What do you think?
Rate this book
The Solar Anus
The Solar Anus is a short Surrealist text written by the French writer and philosopher Georges Bataille.
Albeit elliptically, its aphorisms refer to decay, death, vegetation, natural disasters, impotence, frustration, ennui and excrement. It makes ironic reference to the sun, which, although it brings life to the Earth, can also result in death from its unrestrained energies. Moreover, the anus may be seen as a symbol of the inevitability of residual waste due to its role in excretion.
Albeit elliptically, its aphorisms refer to decay, death, vegetation, natural disasters, impotence, frustration, ennui and excrement. It makes ironic reference to the sun, which, although it brings life to the Earth, can also result in death from its unrestrained energies. Moreover, the anus may be seen as a symbol of the inevitability of residual waste due to its role in excretion.
First published January 1, 1931
About the author
Georges Bataille
214 books2,153 followersFrench essayist, philosophical theorist, and novelist, often called the "metaphysician of evil." Bataille was interested in sex, death, degradation, and the power and potential of the obscene. He rejected traditional literature and considered that the ultimate aim of all intellectual, artistic, or religious activity should be the annihilation of the rational individual in a violent, transcendental act of communion. Roland Barthes, Julia Kristeva, and Philippe Sollers have all written enthusiastically about his work.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 74 reviews
May 2, 2022
There is an unspeakable force of the erotic that exists at the very limit of law and language -- at the loss of language that the closure of dialectics entails. Throughout this bizarre, filthy, excremental work runs the undercurrent of a cramped, violent wrestling of the glorious solar Bataille, with the language-evading nature of transgressions, to keep language at an arm’s length. This tension seeps into the metaphors and the imagery he uses; moving beyond the dialectical binary requires immense violence, so it shows.
When my face is flushed with blood, it becomes red and obscene. It betrays at the same time, through morbid reflexes, a bloody erection and a demanding thirst for indecency and criminal debauchery. For that reason I am not afraid to affirm that my face is a scandal and that my passions are expressed only by the JESUVE.
Jesuve is a word made-up by Bataille: a collection and simultaneously the negation of the Cartesian, Hegelian, Artaudian, and many other conceptions of the subject, the nature of pain and ecstasy, and the limits of experience.
Bataille’s self-obliterating language shines through the constant inversion of the binaries in order to make way for the anal abject. The brilliance of this short work is in how it unabashedly uses the Hegelian dialectics that he seeks to overturn, contrasting the glorious, life-giving sun and the dark, excremental anus. As Allan Stoekl writes, “The blinding, organic, life-giving love of the sun and the a-rhythmic, violent love of the anus.” It is so difficult to verbalise and articulate the myriads of philosophical undertones that cut through this seemingly nonsensical work; but I have read it thrice since yesterday, and it has kept me thinking. I went “whutt” on every other sentence. Terse and aphoristic, philosophical and poetic at once, I WOULD NOT recommend it to anyone who isn’t already interested in and/or familiar with Bataille’s philosophy.
Disasters, revolutions, and volcanoes do not make love with the stars. The erotic revolutionary and volcanic deflagrations antagonize the heavens. As in the case of violent love, they take place beyond the constraints of fecundity. In opposition to celestial fertility there are terrestrial disasters, the image of terrestrial love without condition, erection without escape and without rule, scandal, and terror.
3.5
When my face is flushed with blood, it becomes red and obscene. It betrays at the same time, through morbid reflexes, a bloody erection and a demanding thirst for indecency and criminal debauchery. For that reason I am not afraid to affirm that my face is a scandal and that my passions are expressed only by the JESUVE.
Jesuve is a word made-up by Bataille: a collection and simultaneously the negation of the Cartesian, Hegelian, Artaudian, and many other conceptions of the subject, the nature of pain and ecstasy, and the limits of experience.
Bataille’s self-obliterating language shines through the constant inversion of the binaries in order to make way for the anal abject. The brilliance of this short work is in how it unabashedly uses the Hegelian dialectics that he seeks to overturn, contrasting the glorious, life-giving sun and the dark, excremental anus. As Allan Stoekl writes, “The blinding, organic, life-giving love of the sun and the a-rhythmic, violent love of the anus.” It is so difficult to verbalise and articulate the myriads of philosophical undertones that cut through this seemingly nonsensical work; but I have read it thrice since yesterday, and it has kept me thinking. I went “whutt” on every other sentence. Terse and aphoristic, philosophical and poetic at once, I WOULD NOT recommend it to anyone who isn’t already interested in and/or familiar with Bataille’s philosophy.
Disasters, revolutions, and volcanoes do not make love with the stars. The erotic revolutionary and volcanic deflagrations antagonize the heavens. As in the case of violent love, they take place beyond the constraints of fecundity. In opposition to celestial fertility there are terrestrial disasters, the image of terrestrial love without condition, erection without escape and without rule, scandal, and terror.
