Histoire de l'œil is artistically paltry for the same reason most pornography is. It wheels out a series of fetishes and invites its audience to treat their significance as given. Life contrived to make eggs and eyeballs meaningful for Bataille; the rest of us have to be content with his say-so.
I can't finish this book, or don't want to. I'm somewhat embarrassed over having spent a couple years thinking I should get around to it. I told an ex about how cool this book sounded, in the final months of our relationship, which is shameful to remember. This book is a significant downgrade from us dating. The one bit I remember that I do like has to do with the scene of two lovers biking in the moonlight. And that's more of a tender feeling anyways. Ultimately when I read this book I get the feeling that what I'm looking for is that, and that I'm playing a fool's game looking in the wrong place. I want to change as a person in this area, and opening this book just makes me feel gross and sorrowful. Personal comment, (sorry!) but this review is what has had me thinking about this book, so I'm putting it here. I'm going to try to keep reading Jung instead, because that's been really inviting in the best of ways. Still thinking about it + mulling this over though. And always open to recs.
Yeah the cycling bit is an oasis next to the non-stop pointless depravity. I've read no Jung at all but one of my favourite living writers wrote a review of The Red Book which I really enjoyed https://firstthings.com/jungs-therapeutic-gnosticism/
Thanks for this, my intro to David Bentley Hart and I enjoyed it. His various descriptions of the modern appearances of transcendence -- "the desire for transcendence without transcendence," "an insistently dissonant voice within each of us announcing that this is not our true home" -- are resonant. After reading, convinced that The Red Book is, much like L'œil, an insignificant read, basically the diary of someone else. Or, as Jung put it, "To the superficial observer... like madness." Man and His Symbols so far has been thankfully way different: way more in the therapeutic mode, an undeniably modern, 'inert' setting for his ideas. Hart's aim is def still true, but it's a much smaller target, not sure if he'll wind up hitting it, in my eyes. No doubt will keep in mind while reading - thanks :) I've dropped you a follow if you don't mind.