Story of the Eye:
The entire Story of the Eye was woven in my mind out of two ancient and closely associated obsessions, eggs and eyes.
- George Bataille, Story of the Eye
Yesterday, I went to the optometrist. I was told that I had mild astigmatism. This was amazing news for two reasons. Firstly, I have wanted to have glasses since I was 10. On the year of my 21st birthday I finally was granted the need for glasses. Secondly, the flirtatious optometrist, who waited specifically to test my sight and caressed the side of my face when he held the lenses up it, described astigmatism as when “your eye is shaped like and egg”. I began holding back a laugh; my body IS the Story of the Eye by Georges Bataille. My body IS a reference. My body IS the constitution of all I have loved before. My eye IS an egg. My smirk probably made the poor optometrist think I was flirting with him back.
The first time I read Story of the Eye this year was on a train back from the joker movie with my best friend. I was reading story of the eye when the person I was seeing decided to call things off. It wasn’t unexpected, or with a sentiment unreciprocated, but nevertheless surprising as I checked my phone right when I was reading about Simone’s fetish for eggs. It was weird and hazy and past 1 am. I was crying about my failures and laughing at the eggs, laughing because all of this happened while I was reading Story of the Eye.
What I love most about Bataille’s Story of the Eye is its form as associative without becoming too psychological or autobiographical, although Sontag argued the psychologicalism of texts such as Story of the Eye distinguished them from pornography, I believe such focus on the psychology of one which she falsely read into the text imposes a different kind of unliterariness which results from subordinating life to the individual. Sure, Bataille associates the character of Marcelle with his own mother, but the action of the story, the constant movement of the characters and the freedom in disorder which the characters of the Story of the Eye exhibit in an intrinsically un-Sadean form, that is freedom and violence through closeness to others and disorder, makes it a short story that is neither pornographic or too mentalised. It literally is a Story of the Eye, a story of bodies. From the optometrist to the train, when the book extends its limbs to become an associate of my experience, it’s never about my mind but the place I am in; the life I am in.
What I am trying to say, between the two examples and the eggs and the eyes, is that the literature I have read this year holds a place in my life which is mystical, it extends itself beyond my subject into the occurrences of the everyday. The magic of Sacher-Masoch, Bataille, Whitman, Woolf and the other fiction I have enjoyed reading this year is from the unity it holds with life itself. To end the year in such a way is joyful.
In’s and out’s:
Beyond sentimentality about my overabundance of books, I wrote an in’s and out’s list commemorating the dawn of a new year. After all, I do run a niche meme account and I have anticipated the moment of the in’s and out’s lists being posted since I began my meme account. I see a lot of discourse about what an in’s and out’s list should entail, or should it even exist. I must say that I find such discourse a waste of time, I don’t think my in’s and out’s list is merely an expression of my own ‘unique’ taste, nor do I believe it to be a morally problematic policing of people’s behaviours. Although I posted this list to the proper place originally, Instagram, I will copy paste it here again for the sake of repetition, with some brief extensions on certain in’s and out’s.
2025 In’s
Freud inspired clothing (Freudian slip dresses, Freud baby tees)
Imagine a ‘The Economic Problem of Masochism’ tee
Telling everyone you are writing a book
Veils
Primary secondary nature distinctions
The act and theme of unveiling or uncovering
Growing out your hair without having a hair cut
Bean and eggs vegetarianism
Throwing away the chest cage and freeing the girls
DC villainesses
Killer Frost’s new Ice Age urges forward
Fake thrifted classic style Louis Vuitton
Vodka soda
Classic real housewives and vanderpump rules
Faux fur and heels everywhere
Black with white trim clothes
Orchids
Outs
Calling aesthetic judgement media literacy or media consumption
Like you are totally outing yourself as having your only ability to interpret- no, FEEL art is in terms of a product consumer relation.
Referring to female characters as “morally grey”
Why is the fact that they are immoral anything interesting, a moral judgement cast upon these characters do not allow for any insight. At best one wishes to make an origin story for the individual, for the purpose of justifying the ‘immoral’ behaviour, but this could simply be a wikipedia article. It’s boring.
Discourse
When I announce something to the public, I say something with enough dignity and faith in my judgement that I don’t require a response. I don’t have time for masturbatory displays of insolence and smirks of instagram reels level knowledge on a subject area. And yes, I know when you people get your talking points from instagram reels because I too have a FYP.
Looking at Substack notes
never again
Calling things which have no relation to the LAW ironic (or just claiming irony as a disposition which doesn’t do anything)
Insisting on the autobiography of pop music
Trolley problem type of movies (you know the ones)
Taste being an expression of the character of an individual rather than simply being a palate for enjoying something
Wearing those SATIN (it’s never silk) slip dresses to formal events
BDSM under the guise of sadomasochistic unity
Lady Masochism is not a Masochism
Ushering in a New ice age:
I said in a post earlier this year that all I wanted was something new. My favourite book is still Masochism: Coldness and Cruelty. Primary nature in Masoch, for Deleuze, takes the form of Cold-Maternal-Severe, Icy-Sentimental-Cruel. I think we are in need of ushering in a New ice age, this year should be a new unveiling of the things that hold unity underneath the surface. I want 2025 to be an unveiling, a transformative reveal of what has always been there. I will end with my favourite quote from Deleuze, fittingly from an interview titled ‘Mysticism and Masochism’. Deleuze states:
Yes, the essence of art is a kind of joy, and this is the very point of art. There can be no tragic work because there is a necessary joy in creation: art is necessarily a liberation that explodes everything, first and foremost the tragic. No, there is no unhappy creation, it is always a vis comica. Nietzsche said: "the tragic hero is happy." So is the masochist hero, in his own way, which is inseparable from Masoch's own literary techniques.
What people can get wrong about me is that I have a fascination with the cruel and morbid. But my appreciation of ‘dark’ works is not out of a psychological reading of texts, nor out of an appreciation of them as texts which push moral boundaries. Rather, I see the vigour and joy out of each work’s creation. I see the power of a close reading of Sacher-Masoch, or any other great author as revelatory and liberating from the ways we all reduce Life in the everyday.
What I want for 2025 is more joy. I want to be vigorous and consistent with my writing. I want to pursue the joy I feel for reading with a fervent passion. I want to spend time with my parents in the place I’ve grown to love because they now live here. I want to talk about communism with my brother. I want to talk about the killer frost movie with my best friend. I want to dance at parties. I want this for all. I also want real housewives to stop being boring.
Happy New ice age.
I haven’t finished reading but omg story of the eye mention 🫶🏼💌