The Tears of Eros by Georges Bataille

The Tears of Eros Reviews

• 
  hanne

  I absolutely bought this book because the cover matches my favourite blue nail-polish exactly. really, I didn't understand a word he was saying but I looked impossibly chic while reading it.
• 
  Eddie Watkins

  The doors of my mind have only recently opened to (and been opened by) Bataille, so what I say about The Tears of Eros will necessarily be that of a novice. There’s a thrill, tinged with anxiety, of being an intellectual novice at the age of 45.
  
  We have hanging in our house a woodblock print done by a friend of ours of a gaunt and cigarette smoking Joan Didion. Worked into this portrait is a quote of hers - I know what nothing means and keep on playing. I have not read a single book of Didion’s, but this quote means a lot to me. I read it as an inspirational message, as does my wife, but I know our individual interpretations of it are fundamentally different, though I have no interest in discussing this difference of interpretation with her. It is enough that the phrase has significant meaning, however different, for each of us.
  
  It means so much to me because in recent years my spiritual path (or search for authenticity) has become centered on nothingness. Truth exists, but only as founded on nothingness, which for me means that no thought or construct of meaning can contain truth. It’s not exactly a matter of faith, but very similar. Faith too often is nothing more than faith in a pat (and simple-minded) thought. My concern is to be, to go, beyond thought, and to play as if suspended in this profound void of non-thought (spewing forth thoughts, ironically). And this concern is at the root of Bataille’s search also, though there are fundamental differences between Bataille’s and my involvement with this concern. These differences primarily involve Bataille’s seeming isolationist nature, while for me these “higher reaches” of nothingness are suffused with interpersonal connectivity, but I won’t go into this any further.
  
  In The Tears of Eros this nothingness, this ineffable peak beyond all thought, is illustrated by an ancient cave painting. In this cave painting a gored buffalo (with entrails spilling out) is charging or has charged the man responsible for its mortal wound. This man is apparently dead or dying, a victim of his victim the charging buffalo, and is sporting a quite prominent erection. This painting serves as a kind of shorthand code for Bataille’s concerns: a primal linking of eroticism and death, a linking of peak ineffable experience (spiked with despair) and vanishment. - (As an aside, for Bataille “eroticism” is not necessarily the sexual but is rather purposeless sensual enjoyment as opposed to work or utility. This bears some similarities to Aleister Crowley’s adage For pure will, unassuaged of purpose, delivered from the lust of result.) - This painting is so significant for Bataille as a representation of his non-verbal concerns that he wisely does not kill its significance by discussing it; he merely hints at its profundity, teasing the reader to briefly grasp its meaning beyond the words provided. This painting serves as a kind of flashing window, a window flashing in and out of apprehension, into the charged nothingness that Bataille pursued to the ends of his thoughts, and beyond.
  
  An even more extreme and illustrative example of his concerns is saved for a very brief discussion at the end of the book. It is a photograph of a Chinese man undergoing horrible torturous mutilation. In the picture both the man’s arms have been lopped off; his pectorals have been sliced off; and a man is in the process of sawing through one of his legs. Bataille asserts that the face of this man, with eyes raised heaven-ward a la St. Joan of Arc, is expressing a kind of joy or transcendence (coupled with extreme pain and despair obviously), and so has served as profound inspiration for him (he owned a copy of the picture and spent much time contemplating it).
  
  This example did not convince me, as other details of Bataille’s arguments throughout the book did not convince me. At times his fervor to believe what he himself was writing led him to see in things only that which corresponded with his thought. As when he asserts that apes (and all animals by extension) have no concern for their dead, and when he says that apes have no sense of humor. I don’t think either of these is totally true. These are only quibbles, but were enough to form chinks in the armor of his thoughts; but then again, Bataille is not concerned overmuch with logical argument, being more an aesthete or a poet, so in a way these chinks only make his thought even more authentic to me, as passion trumps logic any day.
• 
  Mina

  Eroticism is, first of all, the most moving of realities; but it is nonetheless, at the same time, the most ignoble. Even after psychoanalysis, the contradictory aspects of eroticism appear in some way innumerable; their profundity is religious—it is horrible, it is tragic, it is still inadmissible. Probably all the more so since it is divine.
• 
  Keith [on semi hiatus]

  This is my second read on George Bataille's essays on Eroticism & Humanity.
  
