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A review by shethecat
Literature and Evil by Alastair Hamilton, Georges Bataille
reflective
fast-paced
5.0
"Turmoil is fundamental to my entire study; it is the very essence of my book."
An underrated quote. Bataille's writing (or should I say, his thesis) is so complex that I'm left amazed and humbled (and yes, fine, also confused). His mind operates on a very unique plane; some of his thoughts hit at some instinctive root in me and some of them fly right over my head. This definitely calls for a future reread. Regardless, it's clear this is not at all intended as a literary analysis and more of an expression of philosophical thought, so I think all the other reviews saying that this novel failed as a literary analysis completely missed the point. It's more that each author was an aide in Bataille's exploration of the concept of "evil" in literature, and not just that, but also many things - childhood, divinity, passion, love, life, death, humanity, truth, lies, and arguably, the nature of what it means to be a writer. And yes, morality too, though not the traditional definition of the world. No one can say Bataille is boring.
Of all the authors discussed, I've only read Emily Brontë and Marcel Proust's work, so until I read the other writers featured, I could only really gain insight from the chapters written on these two authors. Nonetheless, I enjoyed reading Bataille's views on how evil (in his mind, and in the context of a philosophical approach to literature) is defined as an act performed for no reason other than its own sake, rather than to achieve something else. An easy example is a murder performed for the sake of it rather than for money (I'm looking at you, Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment); the former is what Bataille would consider evil and the latter, not.
Even before reading this book, I was thinking a lot about the act of writing, because I'm that sort of dreadful person who feels perpetually guilty about everything and anything, so reading this now was very well-timed. A fact: to write literature is to create. Is it a justified use of time and publishing effort to create merely for pure enjoyment, or should there be a higher purpose? In other words, should we always write for a reason? I don't know if I'm off on a tangent and if he would be cross at me for that, but regardless, I do think he answered my questions himself in his preface: "Literature is either the essential or nothing." Literature should strike at the essence of us or it's worth nothing. And to do so requires necessitates humanity; it necessitates evil (or shall I say, freedom) even while we instinctively strive for good. So literature is inherently guilty, and it should be honest about it, which is where integrity and loyalty comes in.
To end with my favourite quote from the book, because I am, have always and will always be dreadfully in love with deathly love:
"For though Emily Brontë, despite her beauty, appears to have had no experience of love, she had an anguished knowledge of passion. She had the sort of knowledge which links love not only with clarity, but also with violence and death – because death seems to be the truth of love, just as love is the truth of death."
An underrated quote. Bataille's writing (or should I say, his thesis) is so complex that I'm left amazed and humbled (and yes, fine, also confused). His mind operates on a very unique plane; some of his thoughts hit at some instinctive root in me and some of them fly right over my head. This definitely calls for a future reread. Regardless, it's clear this is not at all intended as a literary analysis and more of an expression of philosophical thought, so I think all the other reviews saying that this novel failed as a literary analysis completely missed the point. It's more that each author was an aide in Bataille's exploration of the concept of "evil" in literature, and not just that, but also many things - childhood, divinity, passion, love, life, death, humanity, truth, lies, and arguably, the nature of what it means to be a writer. And yes, morality too, though not the traditional definition of the world. No one can say Bataille is boring.
Of all the authors discussed, I've only read Emily Brontë and Marcel Proust's work, so until I read the other writers featured, I could only really gain insight from the chapters written on these two authors. Nonetheless, I enjoyed reading Bataille's views on how evil (in his mind, and in the context of a philosophical approach to literature) is defined as an act performed for no reason other than its own sake, rather than to achieve something else. An easy example is a murder performed for the sake of it rather than for money (I'm looking at you, Dostoevsky's Crime and Punishment); the former is what Bataille would consider evil and the latter, not.
Even before reading this book, I was thinking a lot about the act of writing, because I'm that sort of dreadful person who feels perpetually guilty about everything and anything, so reading this now was very well-timed. A fact: to write literature is to create. Is it a justified use of time and publishing effort to create merely for pure enjoyment, or should there be a higher purpose? In other words, should we always write for a reason? I don't know if I'm off on a tangent and if he would be cross at me for that, but regardless, I do think he answered my questions himself in his preface: "Literature is either the essential or nothing." Literature should strike at the essence of us or it's worth nothing. And to do so requires necessitates humanity; it necessitates evil (or shall I say, freedom) even while we instinctively strive for good. So literature is inherently guilty, and it should be honest about it, which is where integrity and loyalty comes in.
To end with my favourite quote from the book, because I am, have always and will always be dreadfully in love with deathly love:
"For though Emily Brontë, despite her beauty, appears to have had no experience of love, she had an anguished knowledge of passion. She had the sort of knowledge which links love not only with clarity, but also with violence and death – because death seems to be the truth of love, just as love is the truth of death."