Bataille and Mysticism: A "Dazzling Dissolution" Author(s): Amy Hollywood Source: Diacritics, Vol. 26, No.

2, Georges Bataille: An Occasion for Misunderstanding (Summer, 1996), pp. 74-85 Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1566298 Accessed: 03/07/2009 13:08
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BATAILLE

AND

MYSTICISM

A "DAZZLINGDISSOLUTION"
AMYHOLLYWOOD
Within Georges Bataille's texts of the late 1930s and 1940s, in particularthose later broughttogetherin the tripartite Atheological Summa,he repeatedlysuggests that his models for writingandexperiencearethe texts of the Christian non-Western and primary mystical traditions(often represented,in Bataille, by women's writings) and those of Friedrich Nietzsche.' InnerExperienceopens with evocationsof Nietzsche, andthe final volume of the trilogy, On Nietzsche, is "devoted"to his work. References to mystical InnerExperienceand Guilty,and significantportionsof both writingsoccur throughout textscan be readas providing"guides" innerexperienceanalogousto the "itineraries" for of Angela of Foligno (d. 1309) andTeresaof Avila (d. 1582) or as spiritualdaybookslike those of Mechthildof Magdeburg(d. ca. 1275). These models are, I think, the key to Bataille'sown writingstrategiesin theAtheologicalSumma.2 understanding Despitetheir BatailleinsiststhatmysticalandNietzscheantextsreflect apparent divergence,moreover, and are constitutiveof the same experienceand writingpractice. Like both Nietzsche and the mystics, Bataille's "antigeneric" writingmixes genres andstyles withinandbetweentexts.3Throughout courseof his career,experienceand the writing are in a constant state of movement, flux, or chaos (to echo Bataille's selfdescriptionin OnNietzsche).TheAtheologicalSummaencapsulateswithinwhatpurport to be threeunifiedbooks the diversityof genresand styles thatrunthroughout Bataille's corpus as a whole. They containample quotationof Nietzsche's texts and those of the mystics-undigested hunks and fragmentsof these allusive writings4-together with philosophicalreflections,confessional meditations,diaryfragments,letters, and, at the end of On Nietzsche, a set of six brief historicaland theoreticalappendices.Anything textualcommentary reservedfor the marginsof these nonbooks. is broachingtraditional Like manymystics, particularly women who were deniedaccess to the traditional genres of sermon, biblical commentary,and philosophical or theological treatise, and like Nietzsche, who eschews and subvertstraditional genre distinctions,Bataille comments andcritiquesthrough thanexposition.AlthoughBatailleacknowledgesthe practicerather oddity of his coupling the mystics and Nietzsche, he also rigorouslydefends it, arguing for a mystical andecstaticexperiencein Nietzsche's work.5 I hope to show, Bataille's As

Thisessayis partof a larger Sensible in French project: Ecstasy: Mysticism Twentieth-Century Thought.
1. Nietzsche's work had been important Bataille since the 1920s and was part of his for movementawayfrom Christianity.WhileBataille seems to have read ascetic, meditational,and mysticalworksduringhis Christian period and after,the wordmystique("mystic"or "mystical") does not appear in his workuntil the later 1930s [see Surya]. 2. Thecompleteargumentwill need to show divergencesbetweenBataille's writingpractices

Summa. of the '20sand '30sandthoseof theAtheological

3. For Bataille's workas resistinggeneric constraints,see Sollers. 4. A later text,The Memorandum, made up only of citationsfrom Nietzsche's work,almost is like aflorilegia of Nietzscheanwritings. 5. I speak to the religious issue here. More needs to be said about the relationshipbetween Nietzsche's obviousmisogynyand his 'feminized"style. See,for example,the essays collected in

