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miguel's review
4.0
It must have been hard being a Lacanian in 1982. For that fact alone, The Daughter's Seduction is a wonder. It is clear throughout that Gallop is not a perfect reader of French, but she is a wonderful reader of Lacan in translation. Her awkward translations of Seminar XX: Encore lack every bit of the quality, clarity, and even poetry of Bruce Fink's translation in 1998. And yet through suturing the writing of Lacanian analysts, a heavy dose of Freud, and a little bit of Lacan (truthfully there is not much of Lacan's text here) Gallop produces something that manages to be brilliant despite its datedness. Gallop makes claims and expresses ideas that anyone thinking at the intersection of feminism and psychoanalysis should keep in mind. At the same time, her text has in many ways been left in the dust.
While the "theory" in this text of Gallop's has not aged gracefully, the writing stands several cuts above contemporaries and others who have taken up her mantle. Gallop's prose is engaging and refined. Her thinking is adventurous and her style reflects her willingness to follow intellectual flights of fancy to productive ends. I would say that this text, in its time of release, probably came as a revelation despite feeling dated today. Gallop close reads, dissects, etymologizes, and lets nothing go unquestioned. Her intellectual practice has clearly influenced a generation of queer theoretical imitators. Gallop, here, is an early adopted of queer irony and wordplay.
The most important moments in her text come in the sequence of chapters, "Encore Encore," "The Father's Seduction," "Impertinent Questions," "Writing Erratic Desire," and "The Phallic Mother: Fraudian Analysis." In "Encore Encore," Gallop poses crucial questions about authority and authorization in relation to textual analysis and thought. She relates the kind of authority many seek to claim in relation to Lacanian analysis is the authority of the Name-of-the-Father. Gallop argues, though, that Lacan and feminism both share a repudiation of that authority and a desire to see it supplanted. Gallop writes, "Infidelity then is a feminist practice of undermining the Name-of-the-Father. The unfaithful reading strays from the author, the authorized, produces that which does not hold out as reproduction, as a representation." Gallop goes on to pick up this thread in "Writing Erratic Desire," where she writes of Irigaray in opposition to orthodox Lacanian analysts, "ironically it is Irigaray who is carrying on Lacan's most radical battle, the battle against the institutionalize stagnation of psychoanalysis."
Gallop goes on, in the page immediately following, to draw out a crucial facet of Lacanian theory in relation to the phallus. Gallop writes, "A commonplace of Lacanian doctrine is the separation of the concepts of 'phallus' and 'penis' ... The phallus, unlike the penis, is lacking to any subject, male or female. The phallus symbolizing unmediated, full jouissance must be lacking for any subject to enter the symbolic order, that is to enter language, effective intersubjectivity." For Gallop to distill such an important notion of Lacan that is so easily missed by many criticism is astounding, particularly considering the period in which she was writing. She goes on to effectively put the lie to Lacan's formulation, "Certainly the signifier 'phallus' functions in distinction from 'penis', but it must also always refer to 'penis' ... Such attempts to remake language to one's own theoretical needs, as if language were merely a tool one could wield, is a very naive, un-Lacanian view of language." And yet, Gallop delivers to Lacan an escape hatch from this criticism earlier in "Encore Encore." At that chapter's close she writes (in a haphazard but technically correct translation of Lacan), ", 'One must make use, but really use them up, really wear out these old words, wear them threadbare, use them until they're thoroughly hackneyed'. What a way of ruining exchange value by use! Perhaps this explains the annoying and embarrassing insistence of 'phallus' and 'castration' in Lacan. Maybe he's using them up, running the risk of essence, running dangerously close to patriarchal positions so as to wear 'phallus' and 'castration' out, until they're thoroughly hackneyed."
Gallop, at least, cannot be accused of offering anything hackneyed.
While the "theory" in this text of Gallop's has not aged gracefully, the writing stands several cuts above contemporaries and others who have taken up her mantle. Gallop's prose is engaging and refined. Her thinking is adventurous and her style reflects her willingness to follow intellectual flights of fancy to productive ends. I would say that this text, in its time of release, probably came as a revelation despite feeling dated today. Gallop close reads, dissects, etymologizes, and lets nothing go unquestioned. Her intellectual practice has clearly influenced a generation of queer theoretical imitators. Gallop, here, is an early adopted of queer irony and wordplay.
The most important moments in her text come in the sequence of chapters, "Encore Encore," "The Father's Seduction," "Impertinent Questions," "Writing Erratic Desire," and "The Phallic Mother: Fraudian Analysis." In "Encore Encore," Gallop poses crucial questions about authority and authorization in relation to textual analysis and thought. She relates the kind of authority many seek to claim in relation to Lacanian analysis is the authority of the Name-of-the-Father. Gallop argues, though, that Lacan and feminism both share a repudiation of that authority and a desire to see it supplanted. Gallop writes, "Infidelity then is a feminist practice of undermining the Name-of-the-Father. The unfaithful reading strays from the author, the authorized, produces that which does not hold out as reproduction, as a representation." Gallop goes on to pick up this thread in "Writing Erratic Desire," where she writes of Irigaray in opposition to orthodox Lacanian analysts, "ironically it is Irigaray who is carrying on Lacan's most radical battle, the battle against the institutionalize stagnation of psychoanalysis."
Gallop goes on, in the page immediately following, to draw out a crucial facet of Lacanian theory in relation to the phallus. Gallop writes, "A commonplace of Lacanian doctrine is the separation of the concepts of 'phallus' and 'penis' ... The phallus, unlike the penis, is lacking to any subject, male or female. The phallus symbolizing unmediated, full jouissance must be lacking for any subject to enter the symbolic order, that is to enter language, effective intersubjectivity." For Gallop to distill such an important notion of Lacan that is so easily missed by many criticism is astounding, particularly considering the period in which she was writing. She goes on to effectively put the lie to Lacan's formulation, "Certainly the signifier 'phallus' functions in distinction from 'penis', but it must also always refer to 'penis' ... Such attempts to remake language to one's own theoretical needs, as if language were merely a tool one could wield, is a very naive, un-Lacanian view of language." And yet, Gallop delivers to Lacan an escape hatch from this criticism earlier in "Encore Encore." At that chapter's close she writes (in a haphazard but technically correct translation of Lacan), "
Gallop, at least, cannot be accused of offering anything hackneyed.
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