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Like Love: Essays and Conversations
A career-spanning collection of inspiring, revelrous essays about art and artists
Like Love is a momentous, raucous collection of essays drawn from twenty years of Maggie Nelson’s brilliant work. These profiles, reviews, remembrances, tributes, and critical essays, as well as several conversations with friends and idols, bring to life Nelson’s passion for dialogue and dissent. The range of subjects is wide―from Prince to Carolee Schneemann to Matthew Barney to Lhasa de Sela to Kara Walker―but certain themes intergenerational exchange; love and friendship; feminist and queer issues, especially as they shift over time; subversion, transgression, and perversity; the roles of the critic and of language in relation to visual and performance arts; forces that feed or impede certain bodies and creators; and the fruits and follies of a life spent devoted to making.
Arranged chronologically, Like Love shows the writing, thinking, feeling, reading, looking, and conversing that occupied Nelson while writing iconic books such as Bluets and The Argonauts. As such, it is a portrait of a time, an anarchic party rich with wild guests, a window into Nelson’s own development, and a testament to the profound sustenance offered by art and artists.
Like Love is a momentous, raucous collection of essays drawn from twenty years of Maggie Nelson’s brilliant work. These profiles, reviews, remembrances, tributes, and critical essays, as well as several conversations with friends and idols, bring to life Nelson’s passion for dialogue and dissent. The range of subjects is wide―from Prince to Carolee Schneemann to Matthew Barney to Lhasa de Sela to Kara Walker―but certain themes intergenerational exchange; love and friendship; feminist and queer issues, especially as they shift over time; subversion, transgression, and perversity; the roles of the critic and of language in relation to visual and performance arts; forces that feed or impede certain bodies and creators; and the fruits and follies of a life spent devoted to making.
Arranged chronologically, Like Love shows the writing, thinking, feeling, reading, looking, and conversing that occupied Nelson while writing iconic books such as Bluets and The Argonauts. As such, it is a portrait of a time, an anarchic party rich with wild guests, a window into Nelson’s own development, and a testament to the profound sustenance offered by art and artists.
336 pages, Hardcover
First published April 2, 2024
About the author
Maggie Nelson
42 books4,075 followersMaggie Nelson is the author of nine books of poetry and prose, many of which have become cult classics defying categorization. Her nonfiction titles include the National Book Critics Circle Award winner and New York Times bestseller The Argonauts (Graywolf Press, 2015), The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning (Norton, 2011; a New York Times Notable Book of the Year), Bluets (Wave Books, 2009; named by Bookforum as one of the top 10 best books of the past 20 years), The Red Parts (Free Press, 2007; reissued by Graywolf, 2016), and Women, the New York School, and Other True Abstractions (U of Iowa Press, 2007). Her poetry titles include Something Bright, Then Holes (Soft Skull Press, 2007) and Jane: A Murder (Soft Skull, 2005; finalist for the PEN/ Martha Albrand Art of the Memoir). In 2016 she was awarded a MacArthur “genius” Fellowship. She has also been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in Nonfiction, an NEA in Poetry, an Innovative Literature Fellowship from Creative Capital, and an Arts Writers Fellowship from the Andy Warhol Foundation. She writes frequently on art, including recent catalogue essays on Carolee Schneemann and Matthew Barney. She holds a Ph.D. in English Literature from the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, and has taught literature, writing, art, criticism and theory at the New School, Pratt Institute, and Wesleyan University. For 12 years she taught in the School of Critical Studies at CalArts; in fall 2017 she will join the faculty of USC. She currently lives in Los Angeles.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 77 reviews
April 29, 2024
the thing about collecting everything an author has ever written about a subject as broad as "art," as she wrote it with no future awareness of its looming collection, is that you definitionally are kinda taking the good with the bad.
i'm not new york-y, in so many ways: i don't pay a lot in rent, i'm not adventurous, i stay inside a lot, and i don't know how to even begin to understand abstract art. i don't think i'm above it. quite the opposite. i would never be like "my four year old could create this painting / bash this barbie's head in / create this sculpture that is a talking refrigerator." i'm closer to the four year old — it just goes over my head.
i loved the parts of this that included maggie nelson in conversation with interesting people, including those i hadn't heard of and those i had. i loved the parts that were explorations of things i know, or of books.
but for me, there is only so much blood and sh*t and gore and violence smashed into a canvas or a polaroid or film recording i can bear.
bottom line: i always love maggie nelson but she is way cooler than me. this was made up of exclusively the cooler than me parts.
(thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
i'm not new york-y, in so many ways: i don't pay a lot in rent, i'm not adventurous, i stay inside a lot, and i don't know how to even begin to understand abstract art. i don't think i'm above it. quite the opposite. i would never be like "my four year old could create this painting / bash this barbie's head in / create this sculpture that is a talking refrigerator." i'm closer to the four year old — it just goes over my head.
i loved the parts of this that included maggie nelson in conversation with interesting people, including those i hadn't heard of and those i had. i loved the parts that were explorations of things i know, or of books.
but for me, there is only so much blood and sh*t and gore and violence smashed into a canvas or a polaroid or film recording i can bear.
bottom line: i always love maggie nelson but she is way cooler than me. this was made up of exclusively the cooler than me parts.
(thanks to the publisher for the e-arc)
March 16, 2024
This selection of short non-fiction by writer, poet and academic Maggie Nelson spans close to twenty years of her career. In comparison with The Argonauts her radically-reconfigured memoir whose form partly mirrored momentous shifts in Nelson’s own life, these short pieces may seem disparate or oddly jumbled together. But Nelson’s seemingly effortless mingling of the personal and more analytical enables the opening of a pathway through, so that entries here combine to form a map or geography of Nelson’s experiences, her shifting priorities and enduring preoccupations: from queer culture to art to parenting to the place of poetry. Entries range from transcripts of discussions, musings, email exchanges and more formal essays; represented here are many of the writers, artists and creators who’ve shaped Nelson’s perceptions of the world around her, often producers of work that stirs memories and observations about her personal history. Figures who, in myriad ways, guided her through a contemporary existence overshadowed by conflict and ongoing climate change - what Nelson characterises as living in a state of ‘exhilarated despair.’
Nelson’s writing can be dense and demanding, sometimes it’s provocative to the point of courting controversy. But it can also be intimate and accessible. There are some impressive entries here from reflections on the work of Alice Notley, Ben Lerner, and Eileen Myles to responses to Drucker and Ernst’s “Relationship Series” documents of their time together during the process of gender transition. Nelson’s gaze takes in the legacy of feminist performance artists starting with Carolee Schneemann’s ground-breaking practice. She includes reflections on Darcy Steinke, Judith Butler, Fred Moten, artist Sarah Lucas, Bjork, and authors such as Natalia Ginzburg – the last in an especially poignant meditation on loss, isolation and the recent pandemic. Like any collection there were pieces here that worked better than others, at least for me. I didn’t always side with Nelson’s perspective but I admired her process. And I really responded to a number of elements: Nelson’s thoughts on condemnation and shaming; the rhetoric of policing that shuts down possibility or limits the space to talk about certain forms of desire.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Random House for an ARC
Nelson’s writing can be dense and demanding, sometimes it’s provocative to the point of courting controversy. But it can also be intimate and accessible. There are some impressive entries here from reflections on the work of Alice Notley, Ben Lerner, and Eileen Myles to responses to Drucker and Ernst’s “Relationship Series” documents of their time together during the process of gender transition. Nelson’s gaze takes in the legacy of feminist performance artists starting with Carolee Schneemann’s ground-breaking practice. She includes reflections on Darcy Steinke, Judith Butler, Fred Moten, artist Sarah Lucas, Bjork, and authors such as Natalia Ginzburg – the last in an especially poignant meditation on loss, isolation and the recent pandemic. Like any collection there were pieces here that worked better than others, at least for me. I didn’t always side with Nelson’s perspective but I admired her process. And I really responded to a number of elements: Nelson’s thoughts on condemnation and shaming; the rhetoric of policing that shuts down possibility or limits the space to talk about certain forms of desire.
