Hélène Cixous, Rootprints: Memory and Life Writing

by Hélène Cixous, Eric Prenowitz (Translator), Mireille Calle-Gruber (Contributor)

Helene Cixous is undoubtedly one of the most brilliant and innovative contemporary thinkers. Published here in English for the first time Helene Cixous, Rootprints is an ideal introduction to Cixous's theory and her fiction, tracing her development as a writer and intellectual whose remarkable prespicacity and electrifying poetic force are known world-wide.
Unprecedented in its form and content this collection breaks new ground in the theory and practice of auto/biography. Cixous's creative reflections on the past provide occasion for scintillating forays into the future.
The text includes:
* an extended interview between Cixous and Calle-Gruber, exploring Cixous's creative and intellectual processes
* a revealing collection of photographs taken from Cixous's family album, set against a poetic reflection by the author
* selections from Cixous's private notebooks
* a contribution by Jacques Derrida
* original 'thing-pieces' by Calle-Gruber.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Essays, Feminism, France, Literature, Poetry

254 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1994

About the author

Hélène Cixous is a Jewish-French, Algerian-born feminist well-known as one of the founders of poststructuralist feminist theory along with Luce Irigaray and Julia Kristeva. She is now a professor of English Literature at University of Paris VIII and chairs the Centre de Recherches en Etudes Féminines which she founded in 1974.

She has published numerous essays, playwrights, novels, poems, and literary criticism. Her academic works concern subjects of feminism, the human body, history, death, and theatre.

Reviews

[Alexandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Reading Cixous continues to fill me with wonderment and the shock of truth (of life?). Her writing sets me aflame, I gallop along the text, with the text, behind the text. Reading her is no light work, however, and the process of deconstructing this interview and the following essays was a slow process as I attempted to absorb the multiple layers of meaning. As much of the wordplay is in French, (the contributions by Derrida especially), I found myself going back and forth with the translator's notes, attempting to place the meaning(s) of the text. The use of symmetry, coupling, mimesis, metaphor, fable, the abstract and the poetic form all woven together so distinctively; Cixous continues to be one of my favorite writers, and with each essay/interview/fiction I read I am reminded that there is truly no-one else quite like her. Furthermore, Mireille Calle-Gruber's essays regarding Cixous' form and writing were lyrically prosaic and are probably the best pieces of 'analysis' I've read of Cixous' work so far. An analysis conducted using the language and structure (a term I use incredibly loosely) of Cixous reads less like an essay and more like a wandering mediation, to its benefit. As the writing of Cixous often defies genre and any rigidly structured form, a point that Calle-Gruber explains sublimely, to me these essays demonstrated that the best (if not the only) way to truly understand the work of Cixous, to write (about) it, is to write with the body, to participate in the text, to play with language and oxymoron. Overall, Rootprints is an interesting compilation of works regarding Cixous, and one that I would recommend to fans of her writing.

[Anisha · Rating 5 out of 5]

trembling. physically flabergasted. i knew i was going to fall in love and so i did!!
AGH masculine ant . PHENomenal PheramonesAGHvitalvital breath and song AGH a flood of excess of being delugé , i tremble & i do not die she is my life

[Rita · Rating 4 out of 5]

A beautiful, non-linear exploration of what it means to be human. Blurs the lines between fiction/non-fiction, real/surreal, knowing/unknowing.

[M.F. Sutherland · Rating 3 out of 5]

Incredibly dense. I thought it could have been better organized. Possibly not the best introductory work to HC.

[Alex Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Perhaps it was a mistake for me to read this book first, without reading much of Cixous first. The interview, while long, provided for me much interest as to what Cixous was trying to do. I didn't much appreciate the sectioning of the conversation, but I did like the free flow. In a way, it was about what writing is for her, what she does with it and how she exceeds herself through writing.

The interview revolves around what writing is, what it does, where it arises and ultimately what it means for others, for the self, what we find in it, and how we come to be... for Cixous, writing seems to be about touching herself and others in ways that were perhaps unsaid by language... for there is much language can say but does not find voice in social reality, or reality at all... and that exploration makes writing a kind of love, to love the other in the self too. If anything, the interview's length attests to the ground it uncovers as it runs through all the gambit of the traditional meanings and attitudes surrounding writing to uncover at its root, love and the other.

As Cixous notes, we often cannot be tempted to love, running from it more often than pursuing it...

Perhaps I should return to this after reading more of Cixous's work, instead of just snippets, for much of this read a little too abstractly for me. I guess at my basic nature, I'm a structuralist in many ways, which is why this was so hard for me to read.

[Isla McKetta · Rating 4 out of 5]

While I feel sometimes like reading Cixous is for the real nerds, this combination of interview and essays is for only the nerdiest of nerds. The interview is fantastic and mind expanding. The essays were too nerdy even for me.

[Doug Rice · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a book that transforms what is possible with memoir, with memory and language, especially in the ways Cixous makes use of photographs and narrative.

[Twila Newey · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a conversation with Cixous on writing, her process, her personal history (Algerian, French, Jewish). It is heavily theoretical and a dreamy read for anyone interested in writing the space between, language play and the process of deconstructing meaning(s) and identity(s). (She is in conversation with Derrida-student-teacher-colleague) I have a soft spot for French Feminist Theorists and have since I first read them in my twenties, but Cixous is not for the faint of heart. I had to read this 10pp. at a time and, I'm sure, missed a lot since it's been years since I've been immersed in this particular language and the relationships/conversations between theorists. I'm looking forward to diving into her fiction soon.