  I strongly feel with my interest in Bataille as a writer & poet and to those less familiar with his vast work, knowing of him mainly for his earliest work - 'Story of the Eye', having not yet read 'Prehistoric Painting: Lascaux or the Birth of Art' (1955), I'm happy to have taken this journey reading firstly 'Erotism: Death and Sensuality' (1957) and this - 'The Tears of Eros' (1961) - as a second installment to in this set of essays.
  
  There are many fine pieces of historical and cultural referencing throughout this work, leaning heavily into the Surrealism and French work for which Bataille is known.
  
  There are little bits of trivia for the die-hard Bataille fan that may actually be available online; some nice articles about his ancestry and marital ancestry (unrelated to the book itself) is here:
  https://genealogiehistoiredefamilles.....
  
  The wider - and lesser-mentioned - circle of Bataille's protégé is a spot throughout the book which is intriguing.
  
  As I've seen on other reviews, there won't be much more to this than that mentioned above, and likely that is for the die-hard fan. All the same, an education none-the-less and a quick trip down the path of history of which I love to delve as often as possible and for as long as possible.
  
  If you're a Bataille fan, give it a shot, I know you will; if you're not, become one.
• 
  Matthieu

  Originally given three stars back in '08 (read in September of 2007), but after a second reading, I've decided to add an additional half-star (rounding up to four). Bataille's a strange cat. Despite some fascinating information here (e.g., the painting(s) in the Lascaux pit), the lack of substance behind Bataille's theories/assertions often reduces the text to a series of disjointed declarations.
• 
  Mary Rose

  Philosophers don't get to write about history anymore because they don't write anything that makes sense. It's the new law, established by me.
  
  My problems with this book are... many. First is that it is way too vague and homogenizing. The book covers the entire history of civilization (mostly Western, except when he takes Chinese torture victims and Voodoo practitioners out of context for no reason) in 200ish pages, the majority of which are taken up with illustrations. So of course he can't actually say anything, he can only scrape up some vague examples of situations which were both erotic and violent. He entirely eschews any *context* for *why* a civilization would mingle ideas of sex and violence, or what the long-term implications are of that phenomenon. Does it perpetuate violence? Does it normalize sex? Who knows--certainly not Bataille!
  
  Obviously I'm a scholar of the twenty-first century but I really felt like something was left to be desired from his interpretation. I wanted to hear about gendered dimensions of violence. I wanted to hear about drugs and alcohol. I wanted to hear about class differences. I wanted to hear about race and culture. I wanted ANYTHING that was an actual dimension of this phenomenon.
  
  If this were a freshman philosophy paper I'd fail it.
  
  He also does this irritating thing of saying that something is erotic and horrifying but doesn't explain why it is erotic. At the end, he has g r a p h i c images of a Chinese man having his flesh hacked off while he is still alive. In this picture the man's ribs can be seen but he is wearing a kind of glassy-eyed expression, presumably caused by the opium which was given to these victims so that they did not pass out from the pain. I clearly understand the tragic part of this example. HOWEVER, he does not explain what is supposed to be erotic about this. He hints that the smile is indicative of a kind of ecstasy on the behalf of the tortured man? Yikes!
  
  If he just wanted to write about his gore-related sexual fetishes he could have kept those to himself.
• 
  Tosh

  Georges Bataille's great (illustrated) book on the connection between eroticism and death. The two doorways one can't avoid, yet we are drawn to its power. One of the great poetic essayists, Bataille is sort of like the moment one wakes up from a feverish dream. You have a memory of that dream, but then you are not fully awake.
• 
  Lisa

  This book disturbed even me.
• 
  Cláudio

  "Num primeiro passo, o sentido deste livro é abrir a consciência à identidade que existe entre a «pequena morte» e uma morte definitiva. Desde a volúpia, o delírio, até ao horror sem limites."
• 
  João Pinho

  [edições sistema solar]
  Infelizmente, Bataille não conseguiu concluir todos os seus pensamentos, aprofundar a análise em torno das imagens perturbantes que nos mostra (morreu no ano seguinte). Ainda assim, é fascinante a consciência das suas próprias limitações, de que o seu pensamento ao pouco se estava a apagar.
  Dito isto, penso que vale a pena ler a par do Erotismo (1957).
  