74

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experienceof the failuresof mysticism and of Nietzsche speakto each otherand lead to Bataille's necessary apostasyas his truediscipleship. Repetition of the divergences between Bataille and the mystics, first stated by Bataille himself in InnerExperience,has become somethingof a commonplace,yet his claims have not been sufficientlyexploredorchallenged.So, for example,Alain Arnauld and Gisele Excoffon-Lafargeunproblematically assert that despite all proximities between Bataille's texts and those of the mystics, they differ in theiraims or aimlessness. Michel Suryajoins a host of other scholars whose primaryconcern is to demonstrate (againstthe insinuationsof Sartre,madenow almostfifty yearsago) thatBataillewas not a Christian. Whereasthemystics' pathends with thedivineencounter,Bataillerenounces all objects, aims, or end for his quest and his desire.6Most importantly,he rejects all idealism and any hope for salvation.Bataille himself insists on his divergence from the Christianmystics in Inner Experience and Guilty. At the same time, his citations and mimings of centraltexts fromthe Christianmystical traditionshow thatwhat fascinates him within these writings is precisely the moment in which the soul desires "to live withouta why,"embracingthe sufferingof hell-understood as the absenceof/from the "object"of desire-as desire.7In a move laterechoed by JacquesLacan,Bataille claims thatsome medievalmystics attained beyondof whichhe writes,butwithoutknowing that is anythingaboutit: "Exuberance the point where we let go of Christianity.Angela of Foligno attainedit and describedit, but didn't know it."8 Commentators follow Bataille in resistinghis identificationwith the mystics, then, whereasNietzsche is a less troublingmodel for Batailleandhis readers.In fact, Bataille's more forthrightstatements about his debt to Nietzsche can help us understandhis relationship to mystical texts. The claim is repeatedly made-by Bataille and his interpreters-that Batailledoes not commenton Nietzsche as a disciple or studentmight on the texts of a master, but ratherattemptsto live what Nietzsche himself lived, to experience that which gave rise to Nietzsche's writings. Nietzsche's text engenders a writing that is itself an experience. This is most explicitly the case in Thus Spoke which like the gospels of the New Testamentandmanymystical treatisesis Zarathustra, a transformative meantto bringaboutthe experienceof conversiondescribedwithin text it. Yet this implies the text has an aim, as all practicesand acts do accordingto Bataille; Zarathustra'fifth gospel therebysubtlymisses the pureaimlessnessof innerexperience. s In Beyond Good and Evil and Ecce Homo, Nietzsche enjoins those who would him to read slowly, like philologists. Bataille attempts,in the preface to On understand Nietzsche,to specify how he readsNietzsche and,by implication,how the readershould Bataille's own texts. I thinkhe also gives us a pictureof how he readthemystics: approach You shouldn'tdoubtit anylongerfor an instant: haven'tunderstooda word you of Nietzsche's workwithoutlivingthatdazzlingdissolutionintototality.Beyond that, this philosophy is just a maze of contradictions.Or worse, thepretextfor PaulPatton, Feminism Political and and Nietzsche, Nietzsche the and Theory; PeterJ. Burgard, Feminine. think reading I that with Nietzsche andthrough Bataille helpelucidate theseissues may 6. See Bataille,OC 5: 15-17; InnerExperience and passim; 3-5 Arnauld Excoffonand 26-30. Lafarge
7. Thephrase "livingwithouta why" is used by Beatrice of Nazareth(d. 1268), Marguerite

Porete 1310),andMeister Eckhart ca. 1327).Thereference preferring todivine (d. to (d. hell gifts
is found in manymystical texts, includingthose by Mechthild,MargueritePorete, and Angela of Foligno. Forfull citations of textsand discussions of some of them,see Hollywood.Michel Surya shows the importanceof Angelaof Folignofor Bataille and themimingof Angela in his meditations on "CentMorceaux"[375-771. 8. "Lepoint ou nous lachons le christianismeest I'exuberance. Angele de Foligno l'atteignit et le decrivit,mais sans le savoir" [OC 5: 259].

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lies of omission (if, as with the Fascists, certainpassages are isolatedfor ends disavowedby the rest of the work).9 Mystical works often open with similar instructions for reading. So Mechthild of Magdeburgbegins TheFlowing Lightof the Godheadwith the claim thatit must be read seven times if it is to be comprehended,and MargueritePorete warns that those who her approach Mirrorof SimpleSouls armedwith reasonwill fail to achieve the liberation thatthe bookdescribesandenacts.In showingus how he readsNietzsche, Batailleechoes mystical texts, again suggesting the interplaybetween the textual practices of these seemingly divergentfigures. The parallel with Mechthild of Magdeburg,MargueritePorete, and Angela of Foligno goes even further,however, in Guilty. Guilty is drawn from the journals or notebooks that Bataille kept from the opening of World War II (September5, 1939) through October 1943. To this text, published in 1943, Bataille added in 1961 an introductionand a text from 1947, "Alleluia."Inner Experience, published first and placed at the beginningof the AtheologicalSumma,was writtenfromthe winterof 1941 throughthe summerof 1942. This complicatedtextual history is anotherof the many parallelsbetween Bataille's work and those of late medieval Christianwomen mystics. Inaddition,I will argue,theysharecommonalitiesin theirlook, apparent of structure, lack or mixing of genres, and use of contradiction paradox.?0 It Guilty(like InnerExperience)is aphoristic,or, moreaptly,fragmentary. has been compared,justifiably, to the Pensees of Pascal and the aphoristicwritingsof Nietzsche [Surya405]. But perhapsthere is anothersource, suggested by Bataille himself in the opening pages of Guilty: Thedate on whichI beginto write(September 1939) is not a coincidence. 5, I am startingbecause of these events,but not in order to speak of them.I write these notes, incapable of anythingelse. It is necessaryfor me to let myselfgo, from now on, to the movementsoffreedom, of caprice. Suddenly,the moment has comefor me to speak withoutdetour. // It is impossible me to read.At least, mostbooks.I don't have the desire. for Toomuchworktires me.Mynervesare shattered.I get drunka lot. Ifeelfaithful to life if I eat and drinkwhat I want. Life is always an enchantment, feast, a a festival: an oppressing, unintelligible dream, adorned nevertheless with a charmthatI enjoy. Thesentimentof chance demandsthatI look a difficultfate in the face. It would not be about chance if there was not an incontestable madness. I began to read, standingon a crowdedtrain,Angela of Foligno's Book of Visions."1 9. "Qu n'endoute uninstant: n'apasentendu motde1' 'on on un oeuvre Nietzsche de avant plus d'avoir vecucettedissolution eclatante la totalite; philosophie en dehors la que dans cette n'est de dedalede contradictions, encore:pretexte des mensonges omission(si, commeles a pis par on a OC fascistes, isole des passages des finsquenie le restede l'oeuvre)" [Bataille, 6: 22]; On Nietzsche xxxi-xxxii. 10. I thinkthereare also commonalities the level of sentencestructure, on itself often [see fragmentary Nancy,"'Exscriptions "]. 11. La datea laquelle commence d'ecrire septembre (5 je 1939)n'est pas une coincidence. commence raison evenements, ce n'estpaspouren parler. Je en des mais J'6cris notesincapable ces d'autre chose.II me fautme laisseraller,desormais, des a mouvements liberte, caprice. de de le est moi sans Soudain, moment venupour de parler / detour. 76

