Black Sun (edició 1992)

Índice:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B6llDyUXkuZLZlpzOFlCam8tbFE/view?usp=sharing

Philosopher and psychoanalyst Julia Kristeva has had a strong influence on feminism and feminist literary studies. She is closely associated with the French feminist movement, along with Simone de Beauvoir, Hélène Cixous, and Luce Irigaray. Her body of work represents an important component of secondary source material for modernist literature scholars. In this book, Kristeva combines psychoanalytic theory with art and literary criticism in an exploration of melancholia and depression, specifically as manifested in women. There are eight chapters here, with the criticism coming in the latter chapters after Kristeva introduces her own particular psychoanalytic and linguistic lenses. From a personal standpoint, I was more interested in her literary criticism. Before she gets to that, though, she first discusses Hans Holbein the Younger's painting The Body of the Dead Christ in the Tomb. With its bleak depiction of Christ's suffering, this painting from the 1520s represented a radical departure from typical portrayals of the post-crucifixion Christ, and greatly affected Dostoevsky, whose writing Kristeva also examines in this volume. Alongside Dostoevsky, Kristeva also devotes chapters to the poet Gerard de Nerval and the French writer and film director Marguerite Duras. Of these three, I found the Duras chapter to be of most compelling interest. Kristeva speaks of an “aesthetics of awkwardness” present in Duras' writing, and recommends that her books “not be put into the hands of oversensitive readers,” for in contrast to her films, they “bring us to the verge of madness”:

Let them go see the films and plays; they will encounter the same malady of distress but subdued, wrapped up in a dreamy charm that softens it and also makes it more feigned and made up—a convention.

She further discusses how film differs from the written word:

If it be true that images do not make up for verbal stylistic awkwardness, they do nevertheless plunge it into the inexpressible—the “nothing” becomes undecidable and silence inspires one to muse.

I have felt this “nothing” while watching melancholic films and find it is true that this power of moving images takes away the edge of sadness, allowing oneself more space to create one's own interpretation.

Again, I picked this up primarily for the literary criticism and certainly came away with some good insights that will now likely nudge me a little faster toward the Duras books in my queue. Recommended as a good secondary text for the writers she discusses, as well as for her analysis of melancholia. ( )