The Argonauts: A Crash Course in Queer Theory (and Crying)

April seems to be the month of “I had no idea what I was getting into when I started this book but oh my God I loved every second of it.” Couldn’t be truer for The Argonauts.

I went into Maggie Nelson’s book expecting a deep and honest look at a relationship where one partner is going through transition. I was completely wrong.

General thoughts: The most poignant textbook I’ve ever read

Half memoir, half academic text, with a dash of poetry, The Argonauts is an eye-opening take on queer partnership. The “story” of the book, so to speak, follows Nelson’s partner Harry’s journey after starting testosterone treatments, juxtaposed with Nelson’s own experience getting pregnant — events that happened concurrently in Nelson’s life, and which Nelson explores through stream-of-consciousness passages.

I almost want to call the passages “personal essays,” but they’re more like poetic dissertations: Nelson finds a way to effortlessly merge the story she’s trying to tell with the points she’s trying to make, backed up with philosophical, academic, and literary quotations.

Critical thoughts: You can be conversational without being preachy

At first, I thought it was weird that this “memoir” had cited sources in the margins, but I quickly fell into Nelson’s writing style and began to understand.

She quotes so many people but in such a natural way, working their arguments into her own prose like she’s having a conversation with the reader. The citations in the margins help you keep straight which points are Nelson’s own and which she’s using as backup (or responding to, or refuting).

The result is an introduction to queer theory for someone who isn’t well-versed in it.

In the first 30 or so pages I felt a little cowed by my lack of knowledge in that field, but after a while I felt like I was listening to Nelson giving an extremely compelling lecture, or just chatting with me in the kitchen about it while we baked bread together.

It’s difficult to explain. It felt like Nelson was just talking — the stream-of-consciousness writing style allowed for an honesty and an intensity that I wouldn’t normally expect from a text so heavily dotted with citations.

But at the same time, I felt like I was receiving an education from her, all while she was telling me this extremely compelling story about her life with her partner. I felt welcomed in, confided in — in a strange way, I felt like Nelson’s friend.

(We do share a first name, after all.)

I also sobbed my eyes out through the last fifty pages or so, where (small spoiler) Nelson presents the story of Harry’s mother’s death in passages from Harry’s perspective, interspersed with passages from Nelson’s perspective during the birth of their son.

I was blown away — truly blown away.