diacritics / summer 1996

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fromAngela's Book.Not only Bataillefollows these fragmentswithpassagestranscribed run do thesetranscriptions throughout Guilty,butas Michel Suryahaspointedout,central aspects of Bataille's own practice of inner experience have direct, although uncited, parallelsin Angela's.'2 for Moreimportantly my purposeshere,the practiceof writingin Guiltyparallelsor even mimes thatof medieval mystical women like Angela of Foligno and Mechthildof Magdeburg.Althoughthereare genericsimilaritiesbetweenMechthild'sFlowing Light of the Godhead and Angela's Book, Guilty more closely resembles the former. It's betweenthem unlikelythatBatailleknewMechthild'swork,yet I thinkthata comparison is enlighteningas Mechthilddisplaysin moremarked formimportant, althoughobscured, featuresof Angela's book that are mimed (consciously or unconsciously) by Bataille. Both Mechthild and Angela wrote what are probablybest called "confessions"in the traditionof Augustine(Suryaincludes the Confessionsin his list of possible models for Bataille'swork).However,theradical differencein thenature Augustine' Mechthild' of s, s, and Angela's experienceslead to a very differentset of writingand rhetoricalpractices within their deployment of the genre, to the point of making the women's works unrecognizableto many as "confessions."Insteadmodernscholarshave, until recently, insisted on reading them as diaries or journals-immediate outpouringof the woman authors'experience. (This is particularlyodd given the variety of forms in which the materialappearsin texts like Mechthild's;thereare poems, dialogues, visions, prayers, as well as more traditional prose exposition.)13 Existing versions of Angela's Book give littleevidenceforher"writing" for practice,becauseit was transcribed herby a malecleric (and they both insist he didn't quite get it). Although there is some evidence for the mediatinghand of male priestly authorityin Mechthild's work, it keeps its fragmented form and the unresolveddialectic of its structure-what CarolineWalkerBynum refers to as "oscillationsbetween alienationand ecstasy."'4 Aside from the visual similaritiesbetween Mechthild'sand Bataille's texts, engendered by their fragmentary form and their mixture of diverse genres ("Disorderis the conditionof this book; it is unlimitedin every sense"),'5they also sharea concern with the process of writingand of the relationshipbetween writerand readerthatplace their texts within the traditionof the Confessionseven as it distancesthem from Augustine's practicewithinthatcomplex genre.TheFlowingLightof the GodheadandGuiltyarenot IIm'estimpossible lire.Dumoins plupart livres. n'enaipasle desir. de la des Je Un excesdetravail fatigue. ailesnerfs me J'en brises. m'enivre Je souvent. mesensfidele Je
a la vie si je bois et mangece qui me plait. La vie est toujoursl'enchantement,le festin, la fete: reve oppressant,inintelligible,enrichineanmoinsd'un charmedontje joue. Le sentimentde la chance me demanded'etre en face d'un sort difficile. II ne s'agiraitpas de chance si ce n'etait une incontestablefolie. J'ai commencede lire, deboutdansun trainbonde,le Livredes visions d'Angele de

[OC5: 245] Foligno. Notethetruncated fragmentary and sentence structure. 12. Bataille'sdescriptions, Guiltyand InnerExperience, his contemplation the in of of torture victim echoAngela's accounts hercontemplation photographs a Chinese of directly of of Christ's cross. 13.This claim with assertions about nature women's the goestogether a number standard of of moreoftenin thefirst personand hence writings-i.e. thatit is morespontaneous, immediate, all and, novel, autobiographical-almost of whicharefalse. See Hollywood; for the modern Lanser. 14. Theclosestthingto a structuring paradigm the bookis the constant for interplay of the presenceandabsencein theSongof Songs."Alleluia," final appended sectionof Guiltyis described DenisHollieras Bataille's by rewriting theSongof Songs[see Hollier]. of 15. "Ledesordre la condition ce livre,il est illimite est de danstousles sens"[OC5: 264]. 78

