Tomb(e) by Hélène Cixous


Tomb(e)
Title : Tomb(e)
Author :
Rating :
ISBN : 0857420259
ISBN-10 : 9780857420251
Language : English
Format Type : Hardcover
Number of Pages : 260
Publication : First published April 15, 2012

“In 1968-69 I wanted to die, that is to say, stop living, being killed, but it was blocked on all sides,” wrote Hélène Cixous, esteemed French feminist, playwright, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist. Instead of suicide, she began to dream of writing a tomb for herself. This tomb became a work that is a testament to Cixous’s life and spirit and a secret book, the first book she ever authored. Originally written in 1970, Tombe is a Homerian recasting of Shakespeare’s Venus and Adonis in the thickets of Central Park, a book Cixous provocatively calls the “all-powerful-other of all my books, it sparks them off, makes them run, it is their Messiah.”   Masterfully translated by Laurent Milesi, Tombe preserves the sonic complexities and intricate wordplay at the core of Cixous’s writing, and reveals the struggles, ideas, and intents at the center of her work. With a new prologue by the author, this is a necessary document in the development of Cixous’s aesthetic as a writer and theorist, and will be eagerly welcomed by readers as a crucial building block in the foundation of her later work.
   

Tomb(e) Reviews

  • Jonfaith

    Cixous gives us a playful meditation on the subject of love and mortality, she adroitly links the two (with stitches and slander), as she links so many concepts (but what of the objects, both found and fetished?). The title itself is a split image of both the book (memories) and the grave. She begins this edition which a look back (from 2007) to its initial publication in 1970, which in itself is a look forward and beyond, this book beyond the book

    Her friend Jacques Derrida (who had passed shortly before in 2004) called Tomb(e) an unidentified literary object and said that, "everything is in it." It's written the philosopher noted, "on the side of life." An amazing accomplishment then, when considering the relentless circling around Eros and Thanatos, the idea that love is a death sentence, that such a bond is terminal--it extends to the passing of one (or both) and yet there are other clamors from the mortal boudoir : Cixous notes she had been reading Celan at the time of the initial composition and was dazzled in the diaspora and we indeed find the black milk. There is also a squirrel in this Garden, another opportunity to build and dissemble, to ultimately disinter.

    Cixous has given us a timely gift, a book of deep breaths and sonorous thinking.

  • Alex Davenport

    As with all Cixous's works, Tomb(e) is highly referential to other texts (including Cixous's own works). Cixous's lyricism is in full effect throughout Tomb(e), and in true French post-structural fashion it is in the moments of swirling meaning and destruction of meaning that her messages come through. At its core this could seem to be a love story, but it also hints toward the meaning of what it may mean when Derrida described her as writing "on the side of life." I absolutely love Cixous's works, both fiction and non, however for those who are not used to this style I could understand how the book may become frustrating.

  • Iza October

    Tombe succeeds on so many levels. Cixous' command of both language as it relates to her ideas and the innate playfulness of the shifts she creates in her theories by developing a layered vernacular thick with allusion, as well as her ability to argue self-contained ideas that hold broad implications is unparalleled. The translator of this work takes such great pains to recreate the experience of reading the work in the original language. An exceptional feminist work dealing with the ideas of confinement, decline, death, and transcendence.