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A review by erinrouleaux
The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson
2.0
August 30, 2020 update; I’ve just read an essay about this book by Olivia Laing in Funny Weather and as usual Laing sheds light (I’d argue *gives light) on every subject she writes about and I’m seeing this book with fresh perspective. “...Nelson isn’t just airing her feelings out. She’s bent on using these experiences as ways of prying the culture open, of investigating what it is that’s being so avidly defended and policed...” “This interest in dependence and ambiguity is reflected stylistically, too. The Nelsonian unit of thought is not the chapter but the paragraph, a mode that allows for swerves and juxtapositions, for the interspersing of anecdote and analysis. If the danger of being elliptical is that one sometimes sounds dotty, the reward is an ability to dodge enclosure, to achieve by way of judicious layering a complexity that is otherwise elusive. This is bolstered by Nelson’s habit of lacing her text with italicized statements by other writers, the sources logged in the margins. The effect is musical, polyphonic, a conversation between multiple participants rather than a narcissistic aria for one.” <3
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This book came recommended from KOK in his book about Edvard Munch and so I had already hyped it, and then immediately I opened the cover to see the Minnesota shout out for the Minnesota State Arts Board [yada yada] grant and I know (I know!) this is my own personal beef with MN branding, but the more MN brags about itself the more vehemently I hate this place and all things associated with it. I know. This is my own struggle and I shouldn’t project, but I did.
But then her writing slayed me. And I love the style she writes in; almost journalistic. Foot-note heavy but not cumbersome for the reader- like stumbling upon someone’s favorite notebook full of quotes and good highlights.
She herself states “...I’m in drag as a “memoirist”” and I guess I didn’t come for a drag show, but the real thing.
I am disappointed in myself to say that I just can’t care about this struggle. Maybe I’m jaded. Okay, I’m jaded. (Although very happy to read about her happiness!) But I just can’t care about the struggle of living when it doesn’t pertain to loss. And I understand there’s a loss of identity and we’ve all been through that in lessening degrees, but when there are life and death matters in the world, I don’t want to waste my time reading theory about human rights that aren’t being threatened. I know, I know. They are threatened. All of our freedom is at stake.
If this had been more memoir and a little less thesis; if this had been more a personal vulnerability, I would have devoutly loved this because her writing is just that great, but personally, for me, it was a waste of time.
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This book came recommended from KOK in his book about Edvard Munch and so I had already hyped it, and then immediately I opened the cover to see the Minnesota shout out for the Minnesota State Arts Board [yada yada] grant and I know (I know!) this is my own personal beef with MN branding, but the more MN brags about itself the more vehemently I hate this place and all things associated with it. I know. This is my own struggle and I shouldn’t project, but I did.
But then her writing slayed me. And I love the style she writes in; almost journalistic. Foot-note heavy but not cumbersome for the reader- like stumbling upon someone’s favorite notebook full of quotes and good highlights.
She herself states “...I’m in drag as a “memoirist”” and I guess I didn’t come for a drag show, but the real thing.
I am disappointed in myself to say that I just can’t care about this struggle. Maybe I’m jaded. Okay, I’m jaded. (Although very happy to read about her happiness!) But I just can’t care about the struggle of living when it doesn’t pertain to loss. And I understand there’s a loss of identity and we’ve all been through that in lessening degrees, but when there are life and death matters in the world, I don’t want to waste my time reading theory about human rights that aren’t being threatened. I know, I know. They are threatened. All of our freedom is at stake.
If this had been more memoir and a little less thesis; if this had been more a personal vulnerability, I would have devoutly loved this because her writing is just that great, but personally, for me, it was a waste of time.