Veils

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by Helene Cixous, Helene Cixous and Jacques Derrida,

Translated by Geoffrey Bennington,

Artwork by Ernest Pignon-Ernest

Stanford University Press

Due/Published October 2001, 120 pages, paper

ISBN 0804737959

This book combines loosely two "autobiographical" texts: "Savoir," by Cixous, is a brief but layered account of her experience of recovered sight after a lifetime of severe myopia, an experience that ends with the unexpected turn of grieving for what is lost (she also explores the coincidence in French between the two verbs savoir [to know] and voir [to see]) and Derrida's "A Silkworm of One's Own" in which he reflects on several autobiographical, philosophical, and religious motifs--including his varied responses to "Savoir." The two texts are accompanied by six drawings that play on the theme of drapery over portions of the body.

Veils suspends sexual difference between two homonyms: la voile (sail) and le voile (veil). A whole history of sexual difference is enveloped, sometimes dissimulated here--in the folds of sails and veils and in the turns, journeys, and returns of their metaphors and metonymies.

However foreign to each other they may appear, however autonomous they may be, the two texts participate in a common genre: autobiography, confession, memoirs. The future also enters in: by opening to each other, the two discourses confide what is about to happen, the imminence of an event lacking any common measure with them or with anything else, an operation that restores sight and plunges into mourning the knowledge of the previous night, a "verdict" whose threatening secret remains out of reach by our knowledge.

"This book is a significant event in contemporary French letters. Although Cixous and Derrida have often signaled publicly their solidarity with each other, this book conjoins their writing at an altogether new level of intensity. It is a stunningly original and moving work."--Peggy Kamuf, University of Southern California

Review

Veils is a 2-for-1 deal that cannot be passed up by fans of Derrida or Cixous. More than just a cobbling together of two different texts and more nuanced than a simple response piece, the two essays address and circle each other in intriguing ways. Cixous’ opening essay Savior describes the experience of recovered sight after a lifetime of severe myopia. This beautiful and poetic account celebrates the gift of sight and a new kind of knowing but laments the passage of a kind of protective veil. Cixous writes, “…not-to-see-oneself-seen is virginity strength independence. Not seeing she could not see herself seen, that’s what had given her blindwoman’s lightness, the great liberty of self effacement. Never had she been thrown into the war of faces.” Derrida’s essay, “A Silkworm of One’s Own,” offers a meditation on Cixous’s essay and a range of other autobiographical, philosophical, and religious motifs.

Peggy Kaumf, University of Southern California, writes, “This book is a significant event in contemporary French letters. Although Cixous and Derrida have often signaled publicly their solidarity with each other, this book conjoins their writing at an altogether new level of intensity. It is a stunningly original and moving work.”

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