Refusing Consumption and Querying Genre: A Partial Reading of Marie NDiaye

Still, Judith

Abstract

Even thinking (at) the border of thought, images and dreams (perhaps semi-fictions), inevitably raises questions of genre and how we read: what is the effect of the words (syllables, letters, sounds), and what is their affect? Does the phrase 'unidentifiable literary object' help us imagine both the impossibility of identifying or deciding, and the inevitability, need or desire to figure something out? The dialogue between Jacques Derrida and Hélène Cixous is sometimes framed as an encounter between a man and a woman, friends for life or 'till death do us part'. What's the difference? Cixous, Derrida says, does not believe in death-while he keeps reminding her of the inevitable parting too soon-which of course she knows, and writes about, very well. I shall track these questions in a novel identified as contemporary 'Francophone women's writing'. There is plenty of food for thought (of life, of death) in NDiaye's La Cheffe, roman d'une cuisinière (2016), a novel which perversely stages (perhaps literary inter alia) creation by first the cooking of a dead chicken, and then eventually the serving up of the imaginary of a chicken by gazing on living chickens. Consuming flesh and consuming words or stories, the gift of creativity, intersects with genre in both its meanings-I try to do justice to the complexity of the textual e/affects. Even thinking (at) the border of thought (what we might call semi-theory), or writing or speaking words, images, or dreams (perhaps semi-fictions 1), inevitably raises questions of genre, in both senses, and how we read: what is the effect of the words (syllables, letters, sounds), and what is their affect, the passions evoked and aroused? Does the phrase 'unidentifiable literary object [objet littéraire non identifiable]' 2 (ULO) help us imagine both the delirious impossibility of identifying or deciding (la folie), and also the inevitability, need or desire to play the rational detective, to figure something out? The dialogue between Jacques Derrida and Hélène Cixous is sometimes framed as an encounter between a man and a woman, or a philosopher and a poet, friends for life or 'till death do us part'. What's the difference? Is it positively feminine to say yes, to give life rather than death (it works better in French)? Cixous, Derrida says, does not believe in death-while he keeps reminding her of the inevitable parting too soon-which of course she knows, and writes about, very well. 3 In his H.C. for Life, That is to Say… [H.C. pour la vie, c'est à dire…] 'C. pour la vie'suggests that 'Cixous' is 'pour la vie'; she's for life, on the side of life; the homophone 'c'est pour la vie' suggests it's for life, in more senses than one-including a friend for life. Derrida's typically patient unpicking of his title, and of her titles, is an emblem of slow reading, the banner then unfurled as he lovingly cites (sides, at her side, on her side) 4 from within. The attention at the level of the letter, or the syllable, intertwines with the spirit ('et pour l'esprit et pour la lettre de la lettre [both for the spirit and for the letter of the letter]'), heightening the poetry embedded in the prose. 5

Citation

Still, J. (2019). Refusing Consumption and Querying Genre: A Partial Reading of Marie NDiaye. Parallax, 25(3), 288-303. https://doi.org/10.1080/13534645.2019.1624324

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: May 25, 2019
• Online Publication Date: Aug 6, 2019
• Publication Date: Jul 3, 2019
• Deposit Date: Jul 30, 2019
• Publicly Available Date: Jan 4, 2021
• Journal: Parallax
• Print ISSN: 1353-4645
• Electronic ISSN: 1460-700X
• Publisher: Routledge
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 25
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 288-303
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/13534645.2019.1624324
• Keywords: Marie Ndiaye; La Cheffe; cooking; disorderly eating; chickens; Derrida; Cixous 1 Introductory thoughts
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/2355579
• Publisher URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13534645.2019.1624324
• Additional Information: This is an Accepted Manuscript of an article published by Taylor & Francis in Parallax on06/08/2019, available online: http://www.tandfonline.com/10.1080/13534645.2019.1624324
• Contract Date: Jul 30, 2019