A writing on fire

the erotic ecstasy and the mystical ecstasy in A fúria do corpo, by João Gilberto Noll

Abstract

In this article, we develop a reading of the novel A fúria do corpo, by João Gilberto Noll, by analyzing how this book involves an exercise of intensive experimentation of the subjectivity between the realms of the erotic and the mystical, with the erotic act being exercised with the participation of the sacred or the divine, in evocations close to the devout and the liturgical. We then discuss how the narration of such experiences manifests itself through a writing charged with poetic and profaning excitement, with a discursiveness that is more impulsive than representative, a language fueled by the obscene and the solemn, and an imagery that moves between the everyday and the unusual. This study is based, above all, on the thought of Georges Bataille, whose thought makes it possible to see, in a provocative and incendiary writing such as A fúria do corpo, the exercise of exploring the limits of subjectivity and language beyond the conditions that are imposed on human existence.