts, but I keep on coming back.
My novela favorita de Georges Bataille. Esta novela de escritura fracturada y trémula constituye una erosión de los sistemas instaurados en nuestra sociedad y en nuestra idea de la vida y que a su vez condicionan nuestro comportamiento y percepcion. Pero aun mas, dibuja el desprendimiento desgarrador del deseo de acatar “el orden sin el cual en cambio no se podría vivir”. una embriagues de vida, de consumir la vida sin ninguna reserva y con el arrojo que solo poseen los que llegan a la vida adul...more
Compared to his "The Story of the Eye," Bataille's later work is a much more maturely fleshed out story, if not as directly shocking. There is only one actual sex scene, and that near the end of the book, but much more physical sicknesses and subtle perversions relating to control. As this story hinges around the advent of the First World War Bataille's relentless metaphors all describe war-like imagery and relationships of violence and power. I am particularly fond of Sartre's description of th...more
Sex and death converge into one passion. The whole book is good; the first few pages are astounding.
Hypnotic, over the top and very, very sexual.
I absolutely love the protagonist's response to the intellectual bourgeoisie's love of communism - what the fuck do they know about the worker? Though in the end I suppose I'm much more conflicted... Anywho, beyond that, I found the protagonist very difficult - what was his problem? A quick read, a little bit sexy, quite a bit frustrating.
My review is tempered by a second reading of it. Liked it a lot the first time and then the second reading kind of left me languid. I think it's best appreciated with a rough hangover or maybe a high fever. But there are still glistening gems of subversive glory. But also just plain sad moments of mother there's a load in my pants.
The nature of hot sex and fascism via the eyes of the one and only Georges Bataille. Now here's a man who knew how to have a good time. One cannot seperate the politics from the sex. Is lust an individual desire or part of the whole picture?
I did not like this book. It was dark and cynical, and I do not find a close link between sexuality and death, no matter how hard I try.
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French essayist, philosophical theorist and novelist, often called the "metaphysician of evil." Bataille was interested in sex, death, degradation, and the power and potential of the obscene. He rejected traditional literature and considered that the ultimate aim of all intellectual, artistic, or religious activity should be the annihilation of the rational individual in a violent, transcendental...more
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