becausethey are writtenfor an audienceon journalsor diariesas commonly understood, whom the text desiresto act. It is this confessionalaim,moreover,thatbringstogetherthe diversematerialsmakingup theirtexts (as opposedto the relative,albeithardlycomplete, homogeneityof Augustine's).Mechthildopens withthe claim thatthe soul's experiences recountedwithin the book are made throughher to all of Christendom.Bataille begins with similarclarity-soon to be effaced-about the pedagogicalpurposeof his writing. "As simply as I can, I will speak of the pathsby which I found ecstasy, in the desire that otherswill find it in the same way."'6This aim, however, is boundto sacrifice itself, for thepathlessecstasy he seeks cannotbe given anitinerary. Oneside of the paradoxenacted by Bataille's text can be located here, for althoughhe envisions a readeron whom he wishes to act, the very desire to act is called into questionby innerexperience. Bataille is insistenton this point;"Ihatesentences.... WhatI have affirmed,the convictions that I have shared,all of this is laughableanddead;I amonly silence, theuniverseis silence."17 Laterhe makesa morecharacteristic claim aboutthereaderandwith it abouthis text. WhatI write differsfrom a diary/journalin this: I imaginea man, neither too young nor too old, neither too subtle nor too sensible/practical,pissing and shitting, simply (cheerfully). I imagine him (having read me) reflecting on eroticismand theputtinginto questionof nature.He wouldsee then what care I have takento lead him to the decision. There's no use giving an analysis: he evokes the momentof arousal-naive, but ambiguous, unconfessable. He is putting nature into question.18 Only a writing thatputs itself, the writer,and the readerinto questioncan lead to inner withinthe experience.This becomes clearerwhen we look to the othermajorinterlocutor confessional tradition(and the othernoninterlocutor Bataille's communications). of Augustine's Confessions,Mechthildof Magdeburg'sFlowing Light,and Angela of Foligno's Book are addressednot only to the humanreader,on whom the text hopes to work a transformation, also to God, before whom the humanauthorstands"confessbut ing" her life, sins, and the glory of God reflected in it. This seems to markthe point of greatest divergence between their work and Bataille's. Yet the story is complicated. the God. Throughout Confessions,Augustinespeaksas a humanbeing to a transcendent Mechthild's use of voice is morecomplex. Whenin the firstperson,the text speaksmore often as God thanto God; those momentswhen the soul is shown speakingto God (and God to the soul) areput in third-person form, therebyachieving allegoricalanddramatic a distancingeffect and undercutting text's autobiographical journalistic form. I the or have arguedelsewhere thatthese rhetoricalstrategiesare a functionof Mechthild'slack of traditional She authorityas a womanwithinmedieval Christianity. takes this subordinationto its limit, negatingherself so fully thatthe self is lost and becomes thatplace in andthroughwhich God speaks.Paradoxically, Mechthild'sworkattainsdivine authority in her very act of self-denial.Therearemomentsin the text, moreover,whereMechthild
16. "Aussisimplement quejepuis,jeparlerai des voiespar lesquellesje trouvail'extase, dans le desir que d'autres la trouventde la memefacon" [OC 5: 264]. 17. "J'abhoreles phrases.... Ce quej'ai affirme,les convictionsquej'ai partagees, tout est risible et mort:je ne suis que silence, 'universest silence" [OC 5: 277]. 18. "Cequej 'ecrisdiffereen ceci d'unjournal:j'imagine un homme,ni tropjeuneni tropage, ni trop fin ni trop sense, pissant et crottant, simplement(gaiment), je l'imagine reflechissant (m'ayantlu) sur l'erotismeet la mise en questionde la nature:il verraitalors quel soucij'avais de l 'amenera la decision. Inutilede donnerI'analyse: qu'il e'voque momentde 1'excitationnaive, le mais louche, inavouable:il metla natureen question"[OC 5: 355]. Earlyin the textBataille makes it clear that it is not addressed to hisfriends or intimates,but to those he does not knowand who will be alive after his death.

