When I see orange and russet leaves wet with the mist of a rainy day in Central Park I feel as happy to be alive as I do when I read Cixous' essay "The Last Painting," included in this book. I imagine the shimmering surface of the Cathedral at Rouen. I feel glad that a human can write and think with such clarity and beauty and that I can read her words.

_Coming to Writing & Other Essays_ is a collection of essays dealing with the relationship between a marginalized person and writing-- that is between a person whose voice has been silenced and her voice. Cixous' writing is frequently narrative, rather than expository, so the text reads like so many short stories. She is irreverent and refreshing in the world of drily written critical thought.

I knew of Cixous, had a general idea of her doing work toward a kind of ecriture feminine (feminine writing), but hadn't actually read her writing until I read this book while tanning in Southern New Jersey this past June. This book was on a recommended reading list for a writing class I was taking, though I think I'm the only one who read it; it's not at all your usual writer's-help book, but that's good. It is dense, genre-breaking academic-poetic writing that I ended up having to get out of the sun to read. This book is comprised of a set of essays originally given as lectures, separated into "The School of the Dead," "The School of Dreams," and "The School of Roots." The writers that resonate with Cixous are "descenders, explorers of the lowest and the deepest," (a concept introduced in "The School of the Dead") and include some I knew -- Kafka, Dostoevsky, Genet, and Ingeborg Bachmann, and others I hadn't -- Clarice Lispector and Marina Tsvetaeva. I see there's a Derrida "endorsement" both here on the Amazon website and on the cover of the book, and so, as you would expect, this book's meditation on the connection between language and desire, between writing and the body, some wordplay and deconstruction of the very shape of letters or the names of writers is what you might expect from a French poststructuralist. What set this book apart for me was its attitude toward the works cited. Cixous doesn't use literature to promote flashy ideas; it's seriously personal work, a "Schooling" on thinking about one's own writing, she's actually interested in defining "truth." The first part of "The Dead," especially the kind of cataloguing of "deaths-as-beginnings" was fascinating. I found the "School of Roots" section absolutely packed with virtuoso readings and ideas. Her closing, "Toward a book without an author" is the perfect payoff culmination of her/our hard work from the pages that preceded it. You'll have to read it yourself to see if you "get it" / agree with it. Now I'm inspired to read more Cixous.

This book of selected texts, arranged chronologically, includes poetry, fiction, essays and theatre pieces. Dense and not easily digested, it is filling fare, full of intricately wrought words and images. Most of the work is translated from original French texts. For me, the most beautiful, clear writing is in sections with Cixous' own revision of the English translation. If you love writing, internal exploration or feminist thought, please read "To Live The Orange", first published in 1979. Her words gave me tears, goosebumps, and a deep experience on many levels.

This reader is a diverse selection of Cixous' work. Beautifully translated, thoughtfully arranged and annotated. The foreword by Derrida is very helpful in understanding the translation and its difficulties.

The text maintains Cixous' poetic exploration of prose. From 'Angst' to 'Deluge' to the 'Three Steps on the Ladder of Writing', one feels they have entered this writer's mind and soul. Cixous's work is deeply psychological and her use of the power of words transcend language, at least in this translation for the most part. The french language is not something that can be transparently 'imported' as certain things are so inherent to the language itself, they cannot be understood by the monoligual psyche.

But even for those who never wish to delve into the french language in its original form, this book will do a fine job of throwing them into a pool of thought and mixed feelings.

I have never had to fight so hard to get through a book, and it was worth every word. Intense image, amazing passion, harsh honesty. It was reading poetry as prose, becoming so engulfed with an image that it could take hours to move on to the next page. It was just amazing.

This amazing book is thick with literary allusions, verbal play and passionate response to being human, to being in love. That might make it sound dense and too difficult but Cixous' love of language and love of playing with language, clever insights and sincere voice along with her sensous responses, makes this book a rewarding experience. It will not be a book you read quickly but it is also not one you will forget quickly.

The type of literature that recreates in the symbolic, exploring the unconscious in an extremely poetic manner, this book, opened on any page at random, will undoubtedly widen your understanding of love and take you where you dream to have lived it. Source of inspiration for thorough introspection in the most awe-inspiring landscapes of the soul, the material mingles with the word to carry you where the body alone cannot take you. An exercise of the feminist language. Some might have got bored by reading it in a conventional way. But, using it with that ethereal wisdom that comes from the debris of unbridled passion, it might prove to be your most precious pillow-book.

Though not especially dense in historical detail (and likely was not intended to be given the format of the piece) this work yields nuances of personality which are easily appreciated by readers familiar with recent Combodian political history