ABSTRACT
The originality of Or results from Cixous's refusal to peruse the letters in the authors' presence and trace a portrait of her father by using the information they provide. Instead, she dissects her feelings toward this unforeseeable discovery and imagines what the missives might impart, sometimes so specifically that she seems to have peeked into them nonetheless, which she may well have done — this riddle will trouble every reader. The unsettling narrative, in which Cixous revolves both suspensefully and self-consciously around a mystery that is never fully revealed, and perhaps not at all, will irritate some readers yet convince many others that the author has pinpointed something essential about parent-child relationships. A poignant, quasi-oneiric passage recalls their only stroll together and evokes the grown-up daughter's ability to feel her left hand sheltered inside her father's right hand. The true heritage that Cixous and her brother have received is merely the unfathomable mystery of their father's thoughts.
