Thursday, June 01, 2006
Written in 1935, Le bleu du ciel is Georges Bataille’s excellent novel of obsession, drunkenness and sickness. Some of my favorite topics! Essentially the story of a man wandering between several women, countries and even more drinks - but it’s also a book haunted by the upcoming Spanish Revolution and World War II’s path of destruction and death soon to stretch across Europe. Not surprisingly, vomit seems to feature quite prominently. For me, it was also extremely amusing how often the main character broke into sobs and tears - generally unusual behavior for a man in a book - even though he was often well into his cups. It put me in mind of Jean Rhys’s equally wonderful, Good Morning, Midnight, from around the same era. Somehow this was only the first of Bataille’s books I’ve ever read, but now I’m definitely planning on reading as many more as possible.
