Bataille brings his inimitable style to '30s nihilism and the threat of impending war, in both Spain and Germany.

Don't bother. Anything he was trying to do here is very weak and you'd be so much better off reading Isherwood.

Even the offensive debauchery here seems half-hearted. ( )

> Babelio : https://www.babelio.com/livres/Bataille-Le-bleu-du-ciel/2188

> LE BLEU DU CIEL, par Georges Bataille, par Georges Bataille (Gallimard, 1991, Poche, 238 pages). — « J'ai voulu m'exprimer lourdement. Mais je n'insinue pas qu'un sursaut de rage ou que l'épreuve de la souffrance assurent seuls aux récits leur pouvoir de révélation. J'en ai parlé ici pour arriver à dire qu'un tourment qui me ravageait est seul à l'origine des monstrueuses anomalies du Bleu du Ciel.
Mais je suis si éloigné de penser que ce fondement suffit à la valeur que j'avais renoncé à publier ce livre, écrit en 1935. Aujourd'hui, en 1957, des amis qu'avait émus la lecture du manuscrit m'ont incité à sa publication. Je m'en suis à la fin remis à leur jugement. »
—Johnny Gimenez (Culturebox)

Un cocktail azzurro puffo, ghiacciato, viscoso, amaro, secco, che prende alla testa e alle gambe. Ad alta gradazione alcolica.
Un teschio che morde un'amarena nera come guarnizione. ( )

A nihilist novel by Georges Bataille, Blue of Noon, is set during the Spanish Civil War and the early years of Nazi movement. The protagonist, Henri Timmermann is a sick man (physically and emotionally). This book is thankfully short, it is so horrible and not enjoyable in any sense of the word. The author has tried and achieved to include every human excretion and depravity in this novella. There are three women, Lazare--a political activist, Dirty--an alcoholic and Xenia--a young woman who nursed Troppmann back to health. Supposedly this is a rewrite of Don Juan but I have not read it so I wouldn't know and the author has used the writing of sex to describe the political climate. I do not feel this work has much merit. ( )

While I didn't actually hate Georges Bataille's "Blue of Noon," I really didn't get it either. This supposed to be a novel that used eroticism to show how sex, violence and power is intertwined and that message really never came together for me.

The narrator is Henri Troppmann, who lives life to excess when it comes to alcohol and the debauched women who flit in and out of this life. Each woman is also on the decline for her own reasons. Henri is terrified of death and the novel is set against a backdrop of the first rumblings of the Spanish Civil War.

The book is certainly dark and not for the faint of heart (or prudish.) The most stunning scene of the book is near the end and is the novel's one true sex scene. Without giving too much away, I'll just say that scene did pull together some of the story for me, just not in the way Bataille apparently intended.

Perhaps I just don't know enough about the Spanish Civil War to understand what Bataille was going for. The novel seemed to be more of a book about depression, alcoholism and sexual dysfunction than a thought-provoking statement about politics for me.

Overall, I found the book to be just okay, but with a couple of worthwhile scenes that will stick with me for quite a while. ( )