The Tears of Eros (Paperback)

~ (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

essays on art, tr Peter Conner

Language Notes

Text: English (translation)
Original Language: French

Product Details

• Paperback: 258 pages
• Publisher: City Lights Publishers (January 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0872862224
• ISBN-13: 978-0872862227
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 7 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #488,431 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

48 of 55 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An exploration of value through excessive experience, June 3, 1999

By	Joo Heung Lee ([e-mail]) "jooheung" (Chicago, USA) - See all my reviews

The Tears of Eros is a fitting culmination of Bataille's search for value through excess. Although Bataille addresses many of the themes touched on here in greater detail in earlier works (Eroticism, The Accursed Share), The Tears of Eros is notable for the significant amount of artwork included to illustrate the connection Bataille develops between sex, death, expenditure, and sovereign value. This is a "must-read" for any serious student of contemporary philosophy and--for that matter--any who would insist that value resides elsewhere than in a petty, bourgeois individualism.

8 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars why the fuss?, June 5, 2005

By	Arizona (Australia) - See all my reviews

I cannot understand why the fuss over this book. The text is disappointing: repetitive, opinionated, insubstantial, more like desultory notes than anything else. The images are all black-and-white and poorly reproduced, and again repetitive and disconnected.

There is too much horror in it. Bataille associates violence, horror, terror, pain, cruelty, with eroticism, madness, ecstasy, the sacred. Perhaps intense cultivation of pleasure creates a corresponding accumulative cultivation of pain. Why should this be so? I don't know except that we have what it takes to explore and we can explore in all and any direction. It's as simple as that.

It's possible to write books and essays that are lucid and meaningful and it's possible to write "The Tears of Eros".

10 of 89 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinary treatment of sex and death, emotions and words, September 1, 1997

By A Customer

It is from woman, we come and to woman, we return because we all have both aspects in our being...female and maleness