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A review by bashsbooks
Herculine Barbin: Being the Recently Discovered Memoirs of a Nineteenth-century French Hermaphrodite by Herculine Barbin
challenging
emotional
sad
slow-paced
2.5
This was a difficult read. I've been mulling over how to review it.
So, the story behind this text is that Michel Foucault rediscovered Herculine (also called Adélaïde, Alexina, Camille, and Abel) Barbin's memoirs in the late 70s, complied them alongside all the other documents of hers that he could find, and presented them in this book with a fictional short story that was strongly inspired by Barbin's case. Barbin was an intersex individual born in France in the 1830s, who was assigned female at birth, but then reassigned male at 22 after doctors decided that his genitals were more "male" than "female". Barbin struggled with this change (and the accompanying scandal which included the desolution of a relationship with a woman she loved) so much that he died by suicide when she was only thirty.
I include this much summary because I feel it's super relevant to the review. I don't particularly like the presentation of Barbin's memoirs next to all the medical and literary fascination with her. Foucault seems to have some sympathy, but not enough to present the memoirs alone - maybe he felt some sort of scientific obligation to include the (frankly gross, in my opinion) delight that doctors took in exploring and documenting the details of Barbin's genitalia, as if he were not a person but a tool for discovery. I don't think it was necessary to do that - the information Barbin feels comfortable sharing in the memoirs is more than enough. (And related, I don't think we need Foucault to dox all the people and places that Barbin intentionally made anonymous.) The inclusion of the fictional scandal story at the end adds insult to injury - one of the characters is literally named Alexina, and she has a very similar love affair and body configuration to the real Barbin. So. I didn't like all that.
But I do feel that the actual text of Barbin's memoirs is important. I felt deeply for him (and related to him a lot - apparently being your partner's awkward girl boyriend at a family gather is not a new experience). I'm sad that we only have the parts of it that some doctor felt like keeping; I'd have loved to read all that she wanted to share with us.
So like 0/5 for the surrounding treatment but 5/5 for Barbin's writing. I hope that in the future there is a rerelease of Barbin's writing where they treat him with more humanity.
So, the story behind this text is that Michel Foucault rediscovered Herculine (also called Adélaïde, Alexina, Camille, and Abel) Barbin's memoirs in the late 70s, complied them alongside all the other documents of hers that he could find, and presented them in this book with a fictional short story that was strongly inspired by Barbin's case. Barbin was an intersex individual born in France in the 1830s, who was assigned female at birth, but then reassigned male at 22 after doctors decided that his genitals were more "male" than "female". Barbin struggled with this change (and the accompanying scandal which included the desolution of a relationship with a woman she loved) so much that he died by suicide when she was only thirty.
I include this much summary because I feel it's super relevant to the review. I don't particularly like the presentation of Barbin's memoirs next to all the medical and literary fascination with her. Foucault seems to have some sympathy, but not enough to present the memoirs alone - maybe he felt some sort of scientific obligation to include the (frankly gross, in my opinion) delight that doctors took in exploring and documenting the details of Barbin's genitalia, as if he were not a person but a tool for discovery. I don't think it was necessary to do that - the information Barbin feels comfortable sharing in the memoirs is more than enough. (And related, I don't think we need Foucault to dox all the people and places that Barbin intentionally made anonymous.) The inclusion of the fictional scandal story at the end adds insult to injury - one of the characters is literally named Alexina, and she has a very similar love affair and body configuration to the real Barbin. So. I didn't like all that.
But I do feel that the actual text of Barbin's memoirs is important. I felt deeply for him (and related to him a lot - apparently being your partner's awkward girl boyriend at a family gather is not a new experience). I'm sad that we only have the parts of it that some doctor felt like keeping; I'd have loved to read all that she wanted to share with us.
So like 0/5 for the surrounding treatment but 5/5 for Barbin's writing. I hope that in the future there is a rerelease of Barbin's writing where they treat him with more humanity.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Body shaming, Death, Sexism, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, Medical content, Religious bigotry, Medical trauma, and Outing
Minor: Sexual content
-INTERSEXISM