  «Só por si, a actividade sexual difere do erotismo; a primeira manifesta-se na vida animal, e só a vida humana revela uma actividade que talvez defina um aspecto "diabólico" a que o nome de erotismo convém»
  
  «Desde tempos muitos antigos, os homens tiveram um conhecimento alarmado da morte»
  
  «O que eu de repente via, e me aprisionava na angústia - mas ao mesmo tempo libertava dela - era a identidade destes perfeitos contrários que, ao êxtase divino, contrapõem um horror extremo [...] A religião, toda ela, se baseou no sacrifício. Mas só um interminável desvio permitiu aceder ao instante em que os contrários parecem visivelmente ligados, em que o horror religioso expresso no sacrifício, como sabemos, se liga às profundezas do erotismo, aos derradeiros soluços que só o erotismo ilumina».
• 
  Fortuna

  Bueno, y buen libro para leer después de la Teoría de la Religión del mismo Bataille. Mi edición incluyó varias cartas escritas por él sobre su proceso escribiendo el libro, cual fue el último publicado antes de su muerte. Se lee rápidamente ya que la mayoría es imágenes de arte, de la cual Bataille hace una buena selección, aunque mi scan no las tenía en la mejor calidad.
• 
  Sylphær

  I picked this up due to a search for a better understanding of sexual attitudes and life. I grew up with views from religions and schools about abstinence from sex while coping with my own libido instincts. This book liberates me as a human to understand why humans have sexual impulses; why death is not as scary even without any religion; and finally why I find myself comfortable in expressing my sexual thoughts while living amongst Asians who are mostly conservatives.
• 
  Leonardo Rodríguez

  Fulgurante y glacial. Lástima que la única ilustración de esta edición algo incómoda, sea la por lo demás fascinante "Mujer" de Hans Bellmer en la portada. No es libro sólo para leer sino para ver.
• 
  Maddy

  I wonder if the makers of Martyrs had this in mind.
• 
  Brian

  --A collection of dirty and violent pictures that touches on eroticism and death: I read it and laugh. Only in the face of horror does the fragmentary totality of being become uncovered--
• 
  Conrado

  Diferente da incrivelmente caótica Experiência Interior, Bataille conseguiu nesse opúsculo fazer algo satisfatório em termos de ordem e estrutura, e providencia uma leitura muito mais fluida e rápida (levando apenas umas duas horas para terminar). Grande evolução; meus parabéns a ele.
  
  Vamos ao resto. Ao invés de uma resenha formal, me limitarei a pequenas observações toscas que vieram à cabeça durante minha leitura da obra. Estas devem ser vistas mais como meras primeiras impressões do que como críticas produzidas por um extenso período de reflexão.
  
  [A páginas mencionadas são da edição de bolso do livro, publicada pelas Éditions 10/18, 2004]
  
  1. Eu sinto que Bataille nunca realmente chega a tocar no ponto que ele quer falar sobre na tese (a saber, a identificação de erotismo - que ele toma como um estado emocional (p. 59) - e morte). Ele dá vários exemplos desde as pinturas de Lascaux a ritos religiosos europeus, a pintores modernos até breves considerações acerca do vodu e da tortura lingchi chinesa. Apesar da amplitude de exemplos abarcados por Bataille, ele nunca fala exatamente o que há ali que une os temas de erotismo e morte - qual o aspecto identificador que une os dois universos. Pior ainda, Bataille nem sequer explica a sua noção de erotismo, deixando uma lacuna crucial no entendimento do leitor a despeito do seu esforço em falar sobre o erótico em um determinado exemplo. Além disso, a maioria de seus comentários são demasiado curtos para ser de qualquer valor intelectual, pois no momento em que há uma sugestão de profundidade, Bataille para e se vira a outro tópico. Há também um tanto de asserções antropológicas que me parecem bastante especulativas e gerais às quais não são providenciadas quaisquer fontes que as sustentem (especialmente na primeira parte da obra).
  
  2. Bataille diz que a religião é em sua base subversiva (p. 95). Essa afirmação parece superficialmente plausível quando ele apela a festas dionisíacas na religião romana, mas que me parece extremamente implausível quando olhamos para religiões extremamente regradas como judaísmo. Mesmo além desse ponto, eu falho em ver como transgressividade poderia ser uma característica essencial da religião, uma vez que outros tipos de atividade compartilham essa característica (p. ex. certas formas de pornografia, gêneros de filme como horror, etc.).
  
