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A review by nataliaalbin
Bluets by Maggie Nelson
emotional
funny
reflective
relaxing
sad
medium-paced
5.0
I am sure this is a book I will find myself coming back to at separate point in my life. It's likely also I book I will gift other people. Somehow, Maggie Nelson manages to write about heartbreak, illness and depression in a way that makes them seem both infinite (the way we feel as we go through it) and passing (the way we wish we felt).
Nelson takes blue as an allegory for joy and sadness. It's an exploration on how sometimes the best way to deal with any kind of strong feeling is to see it as something outside of yourself. She is obsessed with blue and, in that obsession, she can't get away from it - sees it everywhere, in all of its forms and representations at once. As a violent colour, a joyful colour, a colour drained of light and reflective of it all at once.
There are almost too many nuances and notes to make about the thoughts depicted so poetically by Nelson here, but perhaps the most important is this: it's about the "fundamental impermanence of all things". Blue fades, sometimes without purpose. Words fade, sometimes without purpose. Sometimes feelings simply are. They don't need to be because of something, they don't need to help you do anything. It's a book about learning how to be for the sake of being.
Nelson takes blue as an allegory for joy and sadness. It's an exploration on how sometimes the best way to deal with any kind of strong feeling is to see it as something outside of yourself. She is obsessed with blue and, in that obsession, she can't get away from it - sees it everywhere, in all of its forms and representations at once. As a violent colour, a joyful colour, a colour drained of light and reflective of it all at once.
There are almost too many nuances and notes to make about the thoughts depicted so poetically by Nelson here, but perhaps the most important is this: it's about the "fundamental impermanence of all things". Blue fades, sometimes without purpose. Words fade, sometimes without purpose. Sometimes feelings simply are. They don't need to be because of something, they don't need to help you do anything. It's a book about learning how to be for the sake of being.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Sexual content