Maggie Nelson

In this short, strange book, Maggie Nelson reflects on her life with her spouse, who might perhaps be described as something between transgender and nonbinary; on pregnancy and motherhood; on sex and sexuality and being, to use the word she prefers, queer; on art and death and nonconformity and a whole bunch of other complicated things.

I thought at first that I was going to find this a frustrating read. It's disjointed, full of out-of-context quotes and allusions to things like literary show more theory (a subject with which I have little patience). But Nelson definitely won me over. She's talking about things very much worth talking about (and perhaps not talked about nearly enough) in a way that's somehow simultaneously contemplative and raw. And while her life and her experiences and perspectives are wildly different from mine in just about every respect, I found myself feeling a certain kinship with her in our apparently mutual frustration with the way in which categories and labels never seem to do justice to the messy, individual specificity of human lives and identities. show less

For The Argonauts, genre-fluctuating Maggie Nelson acquires her title from literary theorist Roland Barthes in reference to a mythical Greek ship in which, over time, each piece is replaced by its crew resulting in a completely different ship while retaining the same name, form, and function. This is the shore from which Nelson launches her memoir of modern perception regarding gender, parenthood, marriage, family, language, and identity. The book is a nonlinear, gyroscopic narrative show more orientating the author/scholar's recent life through the swells of queer pregnancy during the same period Nelson's spouse is gender transitioning. Thrusting Nelson's story are quotations of other theorist, theory, and poets–political, cultural, feminist–some she advances–Sedgewick, Lacan, Anne Carson–some she rejects as radically weak–Baudrillard, Badiou, Zizek–because every lover, hater, theorist, poet, so-called radical, and character in Nelson's sea is on a symbolic, Golden-Fleece-esque journey. The Argonauts is a work of autotheory, a form commingling academic theory with autobiography, and it is not for every reader. But, I am absorbed with Nelson's insight into modern American life, her self-critiquing philosophies, and her ability to make poetic prose out of Judith Butler. The Argonauts is structure-modifying pedantry that capsizes one’s own prejudices, and I will keenly return to feel exposed again and again. show less

I hardly know how to categorise this book, I say non fiction, but there are flights of fancy. I say memoir, but its hardly a rounded life story. I say essays, but most sections are only a few lines long. It is philosophical musings on and around the colour blue, a lost relationship, an injured friend. It's strangely addictive and thought-provoking and I love the way Maggie Nelson writes.

The Argonauts is filled with brilliant observations about love, gender, sex, and identity, saying things that I wish I'd heard long ago. The book makes brave, intimate pronouncements and boldly insists upon authoritative uncertainty. The author’s conclusions were hard won, making me almost ashamed to disagree with their points, as the points have the weight of anguish deeply lived and deep breaths that end in a cough. The author does a funny thing where they quote someone else quoting, show more i.e. “The poem by Johnson can’t help but make me think about Wilson’s article about Sedgwick’s theory about Freud’s analysis of...” It satirizes academia. On one of these bizarre diversions, the author talks about how much they loved a certain professor's method of assembling a lecture: "It’s like she’s pulling Post-it notes out of her hair and lecturing from them" and that another student was, "complaining that her lecturing style was like 'throwing a pizza at us.'" The author concludes: "My feeling is, you should be so lucky to get [such a] pizza in the face!" The Argonauts, the book in which the author makes this comment, is structured as one of those flying pizzas. It disassembles in the air as it hurls towards you, cheese and sauce and sprinkles of oregano flailing in suspended gravity, one long, barely structured blog rant filled with spicy toppings that will shortly present distinct challenges to your carefully coiffed pompadour. Whenever anyone quotes in real life, I feel they are running away. Running away is a fantastical thing upon which to build a book about not running away. Don’t quote, she's saying. Don't appeal to anyone or anything else for authority about your gender, your identity, or your pain. What you experience is the final authority, and therefore the most interesting to read or write about. Stay present with it, free of judgement. The author realizes all this with absurd clarity--it's perhaps the central message of the book--but the quoting and referencing continue, as if they are trapped in a hell self-crafted from back issues of the New Yorker. At the end, the author peeks up through it all. The quotes become less and less frequent, and her true, blazing, almost-painful-to-behold personal authority comes through. If you imagine that the author is telling you what you should think, live, or feel, you may be annoyed and argue with this book. There are contradictions, and a deep pain shines through the bold pronouncements of right and wrong. If instead you see the book as a shared window into the author's own argument with themself, trying through a series of events to live life and not put it into an intellectual structure, then you will have sympathy and be astonished at the journey and its intricacies. I am grateful they risked sharing...a messy meal that nourishes. show less