3.5
September 29, 2018
>tfw no 18 y/o qt gf with a resplendent anus
February 16, 2016
It can sometimes carry itself as academic, or stochastic Continental philosophy, but mostly it feels like a surrealist provocation, a demented horny homily that slips into prosaic free verse too easy and too often to be building an argument or an altar call. I haven't a clue what to make of it, and I am cynical enough to wonder if I was being had, but the man knows how to put a sentence together.
April 6, 2015
Nessa edição constam dois textos: O Ânus Solar e O Olho Pineal, ambos contém uma prosa poética que vão além da metafísica e se encontra nos limites da consciência. Ponto extra para a personagem Jesúvio.
Read
December 30, 2022i wish i were him honestly life seems so fun with a mind like that
October 12, 2021
Δοκίμιο ειρωνικό μέχρι το κόκκαλο σε θέματα ζωής και θανάτου, τόσο του ανθρώπου όσο και της υπόλοιπης ζωής/ύλης.
Ιστορικές αναφορές σε πολιτικά και καλλιτεχνικά πρόσωπα από μία πολύ ενδιαφέρουσα και τελείως διαφορετική οπτική απο την συνηθισμένη. Ο Μπατάιγ έχει απαιτητική ροή γραφής και σκέψης, αλλά σίγουρα ανταμείβει. Το συγκεκριμένο αποτελεί μία εναλλακτική τροφή για σκέψη.
Ξεχωριστός!
Ιστορικές αναφορές σε πολιτικά και καλλιτεχνικά πρόσωπα από μία πολύ ενδιαφέρουσα και τελείως διαφορετική οπτική απο την συνηθισμένη. Ο Μπατάιγ έχει απαιτητική ροή γραφής και σκέψης, αλλά σίγουρα ανταμείβει. Το συγκεκριμένο αποτελεί μία εναλλακτική τροφή για σκέψη.
Ξεχωριστός!
August 4, 2016
"O mar está continuamente a masturbar-se.
Os elementos sólidos contidos e agitados dentro de uma água que se anima de movimento erótico, brotam sob a forma de peixes voadores.
[...]
O globo terrestre está coberto de vulcões que lhe servem de ânus.
E ainda que este globo nada coma, às vezes deita fora o conteúdo das entranhas.
Conteúdo que salta com estrondo e cai e escorre nas faldas do Jesúvio, a espalhar morte e terror por todo o lado.
Na verdade, o movimento erótico do solo não é fecundo, como o das águas, mas muito mais rápido.
Às vezes a terra masturba-se com frenesi, arruinando por completo a sua superfície."
<3
Os elementos sólidos contidos e agitados dentro de uma água que se anima de movimento erótico, brotam sob a forma de peixes voadores.
[...]
O globo terrestre está coberto de vulcões que lhe servem de ânus.
E ainda que este globo nada coma, às vezes deita fora o conteúdo das entranhas.
Conteúdo que salta com estrondo e cai e escorre nas faldas do Jesúvio, a espalhar morte e terror por todo o lado.
Na verdade, o movimento erótico do solo não é fecundo, como o das águas, mas muito mais rápido.
Às vezes a terra masturba-se com frenesi, arruinando por completo a sua superfície."
<3
April 27, 2011
This little piece is a great example of aphoristic writing that progresses to a conclusion. Concept of the Jesuve is interesting. Great writing. Check it out - it's online and free. You get the feeling Bataille's bizarre dualisms are taking root in your brain
January 2, 2019
Kind of shitty, to be honest.
November 24, 2020
I wanted to write a review for this piece, but my hands were too busy being a penguin, a laser printer, a red fleck of paint on the wall, the speckled vomit of rainbow frogs...
February 1, 2023
and when I scream I am the sun, an integral erection results
August 20, 2021
It's not good as porn, but it's definitely poetic and food for thought.
Read
December 22, 2017I - Texto breve y algo críptico.
II - Es griego (el dios asiático nacido dos veces,..), es hegeliano-heracliteano, es sexy y da miedo.
III- En mi humilde opinión, tiene la mejor línea de la obra de Bataille.
IV - Creo que el B novelista no es el mejor B. Aquí se muestra en top form.
Luego estas líneas deliciosas, lujosas:
An abandoned shoe, a rotten tooth, a snub nose, the cook spitting in the soup of his masters are to love what a battle flag is to nationality.
An umbrella, a sexagenarian, a seminarian, the smell of rotten eggs, the hollow eyes of judges are the roots that nourish love.
A dog devouring the stomach of a goose, a drunken vomiting woman, a slobbering accountant, a jar of mustard represent the confusion that serves as the vehicle of love.
II - Es griego (el dios asiático nacido dos veces,..), es hegeliano-heracliteano, es sexy y da miedo.