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pushes this self-negationto the point wheresalvationitself is denied.Otherwomen, like Porete,will push even furtherto the negationof the Angela of Foligno and Marguerite divine being itself.19 Bataille's relationshipto a divine or sacred other within Guilty is also complex. Nietzsche arguesin On the Genealogyof Morals thatthereis no simple atheism,or that simple atheism is really a kind of idealism in that the atheist still believes in truth. Bataille's relationshipto God and to the sacred must be located within this dilemma. Guiltycan be readas an attemptto enactthatfreeingof the sacredfromGod describedby of Bataille in his introduction 1961. It seemedto me thathumanthoughthad twoterms:Godand thesentimentof the absence of God.ButGodbeing theconfusionof thesacred (the religiousaspect) and reason (the instrumental aspect), he has a place only in a world where the and confusionof the instrumental thesacredbecomesthebasisfor reassurance. God terrifiesif he is no longer the same thingas reason (Pascal, Kierkegaard). But if he is no longerthesame thingas reason,I am beforetheabsence of God.20 The sacredis nothing,andit is the absenceof God, in the sense thatGod is understoodas thatwhich gives reason,order,coherence,andmeaningto humanexistence. The sacred is thatwhich lies beyondmeaning,instrumentality, reason-and hence beyond God. and It lies beyondsalvation.WhenMechthild,Angela,Marguerite Porete,orMeisterEckhart claim thatthe soul no longercaresfor heavenor hell, they also seek this beyond of which Bataille writes. Bataille recognizes this, but claims that the Christianmystic moves beyondGod withoutknowingit. Yet whatdoes it mean to know thatyou arein the realm of the unknowable? crucialdistinctionBatailletriesto makebetweenhimself andthe The seems finally to collapse. mystics Elsewhere, Bataille calls this nonplace beyond "the impossible," thereby clearly raisingthe otheraspectof the paradoxstructuring Guilty.Whatdoes it meanto write(to) the impossible? Moreover, for Bataille human beings are themselves this impossible paradox,makingthe dilemmaof the humanaddresseeand thatof "theimpossible"one. This is firstenactedin Bataille's text throughthe correlation the writingself and God. of In a section entitled "The Lure of the Game," Bataille returnsto the question of the of "object" desireandof ecstasy. "THEOBJECTOF ECSTASYIS THEABSENCEOF RESPONSEFROMTHE OUTSIDE.THEINEXPLICABLE PRESENCEOF MAN IS THE RESPONSE THAT THE WILL GIVES ITSELF, SUSPENDED OVER THE VOID OF AN UNINTELLIGIBLE NIGHT.THISNIGHT,FROMONE END TO THE "2 OF OTHER,HAS THEIMPUDENCE A HOOK. Bataillerefershereto hooksthatused to be placedon the incline of roofs;these hooks held up poles thatkeptsnow fromsliding off the roof. Bataille is fascinatedby this hook, which he associates with chance. The Bataille's writings-is to the question philosophicalreference-one thatrunsthroughout
19. For examples,such as the dialectic of all and nothingin Porete or Eckhart'sprayer that Godfree the soulfrom God, see Hollywood. 20. "Ilm 'a sembleque la pensee humaineavaitdeuxtermes:Dieu et le sentimentde l 'absence de Dieu; mais Dieu n'etant que la confusion du SACRE(du religieux) et de la RAISON(de l 'utilitaire),il n'a de place que dans un mondeou la confusionde l 'utilitaireet du sacre devientla base d'une demarcherassurante.Dieu terrifies 'il n 'estplus la memechose que la raison (Pascal, Kierkegaard).Mais s'il n'est plus la mime chose que la raison,je suis devantl'absence de Dieu" [OC 5: 2401. 21. "L'OBJET DE L'EXTASE EST L'ABSENCE DE REPONSE DU DEHORS. L'INEXPLICABLE PRESENCEDE L'HOMMEEST LA REPONSE QUE LA VOLONTE SE DONNE, SUSPENDUESUR LE VIDED'UNE ININTELLIGIBLE NUIT; CETTENUIT, D'UN BOUTA L'AUTRE, L'IMPUDENCE A D'UN CROCHET" [OC 5: 320].

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articulatedby Nietzsche at the end of On the Genealogy of Morals: "why man at all?" this Guilty's meditationson chance particularize question.As Suryanotes, Bataille not only questionsthe meaningof his own existence and thatof humanexistence (why live in the face of death?) but also continually brings himself face to face with the sheer contingencyof his own existence as the individualhe himself is. Chanceis the hook on which existence falls. It is withoutmeaningandoffers no answerotherthanits own sheer and facticity. The abruptness impudenceof this facticity, the absence of responsein the response, is/engendersecstasy.22 Bataille continuallyplays on the relationshipbetween the absence of God and the contingencyof the self. He insists thatreligionis thatplace in whicheverythingis putinto an question.God, theconfusionof the sacredandreason,represents attemptto answerthe question and to elude the hook. But, Bataille claims: "I don't believe in God: from an inabilityto believe in myself."Orconversely,"Godis dead:he is so to thepointthatI can't make his deathunderstoodwithoutkilling myself."23 is not only thatthe deathof God It the self face-to-face with the inevitabilityof its own death.For Bataille, the death brings of Godhas notbeenunderstood experienceduntilthedeathof the self has been.Because or one cannot experience one's own death, then, Bataille suggests that God will never be entirelydead.Yet the self mustbe putintoquestionin orderto move towardanexperience of the absenceof God.Moreover,Batailleclaimsthatthe self has always alreadyputitself into question insofar as it attemptsto communicate.The attemptto communicatewriting-puts itself into question by refusing the answer. Whereas, "[t]he God of theology andreasonneverputshimself intoplay,"Batailleinsists that"[w]ithoutend, the unbearable thatwe are,plays itself;withoutend, "communication" it intoplay."24 me, puts We return, then, to the imaginary other to whom Bataille writes. The attempt to communicateto anotherthe way to ecstasy putsthe self into play, destabilizesthe sacred, and leads to the lacerationsof ecstasy. The question now becomes why communicationputs the self into play or into questionandengendersthe experienceof the absenceor deathof self and the absence or deathof God.HereBatailleevokes theparadoxes writingelaborated of further Maurice by Blanchot and Jacques Derrida.25 The first evocation seems merely banal: "History," Bataillewrites,"isunfinished.Whenthis bookis read,the smallestschoolchildwill know how the warturnedout. At thismomentwhenI write,nothingcan give me the knowledge of that schoolchild."26 Like Nietzsche, Bataille claims here to love his ignoranceof the future-and its fundamentalunknowability.By thus invoking the absent-yet-to-bebornand hence fundamentally mortal-other, Bataille evokes his own death.Writingis an attemptto inscribepresence(transparence) is always predicatedon absence;the that absence of the other to whom one writes and the absence of the self to that addressee.

