The Writing Notebooks

by Hélène Cixous, Susan Sellers

Hélène Cixous is among the most influential and original literary critics and feminist thinkers of our time. This volume reproduces - for the first time, in any language - a collection of pages from her original writing notebooks, offering a unique insight into her radical thought and work. The material gathered here ranges across the full spectrum of Cixous' writing, including the concept of écriture féminine, and the starting points and sources of inspiration for her poetry and prose.

The editor's introduction succinctly outlines the central tenets of Cixous' theory of writing. Each extract is accompanied by editorial commentary and a translation, both by Susan Sellers. The book concludes with an interview with Cixous herself, in which she discusses the writing process, her own criticism, fiction and poetry and the value and importance of these notebooks. Students and teachers of literature, psychoanalysis, philosophy and feminist theory will find this an illuminating and inspiring collection of writings.

Edited by Susan Sellers, Professor of English and Related Literature at the Univeristy of St Andrews.


Hélène Cixous is among the most influential and original literary critics and feminist thinkers of our time. This volume reproduces - for the first time, in any language - a collection of pages from her original writing notebooks, offering a unique insight into her radical thought and work. The material gathered here ranges across the full spectrum of Cixous' writing, including the concept of écriture féminine, and the starting points and sources of inspiration for her poetry and prose.

The editor's introduction succinctly outlines the central tenets of Cixous' theory of writing. Each extract is accompanied by editorial commentary and a translation, both by Susan Sellers. The book concludes with an interview with Cixous herself, in which she discusses the writing process, her own criticism, fiction and poetry and the value and importance of these notebooks. Students and teachers of literature, psychoanalysis, philosophy and feminist theory will find this an illuminating and inspiring collection of writings.

Edited by Susan Sellers, Professor of English and Related Literature at the Univeristy of St Andrews.

Genres: Nonfiction

140 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2004

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

[Russel · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am not hating. Just saying, I've seen these notebooks windowed out in a few places & I don't think much of the selection here. Normally a fan of bad decision making but: limiting as much as possible toward the production of two fictions, not so much. Not the greatest idea. Which is kind of the point: not a lot of ideas here. Just fragments that cast no light. If you want to think of the writer's working mind as a window hit by light then ok: this is after the writer's left the building it's fallen into disrepair someone's broken all the windows & when you see the glass on the ground etc

[Leslie]

This book contains a curated selection of snippets from Cixous' actual writing notebooks. On the left-hand side, you can see a photocopy of the notebook page, written in french in her own hand, with parts scratched out and revisions, etc. On the right-hand side, the text is typed out side-by-side in English and French. The passages are heavily annotated, indicating what books Cixous might be referencing or elements of her autobiography that shine through. Apologies to the academics who toiled to produce the footnotes, but I stopped reading them straight away. I found they detracted from the poetry of the snippets, which where often surprising and gorgeous. Recommended!

[Jack Rousseau · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of these "scribblings" are records of events or conversations, such as the chronicle of the vet's story included here. As Cixous explains in the interview that completes this book she makes many such transcriptions, only a few of which will reappear in her published tests. Sometimes these recordings are deliberate, as in the numerous interviews Cixous held with her mother as she was preparing to write Les rêveries de la femme sauvage and the text that immediately followed it, Le jour où je n'étais pas là (The day I was not there). Sine if the "scribblings" are the result of Cixous's reading, or the elaborations of her thinking. Some are the hoped-for promptings of writing itself: that mysterious vital force, the "leaven" that has the capacity to take the writer further than she would otherwise be able to go. If there is one consistent thread through the many and multifarious works Cixous has produced, including her works of criticism and essays on writing, it is this belief in writing's ability to take us beyond the limitations of the self to a terrain where other understandings and perspectives come into view.

- from the Introduction, pg. vii-viii

Highlights...

- Powys and his companion
one morning they discover that one of the two white cats
it isn't known which one
has peed on the white counterpane.
They phone the vet who comes to put
the 2 cats down that very evening
- On discovering the 2 corpses in Powys's journal
I feel a sort of hateful repulsion
as if I had met them in person in their
home, the counterpane, the 2 dead cats one
on top of the other.
I could never read Powys again, that was my
first thought - then : I have been reading Powys for thirty
years. Did I not smell the odour of the dead cats?
Then: could it be that I could read Powys.
- later, time passing, having passed?
Then: were all the books written on
the corpses of cats?
Justified murders -
- One has the right to kill, just murders
are not called murders
Then: my books too? Who is it
buried beneath my house?

- pg. 11

* * *

the false photos, the empty camera
the depth of evil in me, the lie
eaten ever day. Feeling the gloom
and of spitefulness

- pg. 43

* * *

I stopped writing poems
Overnight

Can you be
born without being
born yet

- pg. 89

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

wonderfully inspiring in its originality: the writing is very organic & spontaneous... a compilation of cixous' journal entries, it records the different forms she uses according to her different moods, subjects and energy. i love her word play, beautiful use of language, shorthand, variety of punctuation & use of symbol on the page...that she doesn't feel obliged to pin everything down & can be free to play & explore is liberating ...

i love too the left hand page -- handwritten -- so beautiful

[MARIO BASTOS]

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
Introduction
Pages from Hélène Cixous's writing notebooks
'Magnetizing the world': an interview with Hélène Cixous Select Bibliography
- See more at: http://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/the-writ...