Customer Reviews

Reading With Clarice Lispector (Theory and History of Literature)

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I think the prior review misses the point. Doubtless, Lispector is the superior writer. But one doesn't come to Cixous to read Lispector - rather to read Cixous. By all means, read Lispector! But there's a separate pleasure in watching one extraordinary writer devour another. Yes, there is a violence in the act - which precisely belies Cixous's own claims regarding the politics of "l'écriture feminine." For my part, always having found the claims suspect, I am more interested in observing both the pleasure and the violence.

Cixous has been made famous for bringing attention to Clarice Lispector, but unfortunately, she completely misrepresents Lispector's work and uses it in a way completely antithetical to its purpose. Let me make clear that Lispector's work deserves attention, but it is far more intelligent than Cixous can comprehend. Cixous' work is completely disingenuous: celebratory of women writers while at the same time objectifying them. She hides behind obfuscation as a defense against appearing to objectify (at times sexually) Lispector, but her equivocations are nothing more than intellectual smoke and mirrors.

My advice. Skip this book, at least until you have read and come to love Lispector's work on the writer's terms. If you have to write about Lispector in academia, sooner or later you need to confront Cixous' take on Lispector, but don't take it for having substance.