22. My hesitationin wordchoice here raises a crucial questionabout the kindof claims made bysuch texts.Does Bataille thinkthattheprocess of readingitself is theecstasy, or thatit is capable in certain conditions of engenderingit? Similar questions have been raised about the claims of mystical texts [see, for example, Sells]. This concern with the hook is at the root of Bataille's fascination with the momentof inception,and also with eroticismas the realm of chance. 23. "Jene crois pas en Dieu:faute de croire en moi. " "Dieuest mort:il l'est au point queje ne pourraisfaire entendresa mortqu'en me tuant"[OC 5: 282, 327]. 24. "Jamaisle Dieu de la theologie et de la raison ne se met en jeu. Sansfin, l'insoutenable moi, que nous sommes, se joue; sansfin, la 'communication' met en jeu" [OC 5: 328]. le 25. See,for example,Blanchot.For an early and important formulationby Jacques Derrida, see his "Signature,Event, Context." 26. "L'histoireest inachevee:quandce livre sera lu, le plus petit ecolier connaitraI'issue de la guerre actuelle; au momentou j'ecris, rien ne peut me donner la science de l'ecolier" [OC 5: 261-62].

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The penultimatesection of the main body of Guiltyis entitled"Lavolonte"("Will/ Bataillehereties theproblemof deathto the paradox Willpower"). engenderedby human the beings' desire to write so as to transform otherand the fact that this transformation itself denies all intentionality.As in "The King of the Wood," Guilty's final section that (beforea seriesof appendixes,of course),Bataillecondensestheparadoxes have been enactedthroughout text. After evoking the radicalnothingnessand unthinkableness the of mydeath,Bataille writesthat"[t]owriteis to go elsewhere.The birdwho sings andthe man who writes deliver themselves."27 They deliver themselves to death in the going elsewhereand yet also attemptto escape deaththroughthe act of writing,the inscription of an always alreadyabsentpresence.The one who will receive this writingis no longer a man who can be imagined(pissing and shitting); I do not writefor this world (surviving-intentionally-that worldfrom which war has emerged),I writefor a differentworld,a worldwithoutrespect.I don't desire to imposemyselfon it, I imaginemyselfbeingsilent there,as if absent.The necessity of effacement to the point of transparency.I do not oppose real strengths or necessary connections: idealism alone (hypocrisy, lies) has the virtueto condemnthe real world-to ignore its physical truth.28 Batailleis caughthere in his own paradox:how to rejectidealism,which refuses the real world and its physical truth,while speaking to a world different from that one full of idealism, lies, and hypocrisy in which world war is inevitable (accordingto Bataille's the politicalanalysisthroughout 1930s). Bataille'sstrategy,like thatof the mystics, is not to avoid the paradox,nor to attemptto resolve it, but to embraceit and force the reader to thinkit in all its contradiction. Onlyin thisway, thetextsuggests,canthephysicalworld be thatotherworld to which Bataille speaks silence. if Furthermore, to writeis to go elsewhereandto encounterdeath(to speaksilence), it is also an attemptto stay alive (to speak). "TheDeath of the King"refers to the death of Dianus, the priestof Diana and he underwhose name Bataille first signed fragments of Guilty.Accordingto legend, Orestesis the first Dianus, a criminalwho gains power over the woods (the woods of nemo-nothing) througha second crime,the murderof his predecessor;he rules awaiting his own murder.This is the place from which Bataille writes. Iam inhabitedbya maniato speak,and a maniaforexactitude.I imaginemyself to be precise, capable, ambitious.I shouldhave been silent and I spoke.I laugh at thefear of death: it keeps me awake! Battling against it (againstfear and death).// I write, I do not want to die. For me, the words "I will be dead" aren't breathable.My absence is the wind from outside.It is comical:pain is comical.I am,for my protection,in my room. But the tomb? already so near, the thought of it envelops me from head to toe. //

27. "tcrireestpartir ailleurs. 'oiseau chante I'homme e'crit delivrent" 5: L et se [OC qui qui 359]. 28. "Jen'ecrispas pource monde-ci celui sortitla (survivance-expressement-de d'oui pourun mondedifferent, pourun mondesans egards.Je n'ai pas le desirde guerre), j'e?cris m'imposer lui,j'imagine etresilencieux, a comme absent. necessite 'effacement La de incombe y a la transparence. nem'oppose Rien aux necessaires:'idealisme seul reelles, rapports auxforces le a le (I'hypocrisie, mensonge) la vertude condamner mondereel-d'en ignorerla verite physique" 5: 360]. [OC 82

