The Thirst for Annihilation: Georges Bataille and Virulent Nihilism

Arrived in perfect condition and it was a great price

The preface is an "apology", and took some traversing; still, I learnt something about how the writer has internalised the lessons of his teachers. But then we get to the substance! The first three pages of the first chapter taught me more about the achievements (and failures) of the Western philosophic tradition from Kant onwards, than I ever learnt in as many years of studying "Philosophy" at University. One could hardly claim that Land was an Enlightenment author, but he surely is enlightening - and informative. And I don't find his writing style clear or finely crafted, but it still serves to communicate his valuable judgments on several major philosophers' works. I'm very glad I took the time to read Land on Battaille. Some of the hard thought it requires will be spent in disentangling his unnecessarily complex sentences; but the rest is the very stuff of philosophy - thinking hard about hard questions with, most probably, hard conclusions. For the most probable answers to the serious questions, which we all have, may dismay us more often than they give us solace. Which would be a poor excuse for shirking the issues they raise!

My professor suggested this book to me. I read it and after finishing it, I was inspired to annihilate myself by doing acid every weekend for a year. That year was about as weird as the book is to read.

I cannot compare reading this book to any other book I have read. It is not a poem. It is not a fiction. Philosophy? No, obviously not. Nick Land curses philosophy and everything about it but its philosophical chapters are sharp, intelligent, rich and mysteriously gloomy. If demons wished to write a book, all together, then you could expect to read this book. Gilles Deleuze and Flix Guattari once shouted "they are already a crowd". Thirst for Annihilation has been written by a legion. Nick Land deserves to go to hell because of writing a book like this, feit de viande et de sperme fou. I cast my vote with the close-minded reviewer who has given such a book just one star: "Don't read this book." It has not been written for you, human!

Goodness, what an ... odd book. I picked it up in essay crisis mode (i.e. I grabbed anything in the library with the word Bataille in the title) and that's how I encountered Land's book. I have never read anything odder in my life. If you're after a straightforward Bataille crit, then this is not the book for you - it has about 2 useful pages'-worth of material in it. If you want to feel like you put your head into a tumble-dryer full of acid and leprechauns and things, then give this book a go. Land's approach to Bataille is a two-way process - he engages with Bataille's thought, and his writing is very much an attempt to write in an authentically Bataillean way. Hence the descriptions of drunkenness, of anger, of madness. You certainly couldn't accuse Land of being conventional. And the dedication is hilarious - worth the cover price by itself.Read this and expand your mental borders a bit.

I remember when i was student and studying this book with Prof. Victor Vitanza who loved this book. we grew up with this book, Lyotard's libidinal economy and DG's Anti-Oedipus. We discussed that Nick Land's book is an independent work which itself is a masterpiece or at least too thrilling to bear. Although this book is very difficult and english is my second language but it is the best book i have ever read so far. this reviewer who has given it one star either doesn't understand bataille at all or has some personal issues with the writer. i don't wonder how UK reviewers hated this man when he did a radical thing and went to China and started to work as an unknown columnist. his later texts and his writings on America and War should be read with no moral presuppositions as this great book suffers no morality; i imagine they have hidden purposes behind thier clear messages. i don't exaggerate when i claim Nick Land is the bravest writer in our time compared to Lautreamont, Celine, Vian, Sade and Bataille himself. It is too much to ask UK readers or other enemies of this book and its writer to put thier hatred and rigid values aside and look deep into this book. if i could only offer this book 10 stars...

Quite simply the most misguided, irritating, self-indulgent...let's just say the worst text ever written on Bataille (although I certainly do not limit its putrescence to Bataille literature alone). On every page this author is practically screaming, "Look at me! I can be like him! I'm the Ass who saw the Angel (yes, he wishes he were Nick Cave too, I imagine) I can write like him!". Seriously... perhaps the lowest point...an anecdote...a guy walks into a bar and explains to the bartender that he just cut the throat of God. It doesn't, nay can't get any worse than this.

A light-hearted summer read. Bring it to the beach!