Customer Reviews
Fear and Loathing in Western Europe - By: D. De Gruijter, 03 Mar 2002 
"Blue of Noon", an unpublished novel that Bataille himself had forgotten, has received some recognition by being publishedin a Penguin edition. It is a work that, yet again, defies any satisfactory definition. My own idea for an appropriate classification would be 'a Gothic novel'.
The story is interesting enough, though one can't really speak of a plot. We follow one Mr. Troppman, never sober & always sick, through European countries that slowly begin to fall under the insane shadow of German & Italian fascism. This advent of insanity is clearly reflectedin his own life - his morbid fascination for corpses (one of the novel's peaks is a sexual encounter above a graveyard), a young woman named Dirty, the Marxist Jew Lazare, the young Xenie, & his wife Edith.
Repulsion seems to be the keyword of the book. Troppman seems to drift through a decadent world worthy of a powerful cleansing, a horrifying apparatus preparing to do just that, & the innocent victims of both. Through his haze of alcohol he tries to find a cause to devote himself to, loathing & lethargy irresistibly following his peaks of devotion. What is quite remarkable is Bataille's ability to inspire physical revoltin the readerin following Troppman's adventures.
"Blue of Noon" is one of the few books that actually made me feel physically unwell reading it. One is constantly swept with Troppman's enthusiasm & disillusion. The successive rapidity of his drinking, crying, vomiting, & lechery; his violent mood swings leaves one feeling as if experiencing a turbulent plain flight. The inability of choosing between the elusive dilemma's Troppman faces finds expressionin Bataille's scrambling of the boundaries between beauty & scatology, & the absence of any conclusion to the book leaves the invoked tension lingering after the book is finished.
This is a book the demands re-reading & re-evaluation. That it is partly autobiographical adds a dimension to the understanding of the complicated person Bataille. Furthermore I can only echo Will Self's Introduction: "If you commit yourself to reading Blue of Noon there is no necessity for you to worry about where it's all heading - because your very assent to the journey means that you're incapable of reading a map."
If I was a male french erotica writer in the 30s... - By: , 27 May 1999 
This was the first of Bataille's books that I have read/am reading. I stopped at the store today & got another, L'Abbe C. I read Story of the Eye last week (that one was my favorite). As I read (devoured?) Blue of Noon it was like a dawning, an uncovering of a type of writing that I've been trying to find an example of, since it is the style of most of the things I write. Bataille combines his emotions & feelings & anguish & disgust & frustration with the story of this guy & his relationships with various women. It's hard for me to describe what this book did for me because I understand the comparisons & allusions, but taken exactly as it is without trying to find any hidden meaning will still provide for excellent reading. I'd say dismiss any & all negative reviews & get this book, then get Story of the Eye, then The Accursed Share, then everything else this brilliant man has written..
oh yucky - By: , 23 Dec 1998 
Ok ok, so I understand the necrophilia as a metaphor for warmongering, but that doesn't mean I want to read it. There are many better books that deal with war atrocitiesin a much more intelligent way. "The Tin Drum" for instance has all the horror, without all the "sex with dead people" stuff. Avoid this book....better yet, bury itin the back garden...it's internment is long overdue.
This book changed my life. - By: , 04 Apr 1998 Blue of Noon disturbed those dark corners previously controlled by my Victorian pretension & pathological grasping. Anyone suffering from either will find liberationin Bataille.