Immensecontradictionof my attitude! Has anyone ever had, so gaily, this simplicityof death? But ink changes absence into intention.29 Whereas in the passage cited above Bataille stresses the absence that always already hauntswriting,he hereemphasizesthe otherside of the paradoxencompassedin writing. in To write a book, Bataille repeatedlyremindsus in Guilty,is to participate instrumentality; to use language in the attemptto accomplish an end: "to change absence into intention."30 The paradoxical problem of Guilty is how to write (a) desire (without object) aimlessly or how to write withoutend and withouta why. I couldn'tfind what I am lookingfor in a book, still less put it in a book. I fear courtingpoetry. Poetry is a drawnarrow. If I have aimed well, what countswhat I want-is neitherthe arrow nor the target [le but], but the momentwhen thearrow is lost, dissolves intotheair of thenight;untilthememoryof thearrow
is lost.31

The significance of this becomes clear when we juxtapose Bataille's critique of the Christian mystics withhis insistenceon Nietzsche's failure.Wherethemystics errinsofar as they refuseto err-to do withoutan end for theirspeech andexperience-Nietzsche's faultlies in his abrogation communication. the greatprophetof aimlessnessseeks an of If ideal with which to overcomethe ascetic, as some argue(andis constantlysuggestedand thensubvertedin Zarathustra), thenfor BatailleNietzschecapitulatesto the ascetic ideal. Yet Nietzsche suggeststhatanyattempt communication in serviceto the asceticideal. at is Bataille insists, however, on his communion with Nietzsche in the writing of On Nietzsche, therebysuggesting thatothermodes of communicationare possible through writingexperienceand textualactivity.32 Only throughthis writingpracticeis the sacred released from the ideal and the God to which it is still in part held captive within Nietzsche's work.Takenas ananswerto thequestionof themeaningof being,Nietzsche's

29. La ragede parler et m'habite, la ragede l'exactitude. m'imagine je precis, ambitieux. J'aurais me taireetje parle. risde la peurde la mort: me duf Je elle capable, tienteveille!Luttant contre (contre peuret la mort). elle la // J'ecris, ne veuxpasmourir. je Pour ces mots,"jeserai ne Mon est moi, mort," sontpasrespirables. absence le vent dudehors. est comique: douleur comique. suis,a 1'abri, machambre. Elle la est Je dans Maisla tombe? si voisine,sa penseem'enveloppe la teteauxpieds.// de deja Immense contradiction monattitude! de Personne cettesimplicite mort? de eut-il,aussigaiment Maisl'encrechange l'absence intention. 5: 365] en [OC
30. It is worthremembering thispoint thatBataille had some troublecompletingbooks.By at 1939-41 he hadfinishedonlytwo,bothpublishedanonymously-The Storyof theEye andThe Blue of Noon. Otherthan that, he had producedonly essays and abortedplans for books. 31. "Jene pourrais trouver queje cherchedans un livre,encore moins l 'ymettre.J'ai peur ce de rechercherla poesie. Lapoesie est unefleche tiree: sij'ai bien vise, ce qui compte- queje veux - n'est ni lafleche ni le but, mais le momentou lafleche se perd, se dissout dans l 'air de la nuit: jusqu''aal memoirede lafleche est perdue" [OC 5: 340]. Thisis theplace to locate Bataille 's own

to of (TheImpossible). poemsin relation his Hatred Poetry

a 32. Eric Blondelbegins to demonstrate similartwofoldmovement withNietzsche'stexts[see Blondel].

