Museum Hours

"Point of view is becoming my subject" says Sofia, the central character of this fabulous novel. This is indeed a densely imagined discussion of points of view: how we view ourselves and how we are viewed by others and how the two are interpreted, particularly by - and through - language. The text of the novel is prefaced by a short quote from Hélène Cixous' The Laugh of the Medusa  and one could see what follows as an exercise in ecriture feminine ; the approach to writing that Cixous proposed which would allow women to describe themselves in ways which reflect how they engage with the world and their own consciousness.   Sofia's estranged father who left her mother many years before perhaps encapsulates the perspective which enraged Cixous:  ‘Sofia is a waitress for the time being’ my father said in Greek. I am other things, too.  …I do not resemble an acceptable femininity from my father’s point of view.  ' ‘How do we set abo