Teresa, My Love: An Imagined Life of the Saint of Avila

by Julia Kristeva

Je vous salue, Thérèse, femme sans frontières, corps physique érotique
hystérique épileptique, qui se fait verbe qui se fait chair, qui se défait en soi hors de soi, flots d’images sans tableaux, tumultes de paroles cascades d’éclosions, jumeau du Christ, c’est Lui au plus intime de moi, moi Thérèse, femme d’affaires, fondatrice, jubilatrice, mourir de ne pas mourir c’est écrire, une sorte de demeure, de jeu, Dieu nous aime joueuses mes filles, croyez-moi, mais oui, échec et mat à Dieu aussi, bien sûr, ça délivre, ça s’écoule, les âmes qui aiment écoutent, elles voient jusqu’aux atomes, ça les fait jouir, des atomes infiniment amoureux, mais oui, Thérèse, oui, ma sœur extatique excentrique appelée touchée imaginée pensée repensée dépensée, hors de vous en vous, hors de moi en moi, oui, Thérèse mon amour.

Julia Kristeva , écrivain et psychanalyste, a publié chez Fayard Etrangers à nous-mêmes , Les Nouvelles Maladies de l’âme , Sens et non-sens de la révolte , La Révolte intime , Le Génie féminin ( Hannah Arendt , Melanie Klein , Colette ), ainsi que quatre romans : Les Samouraïs , Le Vieil Homme et les loups , Possessions et Meurtre à Byzance. La couverture peut varier.

Genres: Religion, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Historical, Philosophy, Literary Fiction

648 pages, Paperback

First published February 1, 2008

About the author

Julia Kristeva is professor emerita of linguistics at the Université de Paris VII and author of many acclaimed works. Her Columbia University Press books include Hatred and Forgiveness (2012); The Severed Head: Capital Visions (2014); and, with Philippe Sollers, Marriage as a Fine Art (2016).

Reviews

[Mandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I am willing to accept that this is a work of profound and erudite scholarship, but I fear I was out of my depth with it. It’s a rather rambling and very personal narrative following an academic and psychoanalyst (whom I assume is actually an alter ego of Julie Kristeva herself) as she becomes caught up in the life and writings of Saint Teresa of Avila. A mixture of fiction, biography, autobiography, history and psychoanalysis, it’s a meditation on and examination of religion, women, faith and mysticism. Kristeva obviously identifies with Saint Teresa, and certainly I enjoyed learning about the real Teresa and her world, but in general much of the book went over my head as much as I tried to engage with it. It’s certainly an impressive work of scholarship but not one for me.

[Miha · Rating 5 out of 5]

“My allusion…falls flat as expected… but that’s also a part of my role: to plant a seed for later, or never”

And that she did…in her captivating labyrinth, the genealogical topology, of Teresa’s Life as, perhaps, lived through the many unions between i and other whose fictions cascade into our existence and unfold into an baroque kaleidoscope of so many thinkers condensed and debouched through histories interminable retelling.

I feel that this is a book that one comes across, and can only come across, at the most propitious time of their life and only then can they scrupulously plum through this book…but the gift of this endeavor can be truly sweet.

[Dianna]

Took me forever. Someone else may like it but I had a hard time with this book. Well written but got lost too many times. Maybe because the transfer between present and Saint Teresa life. Found it tedious.

[Maijabeep]

What the heck is this even? I'm SO EXCITED.

[R.J. Gilmour · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating fictional take on an academic who becomes enamoured by the work of Saint Teresa of Avila.

[Bsheffler · Rating 1 out of 5]

What a horrible book! I rarely begin a book and deliberately decide not to finish it. I gave this one a serious try. I kept pressing on far past the point where I should have realized this book was not worth my time. I kept thinking it just had a slow start and would get better. After 78 pages (of a 598 page book) there appears to be no discernible plot. It rambles on and on, frequently in incomplete sentences, in tedious and largely irrelevant detail. The author appears to be trying to psychoanalyze Saint Teresa of Avila along Freudian lines. In the process, she completely misses the depth and richness of Teresa’s extraordinary life and writings (from which I have personally greatly benefited). Teresa’s writings are themselves quite challenging to read. But delving into the original material would be a far better use of time and mental bandwidth.

[Ella · Rating 3 out of 5]

An excessively weird (and bizarrely structured) fictional Freudian biography of Teresa with the aimless Freudian adventures of a psychoanalyst thrown in. But damn so much of the prose is gorgeous that I couldn’t help but love it.

That being said I do hate when authors have themselves be cited by their fictional creations. Even when the author is Julia Kristeva.

[Bunny]

loving teresa of avila with grit and resentment and teeth, and never letting go

[Lana Putintsev · Rating 5 out of 5]

Is this fiction? Is this biography? Is this autobiography? It is definately psychoanalysis a la Kristeva.

[Mills College Library]

Fiction K9293t 2014