  Voltando ao parágrafo precedente, o problema aqui é que Bataille explora de maneira demasiado superficial a relação entre proibições religiosas e erotismo. Apesar de alguns pontos me parecerem interessantes e sugestivos nessa parte, Bataille não explica nada muito a fundo e se limita na maioria das vezes a escrever frases poéticas e vagas para resumir sua posição ou fechar (de maneira insatisfatória) um parágrafo/seção.
  
  3. A escrita de Bataille continua bonita, mas há uma perda notável da intensidade presente em obras anteriores, escritas durante o período de juventude do autor. Se antes já não era pra lá de intelectualmente estimulante, nem os aspectos formais compensam muito agora.
  
  No geral, eu não fiquei entediado, mas o livro me parece bem medíocre. Sendo a última obra de Bataille publicada em sua vida, eu imagino ser uma obra "conclusiva" que resume os vários tópicos que ele abordou em obras anteriores ao longo de sua vida. Sendo assim, eu provavelmente deveria retornar e pegar outros livros dele para preencher as lacunas encontradas aqui. Talvez isso me faça enxergar a obra com outros olhos, mas no momento tudo o que posso dizer é que não estou impressionado.
• 
  andrea

  Breve historia del erotismo en el arte, reflexiones sobre la religión y el sadismo, lo dionisiaco, la muerte, el arte, y la conciencia de la finitud... Interesante, más extendido en El Erotismo, que aún tengo pendiente de leer. Las lágrimas de Eros parece más introductorio y aproximativo a la problemática que este último, donde supongo se encontrará la mayoría de la carga teórica.
• 
  Tom

  The usual Bataille waffle on eroticism and death, this time with the inclusion of a lot of pretty pictures. The images make up the bulk of the book, and in short are often far more engaging than the obtuse points attempting to be made by the incredibly sparse text.
• 
  ana rita

  "Sempre que se levanta o problema último da vida humana, só o humor lhe responde. Só o movimento do sangue responde à possibilidade de superar o horror."
  
  x
  
  "Mas o que significa a sobriedade, senão o medo a tudo o que não perdura, pelo menos ao que não teve aspecto de poder perdurar?"
  
  
• 
  Sara Hasanova

  Katılmadığım çok fazla görüş vardı. Fakat, asıl sorun, verilen bilgilerin ilişkilendirilmesi ve akıcı olmamasındaydı bence. Yazarın sunduğu temel kavramlar olan savaş, ölüm, çalışma ve erotizm arasındaki bağı tam olarak anlayamadım sanırım.
• 
  Pablo

  El último libro de Bataille, reivindicado y reeditado póstumamente. La relación entre erotismo y muerte, entre lo sagrado y el horror, entre el goce y la imagen. Una iconografía espectacular. "¿Acaso existe una verdadera diferencia entre la poesía y el erotismo, o entre el erotismo y el éxtasis?"
• 
  Steven Godin

  
  'I say it in this book; and I can do so only under the emblem of tears. I write these desolate phrases in a state of mind quite the opposite of the delirious sangfroid that the name Erzsébet Báthory calls up. It is not a question of remorse, nor of a rage of desire as it was in Sade's mind. It concerns opening consciousness to the representation of what man really is. Faced with this representation, Christianity went into hiding. Beyond a doubt, mankind as a whole must forever remain in hiding, but human consciousness—in pride and humility, with passion and in trembling—must be open to the zenith of horror. Although Sade can be read with east today, it has not changed the number of crimes—even sadistic crimes—but it fully opens human nature to a consciousness of itself'
• 
  Nicolas

  Portrait ciselé de l’érotisme dans l’histoire ; du paléolithique inférieur aux artificialités de Dali. Bataille propose ici d’illustrer un lien fondamental : « celui de l’extase religieuse et de l’érotisme – en particulier du sadisme » (P. 121). A l’origine, Bataille voit l’érotisme comme jeu volontaire destiné à sublimer la mort – l’usage des plaisirs délogeant le désir de sa trivialité animale, seconde étape après le culte des morts. Les bonnes questions sont ici posées, sans développement poussif.
  
  Dans cette rétrospective holistique, Bataille souligne le retournement des valeurs effectué par le christianisme, qui après avoir diabolisé Éros, débouche sur ce ressentiment présent dans les fresques de Dürer ou les écrits de Dante, reléguant tous deux l’érotisme aux enfers. Il évoque Gilles de Rais et Erzsébet Bathory, qui avant Sade mirent également en pratique la morbidité d’un érotisme sans bornes.
  
