Cixous’s Semi-Fictions: Thinking at the Borders of Fiction by Mairéad Hanrahan (review)

In her detailed study of five texts by Hélène Cixous, Mairéad Hanrahan demonstrates the effectiveness of the expression ‘semi-fictions’ to describe the unique œuvre of this prolific writer. Her use of this hyphenated term takes its cue from an influential essay by Peggy Kamuf, ‘To Give Place: Semi-Approaches to Hélène Cixous’ ( Yale French Studies, 87 (1994), 68–89). According to Hanrahan’s well-formulated reading of Kamuf, ‘[t]he “semi-” is less a space than a spacing; it is as a space of encounter, of “giving place” to the other, that it “gives place” to writing’ (p. 3; emphasis original). This perspective is aware that Cixous’s itinerary is made up of multiple locations and their intersections: ‘If she has a place, it is always more than one, a place of connection between different places’ (p. 1). This point of view also reveals that these texts elude categorization; indeed, a number of Cixous’s publications bear subtitles that open up new possibilities when it comes to genre. Hanrahan’s study is marked by a nuanced understanding of the relationship between fiction and theory, identifying ‘the narrative impulse’ as ‘an insistent motor of Cixous’s writing’ (p. 9) all while elucidating the seemingly paradoxical affirmation that ‘Cixous’s narratives are singularly lacking in “narrativity”’ (p. 11). This is part of what is meant by the term ‘semi-fictions’: in each case, ‘the text in question both isa fiction and is morethan a fiction’ (p. 13; emphasis original). If Jacques Derrida is frequently mentioned in this book, it is often in order to differentiate his work from that of Cixous, whether in their approach to narrative or their recourse to theory. Such distinctions as ‘Derrida’s practice is more theoretical than Cixous’s’ (p. 59) lead up to the suggestion that Cixous’s work ‘goes “beyond” Derrida’s’ in its very ‘movement of “going beyond”, never arresting the emergenceof truth’ (p. 65; emphasis original). Despite these differences, it is clear that Derrida has served as a source of inspiration for Cixous and his reflections are at once complimentary and complementary to her work. These relationships come through most saliently in the final chapter of this study when Derrida’s thoughts on hospitality enrich an exploration of Cixous’s ‘newfound hospitality towards her own country of origin’ (p. 179) in her more recent writings. This book contains literary analyses that are especially aware of time, not only in its role in narrative, but also in its importance to the process of writing itself. Certain texts necessitate the passage of years before they can be conceived, and, when Cixous revisits tragedy, the work of writing ultimately ‘affirms life in all its dimensions, including its darkest underside’ (p. 152) in semi-fictions that exceed the possibilities of theatrical writing. This is a beautifully written and subtle study that contains unprecedented insights into the workings of Cixous’s texts, eloquently arguing that these semi-fictions make up the spaces of ‘ongoing thinking, a thinking in movement, rather than a place in which “thoughts” are fixed’ (p. 85).