Laure (1903–1938)

Colette (Laure) Peignot was a Parisian writer, world traveler, and revolutionary who towards the end of the her life become the lover of the philosopher of excess, George Bataille. She died at the age of 35. The romantic me did what I knew I would do when the book came in the mail, which was to jump to the end of the book to read Laure's letters to Bataille, and work my way backwards to the story of her girlhood. That's what I did.It's clear to me that Laure Peignot was a very intelligent woman. She despised the comforts of her privileged Catholic upbringing and felt a great deal of contempt for the hypocrisy and oppressive nature of its catechism. This contempt generated a confident voice which emphasized the desire for freedom, passion, and transgression. At the same time, however, there is a deep insecurity, most evident in her letters to her sister-in-law Suzanne and most poignantly to Bataille himself: "Above all I would like to tell you that it is not happiness I seek, but a latent, effective, and positive strength--I know I fool people--some think I am already very strong, assured, confident...it is not what impresses other that will satisfy me--it is what I demand of myself, and I have never attained it." Frequently, she professes her inability to express herself well (or often how poorly she expresses her ideas), which explains why she destroyed most of her writings. What remains is this small collection of letters, poems, essays, and political fragments annotated by friends such as Bataille and others. Bataille's recollection of Laure shortly after her death reveals that she was indeed the true love of his life. And though he was far from faithful to her, they shared a spiritual connection that was more tortured than peaceful but otherwise tender and full of meaning and significance. Bataille writes: "A being burns from being to being through the darkness, and it burns even more when love has been able to knock down the walls that imprison each person. But what can be vaster that the gap through which two beings recognize each other, escaping the vulgarity and platitude of the infinite? The one who loves is only beyond the grave (he has thus escaped the vulgarity of daily relations, but bonds that are too constricting were never shattered more than Laure--pain, terror, tears, delirium, orgy, fever, then death were the daily bread that Laure shared with me, and this bread leaves me the memory of a formidable but immense sweetness." This is a work that is humorous in its insolence, inspiring in its passion and defiance, and heart-breaking in its expressions of love and in Laure's struggle to speak her mind with the truth of her whole soul. Artistically speaking, it is an uneven, sporadic collection of writings. But it is an interesting exposition of one woman's intense awareness of her surroundings and her politics, as well as her longing desire to be rid of a life that generated as much alienation and existential pain as it did ecstasy and love.… (mehr)