Hélène Cixous (review)

The guiding theme in this book is the controversial question of écriture féminine which won Hélène Cixous international fame in the 1970s. While unsurprising in a volume that is part of Continuum's 'Live Theory' series, this is unusual in recent Cixousian scholarship, where the focus has shifted away from the author's theory onto the fictional and dramatic writings which form the bulk of her œuvre but for many years attracted relatively little attention compared with the polemical essays in which she had propounded her notion of écriture féminine. However, Blyth and Sellers's return to Cixous's 'theory' does not share the earlier criticism's disproportionate focus on the theoretical essays. Rather, deploring the fact that these had been considered as 'representative of Cixous's entire œuvre' (p. 3), they seek to examine Cixous's broader body of writing in the light of her theory. They suggest that 'the texts which reveal the most about the nature of écriture féminine are often those that appear, at first glance, the least theoretically minded' (p. 4) and stress that the description of 'écriture féminine' as 'theory' is problematic (p. 18). This is highly promising and, indeed, my main quibble with the book is that its development of the difference between 'writing' and 'theory' and the productive tensions it generates falls somewhat short of the riches promised. Much of the book consists of measuring Cixous's texts against the descriptions of écriture féminine in 'Sorties', which in the authors' opinion 'actually do a very good job of introducing the basics of her "theory"' (p. 19). The 'highly subjective version of events' produced by the first-person narration of Dedans, written 'before Cixous fully developed her "theory" of écriture féminine', is deemed to 'run contrary to the new relation to the other Cixous describes and advocates in her writing on écriture féminine' (p. 36). Similarly, Le Livre de Promethea 'still falls short' of écriture féminine because 'the other it writes remains very personal' (p. 50). The book in effect uses Cixous's 'theory' to sketch a periodization of her œuvre, arguing in favour of an increasing openness which culminates in the 'rich variety and achievement' of her recent writing, indicating that 'the aims of the project of écriture féminine have at last been attained' (p. 65). Leaving aside the question of how persuasive this periodization is, statements such that Cixous's early fiction is 'several steps behind' the 'ideal' expressed in her 'theoretical' writing (p. 113) paradoxically seem to rehabilitate the very subordination of the 'practice' to the 'theory' of (feminine) writing that, following Cixous, their aim is to trouble. Nevertheless, this reservation apart, the book offers a clear and readable overview of Cixous's work that students will doubtless thoroughly enjoy and that provides a timely reminder of the continuing urgency and importance of thinking about the place of theory in literary studies today. It ends with a comprehensive bibliography which will be of value to specialist and non-specialist alike.