H. C. for Life, That Is to Say... (Meridian: Crossing Aesthetics)

Ever since I have known her, I have read her and I keep forgetting that she writes, and I forget what she writes. This forgetting is not a forgetting like any other; it is elemental, I probably live on it.

This book is collected and edited from a lecture Derrida gave at a Cixous Conference in 1998. H.C. For Life crackles even as it retreats, asserting and then reframing. The questions it poses are almost benign taunts. Derrida is cautious and still playful, ever mindful of the brackets he employs. I now read Derrida under the advice of Richard Rorty. Mine is a reading of bemused wonder, especially under these heightened circumstances. I have lavished praise on the bond between Cixous and Derrida elsewhere. Their links are knotted and show more braided with an astonishing poetry. The situation is no different here. Derrida examines Cixous writing about her father. He explores the sense of speed and velocity in her prose. The language is sumptuous to the degree of indulgence. I admit to having no regrets. Homonyms reign here, a situation not well suited for translation. An exploration of the words for "side" and "rib" make for fascinating footnotes.

There was a subsequent reading of Cixous's whimsy about her "Uncle Freud" and in the process Derrida lost me. It has happened in most of my reading of him: I am fine and then suddenly lost. Thankfully my bearings were recovered and I finished the book in awe. show less