III- En mi humilde opinión, tiene la mejor línea de la obra de Bataille.
IV - Creo que el B novelista no es el mejor B. Aquí se muestra en top form.
Luego estas líneas deliciosas, lujosas:
An abandoned shoe, a rotten tooth, a snub nose, the cook spitting in the soup of his masters are to love what a battle flag is to nationality.
An umbrella, a sexagenarian, a seminarian, the smell of rotten eggs, the hollow eyes of judges are the roots that nourish love.
A dog devouring the stomach of a goose, a drunken vomiting woman, a slobbering accountant, a jar of mustard represent the confusion that serves as the vehicle of love.
January 10, 2019
"The sea continuously jerks off. Solid elements, contained and brewed in water animated by erotic movement, shoot out in the form of flying fish."
i'm sorry, great use of imagery and all but what the actual hell did i just read.
i'm sorry, great use of imagery and all but what the actual hell did i just read.
February 24, 2016
Hello, my new friend.
July 15, 2021
I want to have my throat slashed while violating the girl to whom I will have been able to say: you are the night.
July 21, 2021
Don’t ever say philosophy isn’t interesting.
Very short, very surreal. It’s like Bataille is trying to stretch language and meaning to the breaking point and find what lies there. It’s erotic, decaying and regenerative. It’s also kind of sexist, which is probably to be expected from a man writing at this time.
I particularly liked the bits about our minds being mirrors and made for reflections. World and image as one, lost in a maddening infinity.
Very short, very surreal. It’s like Bataille is trying to stretch language and meaning to the breaking point and find what lies there. It’s erotic, decaying and regenerative. It’s also kind of sexist, which is probably to be expected from a man writing at this time.
I particularly liked the bits about our minds being mirrors and made for reflections. World and image as one, lost in a maddening infinity.
December 7, 2022
"In bed next to a girl he loves, he forgets that he does not know why he is himself instead of the
body he touches."
Danieliau, this one's for you.
You thought I would be surprised? Well guess what. I've read Bataille.
This is a perfectly tame Bataille text.
body he touches."
Danieliau, this one's for you.
You thought I would be surprised? Well guess what. I've read Bataille.
This is a perfectly tame Bataille text.
March 7, 2018
The sea continuously jerks off.
Solid elements, contained and brewed in water animated by erotic movement, shoot out in the form of flying fish.
Solid elements, contained and brewed in water animated by erotic movement, shoot out in the form of flying fish.
March 19, 2020
"The sea continuously jerks off. "
May 4, 2024
Life is a cycle of sex and death.
April 30, 2021
i came, i saw (i sea), i came
brilliant
brilliant
January 28, 2023
Surreal and weird but short enough to be interesting.
May 5, 2014
"The Solar Anus", by Bataille, a graduate of Ecole Normale Superieure, better than Buyvi League back home, whose thesis there was a manuscript that he, himself, reconstructed by visiting monasteries, nooks, and crannies in 20th Century France, where he collected pieces of his piece d'art, and thereby reconstructed an ancient manuscript as a whole, is Bataille's seminal work. The main idea behind the Anus is that everything can be made the first principle of things, not just the creationism and science dichotomy. As such, the Anus, too, is the reason why this World exists, and insofar as it represents a dirty, excremental part, it, too, is the Sun, and therefore Love. What Bataille basically understood first is that ALL is Love, but we just can not see it, "because everything on Earth is distorted by vibrations", as he wrote, approaching Tesla's "On the Future of our Motive Power". Everything else in the Anus is just - filler - reflecting on Bataille's passions and hatreds: against the system, the "hollow eyes of judges", the stupidity of the hoi polloi that surrounded him. A must read for every serious thinker. Thank you, Peter M. Vujin, Esq.
November 6, 2016
Un saggio sublime su quello che è l'esistenza di una rappresentazione suscitata da un'ammirazione o un terrore grande. L'occhio non coincide con l'unico punto di vista, può essere enucleato e persino divenire dono gioviale, poiché quest' occhio era di vetro xD
È per l'impiego di questa combinazione di valore magico che la situazione attuale dell'uomo è determinata in mezzo agli elementi.
È per l'impiego di questa combinazione di valore magico che la situazione attuale dell'uomo è determinata in mezzo agli elementi.
January 16, 2022
An essay that sticks with you in it’s examination of the feverish and surreal, violent eroticism on the edge of the concepts of nature and man. The concept of the Jesuve is fascinating. An excellent piece
January 13, 2009
YAY!!!!!
February 17, 2014
Bataille is the master of conciseness. His subject matters might not be for everyone, but those brave enough to venture into his mad world will be grateful for it.
June 30, 2015
"Beings only die to be born, in the manner of phalluses that leave bodies in order to enter them" - love like stars and love like death.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 74 reviews