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to writingcapitulates theideal.Takenas a processof writing(andreading)andas a putting into question of the self (both thatof the writerand the reader),it communicates.33 In an important essay on Bataille,Nancy arguesthatBataille's writingis "asacrifice of writing,by writing,whichredeemswriting"[334]. ReadingBataillewith his mystical models helps us to unpackthis evocative phraseand to suggest why, for Bataille, the sacrifice and redemptionof writingby writingare necessary,and how they are effected withinandfragmentation his texts.Writing,forBataille,is always of by thecontradictions an attemptto force language to enact what it communicates.In describing Bataille's writing practice, Nancy coins a term-exscription-through which he attempts to describe the mechanisms by which Bataille's texts point outside themselves to an experiencethatis constitutedin the very act of writing.The parallelswith EricBlondel's workon Nietzsche andwithcontemporary studiesof the linguisticstrategiesof apophatic how insistence mysticism are striking.As in Nancy's work, these analysesdemonstrate on themateriality thetext throughwhichthe practiceof writingis inscribedleads-not of to a stultifying idealism, as some oddly insist-but rather to a recognition of the of interpenetration world and writingin the productionof a textualexperienceof desire withoutlimit, withoutend, and withoutaim. By exacerbatingthe paradoxesof writinga desire withoutobject and withoutaim, Bataille createsa text in which innerexperience is (for him and perhapsalso for the readerwho knows how to read) "attained." By emphasizing the practice of writing and with it the materiality of the text, moreover,the dangersin Bataille's elision of the object of desire-and hence, it would seem, with that which marks and maintainsnormativelydefined gender differencemight be averted, while the positive gains that can come throughsuch an elision are retained.For Bataille's writing suggests that desire taken to its limit subvertsnot only genre but also gender, leading to what has been called in anothercontext (a readingof MargueritePorete's The Mirrorof Simple Souls and Meister Eckhart'ssermons) "the apophasis(unsaying)of gender"occasioned by "living withouta why" [see Sells]. For Bataille this occurs in thathe is "virile"and "lacerated" insofaras MadameEdwarda or as laceratedis divine. If Bataille's text is still markedby genderdifference and gender as hierarchies, SusanSuleimanargues(I don'tknowyet if I agree),he has failedin his own for project[see Suleiman].Success, however, would also be unattractive many feminist thinkers,who arguethat sexual differencecan be elided only at the expense of women. I am suggesting, however, that Bataille merely subverts the normativeassociation of sexualdifferencewiththe nature thedesiredobject.Thereis good reasonto believe this of move might be necessaryand salutaryfor women, while not itself leading to a neglect of material bodies and our multiple differences. If Bataille places importance on the materialityof the text as it inscribesa practiceof writing,might not the materialityof the flesh also be a sourceof recalcitrant desire,a desirethatrefusesto be limitedto any object while also refusingto become such an object for the other? WORKSCITED of Foligno. CompleteWorks.Trans.Paul Lachance.New York:Paulist, 1993. Angela Arnauld,Alain, and Gisele Excoffon-Lafarge. Bataille. Paris:Seuil, 1978. of Hippo. Confessions.Trans.R. S. Pine-Coffin.Harmondsworth: Augustine Penguin, 1961. Bataille, Georges. Guilty.Trans.Bruce Boone. Venice, CA: Lapis. 1988. . Inner Experience.Trans.Leslie Anne Boldt. Albany:SUNY P, 1988. . The Memorandum. Oeuvrescompletes,vol. 6. 33. Whether reduction Nietzsche a truth can be communicated thefault of the to that is of or Nietzsche of thosecommentators insistonreducing work a discourse a doctrine who his to and canonlybe decided a comparison Nietzsche's Bataille's and by of practices. writing 84

. Oeuvrescompletes. 12 vols. Paris:Gallimard,1973. [OC] . On Nietzsche. Trans.Bruce Boone. New York:ParagonHouse, 1992. NY: Station Blanchot,Maurice.TheMadnessof theDay. Trans.LydiaDavis. Barrytown, Hill, 1981. Blondel, Eric. Nietzsche: TheBody and Culture.Trans.Sean Hand. Stanford:Stanford UP, 1991. U Burgard,PeterJ. Nietzscheand the Feminine.Charlottesville: of Virginia P, 1994. CarolineWalker.Jesus as Mother:Studiesin theSpirituality the High Middle Bynum, of Ages. Berkeley: U of CaliforniaP, 1982. and Derrida, Event,Context."Writing Difference.Trans.Alan Bass. Jacques."Signature, U of Chicago P, 1978. Chicago: Hollier, Denis. "A Tale of UnsatisfiedDesire."Bataille, Guilty. of Hollywood,Amy. TheSoulas VirginWife:Mechthild Magdeburg, MargueritePorete, and MeisterEckhart.Notre Dame: U of Notre Dame P, 1995. Lanser, Susan Sniader. Fictions of Authority: WomenWritersand Narrative Voice. Ithaca:CornellUP, 1992. MargueritePorete. The Mirror of Simple Souls. Trans. Ellen Babinsky. New York: Paulist, 1993. MechthildvonMagdeburg'DasfliessendeLichtder Gottheit': Mechthildof Magdeburg. Nach der Einsiedler Handschrift in kritischem Vergleich mit der gesamten Uberlieferung.Ed. Hans Neumann.2 vols. Munich:Artemis, 1990-93. The Birth to Presence. Trans. Brian Holmes et al. Nancy, Jean-Luc. "Exscriptions." Stanford:StanfordUP, 1993. Nietzsche, Friedrich.Beyond Good and Evil. Trans. Walter Kaufmann.New York: Vintage, 1966. . On the Genealogyof Morals and Ecce Homo. Trans.WalterKaufmannand R. J. Hollingdale.New York:Vintage, 1967. . ThusSpokeZarathustra. Trans.WalterKaufmann. PortableNietzsche.New The York:Viking, 1954. Harmondsworth: Pascal, Blaise. Pensees. Trans.A. J. Krailsheimer. Penguin, 1966. Paul. Nietzsche, Feminismand Political Theory.New York:Routledge, 1993. Patton, Sartre,Jean-Paul."Un nouveaumystique."Situations.Paris:Gallimard,1947. Sells, Michael. MysticalLanguagesof Unsaying.Chicago:U of Chicago P, 1994. de Sollers, Philippe. "De grandesirregularites langage."Critique 195-96 (1963): 795802. Suleiman,Susan. "Bataillein the Streets:The Searchfor Virility in the 1930s."Bataille: Writingthe Sacred. Ed. CarolynBailey Gill. New York:Routledge, 1995. Surya,Michel. Georges Bataille: La morta l'oeuvre. Paris:Gallimard,1992.

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