What do George Saunders and Katie Kitamura have in common apart from having just published highly regarded novels? It turns out they both like a book called "The Argonauts" by Maggie Nelson which revolves around .... well, anal sex.
Saunders, whose debut novel "Lincoln in the Bardo" currently qualifies as Book-of-the-Moment, was asked in a recent "New York Times" interview "what's the last great book you have read?"
Second on his list, after "Swing Time" by Zadie Smith, was "The Argonauts," which he said was "mind-blowingly heartfelt and had me weeping on a plane."
Meanwhile, Katie Kitamura, whose novel "A Separation" was recently published to widespread acclaim, was asked by "Goodreads" to list her favorite books about marriage. "The Argonauts" was fifth on her list and here's what she had to say about it:
"It's easier to find stories of marriages gone wrong than marriages that are successful. But 'The Argonauts' is, among other things, the portrait of a graceful marriage. The relationship that comes to life in the pages of Nelson's
book is intimate, a work in progress, a narrative that is fiercely
contingent and deeply personal. But it's also a political act committed
in the face of California's Prop. 8—the bill that made same-sex marriage
illegal in the state."
I recently read "The Argonauts" because a young woman I know mentioned it in the context of a college course on fiction about women. While Nelson's book is a form of memoir rather than fiction, she's a very contemporary voice whose views are apparently useful to understand if one is to properly interpret how women are depicted elsewhere. Among other things, Nelson is the recipient of a "Genius" grant from the MacArthur foundation.
Lets think about a classic Broadway musical for a moment. Early on, one or more of the main characters usually sings an establishment song -- a song that tells the audience who he or she is.
Nelson sings her establishment song in the first paragraph of "The Argnonauts" and it goes like this:
"A friend and I risk the widowmakers (stiff Santa Anna winds) by having lunch outside, during which she suggests I tattoo the words HARD TO GET across my knuckles as a reminder of this pose's possible fruits. Instead, the words 'I love you' come tumbling out of my mouth in an incantation the first time you fuck me in the ass, my face smashed against the cement floor of your dank and charming bachelor pad. You had 'Molloy' (presumably Samuel Beckett's novel) by your beside and a stack of cocks (her partner was born as a female) in a shadowy unused shower stall. Does it get any better?"
I'll leave that for readers to determine.
The point of Nelson's opening song becomes clear as the book progresses and she uses a sperm-donor to have a child (she is married to the gender-fluid individual who started life as a female) and thereafter repeatedly identifies herself as a "sodomitical mother."
Susan Fraiman, who Nelson cites in her book, helps explain the significance of this concept by saying that women who are mothers are entitled to "non-normative, non-procreative sexuality, to sexuality in excess of the dutifully instrumental."
Thus, to understand who Nelson is and how she understands and interacts with the world, you have to understand how she has sex: that's what establishes her.
Her attitude as a mother is, in contrast, highly conventional to the point of being rather boring.
"As books about motherhood go, this one is on the soppier side," said Laura Feigel in a review of "The Argonauts" in The Guardian. I would agree, and thus I can't help wondering what George Saunders found to cry about.
As for a book about a successful marriage, it appears that, so far at least, "The Argonauts" qualifies. But there is also a long way to go. Late-in-life memoirs tend to be more illuminating than those written relatively early on.
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