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imaginesysiphus's review against another edition
3.0
swings wildly between enjoyable and intolerable as all autotheory is want to do
flowerbinsh's review
challenging
emotional
medium-paced
2.5
Read as a requirement for my Queer Genre class.
I hate to give someone's memoir such a low rating, especially one that gives such important topics a space for discussion, but this one was just definitely not for me. I loved the conversations surrounding gender and transness, and how language can both fail and help in these regards. I was also so intrigued with the criticism of queer sex being inherently deviant, as well as parenthood and sexuality being exclusive of each other.
The parts of this memoir that really turned me off, however, (pun slightly intended), were the extremely graphic and erotic passages. Honestly, this is probably due to the internalized prudishness of American society, but I really feel uncomfortable reading about the graphic sex lives of strangers and having to discuss them in an academic setting. I also found some of the explicit passages about surgery and pregnancy to be too much for my very-squeamish body lol.
I think this is a great read for those wondering about gender identity and how this crosses over into parenthood, as long as you're okay with reading about BDSM and kink and the gross aspects of the medical word in explicit detail.
I hate to give someone's memoir such a low rating, especially one that gives such important topics a space for discussion, but this one was just definitely not for me. I loved the conversations surrounding gender and transness, and how language can both fail and help in these regards. I was also so intrigued with the criticism of queer sex being inherently deviant, as well as parenthood and sexuality being exclusive of each other.
The parts of this memoir that really turned me off, however, (pun slightly intended), were the extremely graphic and erotic passages. Honestly, this is probably due to the internalized prudishness of American society, but I really feel uncomfortable reading about the graphic sex lives of strangers and having to discuss them in an academic setting. I also found some of the explicit passages about surgery and pregnancy to be too much for my very-squeamish body lol.
I think this is a great read for those wondering about gender identity and how this crosses over into parenthood, as long as you're okay with reading about BDSM and kink and the gross aspects of the medical word in explicit detail.
lizawall's review
a couple times i started writing reviews and then deleted them in case they were too mean!
it was so up the alley of my interests i feel like i should support it but honestly i found it super irritating. maybe i was hypercritical of it because it was too close? like there's something about someone loving the same things that you do in not exactly the same way that is more alienating than someone who has never heard of them? i felt like nelson was too self-congratulatory about liking the jane gallop more than rosalind krauss, like she was too self-congratulatory about not thinking community action center had too many hairy pussies (wtf), like she was too self-congratulatory about her partner's gender identity and too reliant on it to reinforce her own queerness... but also a lot of the critiques i thought of she had anticipated and maybe even addressed. also maybe i was projecting and/or jealous? like especially when she wrote about being eve sedgwick's student i was feeling suspiciously "why her why not me" about it.
i found myself, too, kind of meditating angrily on her face and the expression she typically makes in press photos, which did make me wonder if my perspective was getting kind of warped. and, ugh, i just thought her partner should get out of that relationship! am i an internet troll? i think reactions like "i just hate her face" and "i think her partner should break up with her" are signs of internet trolling more than valid criticisms, but that's where i'm at right now.
overall i just had this feeling like she was a student performing for a good grade (although some people i know said the opposite) and i wanted more rage and more not-giving-a-fuck from her. it was maybe a compliment that i cared so much about where she could have been headed that i was really mad and almost personally let down by the parts i found weak or problematic? i was into the birth part.
(check out the correction on this nytimes piece! : http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/10/books/review/maggie-nelsons-the-argonauts.html i feel like it is indicative of some of the problems with the book, but also, at the same time, i guess there's something to be said for making occasion for the nytimes editors to even think about this kind of thing.)
it was so up the alley of my interests i feel like i should support it but honestly i found it super irritating. maybe i was hypercritical of it because it was too close? like there's something about someone loving the same things that you do in not exactly the same way that is more alienating than someone who has never heard of them? i felt like nelson was too self-congratulatory about liking the jane gallop more than rosalind krauss, like she was too self-congratulatory about not thinking community action center had too many hairy pussies (wtf), like she was too self-congratulatory about her partner's gender identity and too reliant on it to reinforce her own queerness... but also a lot of the critiques i thought of she had anticipated and maybe even addressed. also maybe i was projecting and/or jealous? like especially when she wrote about being eve sedgwick's student i was feeling suspiciously "why her why not me" about it.
i found myself, too, kind of meditating angrily on her face and the expression she typically makes in press photos, which did make me wonder if my perspective was getting kind of warped. and, ugh, i just thought her partner should get out of that relationship! am i an internet troll? i think reactions like "i just hate her face" and "i think her partner should break up with her" are signs of internet trolling more than valid criticisms, but that's where i'm at right now.
overall i just had this feeling like she was a student performing for a good grade (although some people i know said the opposite) and i wanted more rage and more not-giving-a-fuck from her. it was maybe a compliment that i cared so much about where she could have been headed that i was really mad and almost personally let down by the parts i found weak or problematic? i was into the birth part.
(check out the correction on this nytimes piece! : http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/10/books/review/maggie-nelsons-the-argonauts.html i feel like it is indicative of some of the problems with the book, but also, at the same time, i guess there's something to be said for making occasion for the nytimes editors to even think about this kind of thing.)
illtakethenightshiftx's review against another edition
challenging
informative
reflective
slow-paced
4.5
I have so many thoughts about this book and I feel like I need to reread it immediately! Nelson is brutally honest and unflinchingly candid in her explorations of motherhood as it relates to gender, patriarchy, and society’s conventionally held beliefs about the aforementioned. I will admit that my knowledge of gender and feminist theory is limited, and parts of the book felt hard to access without some kind of prior knowledge about the authors and scholars referenced. (But that’s on me, I own it, and I’m learning from it) I know in my gut that this is a book that I’ll return to many more times in the future.
kassiani's review
4.0
Really liked some parts, and the general structure/lack of, a mix of literary and critical analysis of life, motherhood and queer culture punctuated with autobiographical elements.
Ebook version, see highlighted passages.
Ebook version, see highlighted passages.