  Bataille oppose finalement l’érotisme à la jouissance matérielle – sublimation du Travail devenue l’allié d’une religion éroticide : « L’accroissement des richesses mène à la surproduction dont la guerre est la seule issue. Je ne dis pas que l’érotisme soit le seul remède à la menace de la misère, liée à l’accroissement déraisonnable des richesses. Il s’en faut. Mais sans le calcul des diverses possibilités de consommation opposées à la guerre, et dont la jouissance érotique – la consommation de l’énergie de l’instant – est le type, nous ne saurions découvrir une issue que fonderait la raison » (P. 110). On opposera donc volontiers l’érotisme, « seule issue » à cette téléologie capitaliste menant à la guerre exposée par Bataille, à la perspective marxienne de l’abolition de la propriété privée – la notion du « privé » étant liée à celle d’intimité qui, elle-même, permit la sacralisation des rapports sexuels, i.e. l’érotisation du désir.
  
• 
  V. Míchkina

  "A religião, toda ela, se baseou no sacrifício. Mas só um interminável desvio permitiu aceder ao instante em que o contrários parecem visivelmente ligados, em que o horror religioso expresso no sacrifício, como sabemos, se liga às profundezas do erotismo, aos derradeiros soluços que só o erotismo ilumina."
  
  ***
  Adoro ler Bataille. Sinto uma proximidade interna tão grande que creio, por vezes, estar a ler parcelas da minha própria interioridade, pensamentos ou relações que já fiz. Diria que se trata mesmo de uma afinidade. A única coisa que me desagradou neste livro é a sensação de que algumas ideias poderiam ter sido melhor exploradas e aprofundadas, como se Bataille aflorasse um tema, uma relação, mas rapidamente passasse para outro tema, e assim sucessivamente. Em suma, como se ao longo do livro fossem ficando pontas soltas por resolver. Tirando isso, a sua escrita é cativante, estimulante e adoro a ligação entre religião e erotismo.
• 
  Michael A.

  If Bataille wasn't slowly dying as he wrote this book, it could have been a masterpiece. First off, aesthetically, the book is in top form. Many disturbing images and illustrations that give credence to Bataille's thesis which is.... horror and ecstasy are linked together. This isn't really a new insight in a Bataillean lens, and it very much feels like the form of his Lascaux book with a truncated, weaker theoretical version of Eroticism. Bataille, however, is ironically pretty lucid throughout this book. It probably wouldn't be the worst first theoretical text to read by Bataille because it does trace (and sometimes skim, viz. the sacred) over concepts important to Bataille's thought.
  
  But the book is still worth reading (very short read) - I am just not sure how much people already familiar with Bataille will get out of it.
• 
  Mr_wormwood

  My first excursion into the world of Bataille. As such, my first impression is that this is a writer who is trying to write a truly Nietzschean form of history. And I celebrate that. Although this particular attempt is, when read in pure isolation, something of a failure, i have a feeling the failure is somewhat mine, as it's obviously intimately connected with a previous work called 'Eroticism' which i haven't read. Still, as a impetus to explore and discover more by Batille, this text is an unquestionable success, as i'm compelled now to uncover more.
• 
  Rodrigo

  An unorthodox study of erotism and its relationship to death and the chthonic throughout history with ample of examples in art, from the cave paintings to photography.
  The best part to me it's the conclusion, where Bataille points out the ecstasy in voudon ritual animal sacrifices and the agony of a tortured man in China, he sees in those two examples the inescapable link between Eros and Thanathos
• 
  Michael

  I am not really all that interested in most of Bataille's philosophy, and this book is not particularly different. Violating taboos and the exploration of the relation between love and death becomes more and more romantic and less and less philosophically compelling as you continue to read his works.
• 
  J. Gonzalez- Blitz

  ruminating on two of our most primal drives, eros and thanatos. Illustrated with lots of my favorite art pieces (Goya, Fusili, Durer,etc.) but the most compelling is a photo of a murderer sentenced to death in China by Leng T'che- being cut into a hundred pieces- with an ecstatic expression as it happens.
• 
  Scherzo

  Debemos evaluar lo que perdemos a causa de la conciencia, pero también debemos, desde el principio, advertir que, conforme a esta humanidad en la que estamos encerrados, la lucidez de la conciencia significa el enfriamiento de la pasión.