Story of the Eye

I had already read some of Bataille's other fiction (My Mother, Solar Anus) beforehand. However, what pulled me in was his intriguing philosophical ideas (base materialism, eroticism and death, excess, sacrifice) and inspiration (Nietzsche, Mayan ritual, potlatch economy).<br/><br/>I can't say how well any of these notions are represented in this text given that I already was looking for them coming into it. But the story invokes the feelings that these ideas elicit in the most bewildering way. <br/><br/>I would recommend prior reading on what Bataille was trying to go for and what he later expounded in his nonfiction works.<br/><br/>I didn't go into Story of the Eye blind. Even so, The Eye's surreal debauchery hit my weak stomach viscerally. Stomach, and mind, churning.