Story Of The Eye

Simone is a character in Story Of The Eye by Georges Bataille. It’s basically a book that proves that you should do what you want, no matter what. I mean, it is a book, but the good thing about books and music and stuff is that things can happen in them and you don’t have to take the consequences. Like you can kill people and you don’t have to go to jail for it. And that book shows that you can play games like that with your head. And anything in the world you want can happen.

And it’s kind of anti-morals. It’s like there’s all these behaviour patterns you’re taught, and it’s saying, ’F- all them’. And you should just follow your instinct and your need, and trust your system. Because all the little signals it’s giving you all the time are actually right. It’s not just about sexual obsession, it’s about being obsessed with one’s needs and going all the way, just if you need it, and that you don’t have to find logic to it.

Of course, the master in that category is sex, because the way your mind works with sex, you want to have sex with all sorts of people, but it doesn’t make any sense and that’s why you never do it. Or at least, very seldom. Because you can’t take the consequences of it. Sex is like the master of illogical needs, but at the end of the day, what this book is saying is that the needs are logical and real and you should believe in them - which is brilliant. I read that book when I was 17 and it just changed my life. It proved to me that I wasn’t mad.

New Musical Express, 26 february 1994