Visions Of Excess: Selected Writings, 1927-1939: 14 (Theory and History of Literature)

Nothing wrong with it

To understand Bataille, it pays in any case to have read some Nietzsche, Marx, Hegel and Freud, since he draws a lot from these. Visions of Excess has a simply premise from Nietzsche, that when we are unhappy we lose all moderation and go into excess. Another Nietzschean premise is that those who a psychologically rich can afford to go into excess more than those who are psychologically impoverished. So it is that Bataille tries to appeal to a particular segment of society -- those who have been made to feel unhappy by their lack of power in relation to society's hierarchical structure, but who are nonetheless intrinsically rich enough, within themselves, to express a different kind of spirituality than those who are on top.VISIONS OF EXCESS contains short meditations, some of them pornographic, but all of them in relation to the structure of psychology I have described. He sees society as a body, with the lower parts being more important than generally assumed. He likes the idea of a body without a head. He also likes the idea of challenging oneself with greater and greater forms of evil. This is a Nietzschean conception, that incorporating more evil into the consciousness expands the psyche in a beneficial way.As Bataille points out in his short essay, there would have to be two "suns" for us, if we were to process the story of Icarus in accordance with what most people believe (falsely) about the nature of reality. Our priests throughout the ages have taught us to bifurcate reality, so that loss, decline and deterioration do not seem to be part of the essence of humanity at all.The climbing to the height is one thing, and it is understood as a representation of one kind of reality. Let us call it will to power and ascendence through the ranks of homogeneity.Then there is the cry of alarm, the melted wings and the terrifying falling, away, away from the sun. This registers to our socially conditioned minds as a state of heterogeneity. It registers as discordance, as formlessness. We are alarmed because we implicitly believe the possibility of continuing to ascend to heaven to be infinite. We relegate all fallen heroes to the parade of shame which is populated by those whom we consider to typify those elements of disruption and shame (the heterogeneous) who have no place in well-ordered society.There is a certain point in Icarus' journey when upwards starts to become downwards. What was ecstasy becomes grief. To a compartmentalising mind, there can be no association between the spiritual (or psychological) pathway towards ecstasy and the one which leads to grief. They are two different pathways, with two different results. Thus, the bifurcation of the mind, which demands two suns, for Icarus's falling to the Earth is also a falling into the sun, to be burnt alive by human demands that prohibit a failure of any sort.Bataille's insight is that loss can also be a gain, a thrill, a mode of ecstasy, for it is part of life: Indeed, there is only one "sun" (one realm of human experience), and Icarus is falling into it.

I can not sum up Bataille in this review - this man wrote like no other, and thought like no other. The book in my opinion is expertly edited (there are some very slight changes I would make, but it's really a matter of taste). I am glad someone took the time to properly translate all of these valuable essays. It's not a particularly easy read, especially if you don't know what you're getting into, but if you want to dive straight into the raging void that is Bataille, I can't think of a better option than this book. I thoroughly enjoyed digesting it slowly. In this book I can say for sure that I was surprised many times by how unexpected it is, you really can't tell which essays you will like less or more, so I suggest just reading it in order. The good thing about Bataille is that even if you don't understand anything, you should still be able to appreciate the virulent poetic power of one the most unusual thinkers/philosophers/writers/artists/poets in recent history.

Wide ranging collection of essays. G Bataille includes, but doesn't dwell on, the unusual, hidden, or taboo in these analyses. This was my introduction to Bataille, a 20th century figure that I had heard compared to Nietzsche, and I was not disappointed. "The Labryinth" is a 6 page essay that is included in this collection, I immediately fell in love with the Labryinth - it is both abstract and cogent. A sense of brilliance and madness colors a lot of these writings.

This indispensable collection of writings by Georges Bataille will shock and amaze. The body of work herein is an ego-crushing outpouring of raw humanity. Highly Recommended!