Thanks to Netgalley and publisher Random House for an ARC
Read
February 22, 2024it did not slap for me guys :((((((((( i had no idea who some of these people in conversation with her were so i wasnt invested in like 70% of this so i dnf'd. might get the physical copy to skim thru to just the essays but kinda seemed like a meandering book of compiling existing writing
June 14, 2024
This was the first book I read after I almost died. It became imbued with a quality of resurrection and renewal, of hope and optimism. A reminder in every reference I knew that I still hold so much in my brain, and in every reference I did not know what I have still to engage with and revel in. It gave me life, a reminder of love, of the kinds of loves and of what really matters. Maggie gives me the intellectual tools to articulate and process my thoughts, which have been so intense and overwhelming since my accident that I have struggled to write them down. But I will, because she does, and it is the greatest thing in the world. I cannot die, because I still have so much more to write. I love Maggie Nelson.
May 14, 2024
Assumes you are an intelligent person, which sometimes I found frustrating but mostly felt very grateful for.
Read
June 7, 2024Didn't read the entire book. Highlight was Björk and Maggie Nelson's fangirl letters to each other and the essay on Judith Butler
April 22, 2024
A mixed bag, but worthwhile. Review to come.
June 12, 2024
i think loneliness is assuaged by trees, as well. i also want to read every book to ever exist, ever. that’s this summers project! i’ll let you know how it goes.
March 29, 2024
here's a thank you to NetGalley and Graywolf Press for the advanced digital copy of maggie nelson's latest.
this collection is out April 2nd, 2024.
--
please don't pull a me, please don't see this title and think this is maggie nelson giving you a collection of essays about love.
it's not that these essays don't include love, it's just that most of these essays already exist in the public sphere - previous interviews with figures like bjork, a forward written for the rerelease of samantha hunt's the seas, an academic essay breaking down hilton als' ability to write subversively without alienating too many readers - and are more about maggie's love for her subjects.
perhaps the most interesting part of this collection is less the essays themselves and more the fact that they're arranged chronologically - disseminating pieces of maggie's lore pertaining to the construction of bluets, of the red parts, of the argonauts - giving insight to her writing processes and how they evolve over time. it was interesting to me to read about her avoiding jacqueline rose's work in the process of writing out of fear of failure in the harsh light of comparison versus how other writers - i'm thinking darcey steinke's - seemed to motivate her by comparison. there's a four year difference between the two essays which does make you wonder if, as was touched on during the essay with sarah lucas, this is a part of diminishing potential, if by aging we're all not just harangued by the notion that new accomplishments are gradating away and it becomes more difficult not to look at ourselves through the lens of other people.
another interesting part of maggie's evolutionary journey in these works was the paradigm shift of the pandemic. harping back to the conversation with jacqueline rose, maggie notes that on freedom was drafted pre-2020, but revisions through the bulk of a year had to take place at home in the presence of a child when she had only ever gone through that process in the sanctity of privacy. the work didn't change, but the world in which it needed to be performed did.
so yes, a possibly unnecessary collection of works you may or may not have consume before made new in how they show you the cartography of maggie's life, the world, and how her work was impacted by both.
breaking this book to a granular level is also possible. some essays, for me, were ultimately skippable because i was either not interested or not able to engage. some were essays that i want to revisit after consuming more work about the subject. fred moten's black and blur has since become a piece of interest for me, as is ben lerner's 10:04. lerner's felt lovingly pieced apart, moten's just felt sublime. a few standouts for me were the epistolary piece with bjork, whose letters to maggie felt as though could have expanded into their own isolated volume of poetry, plus a piece about prince inspiring and fostering maggie's burgeoning sexuality in childhood.
this book is absolutely rife with maggie's usual fair of conversations about gender, sexuality, capitalism, feminism, and the making of art and the drive to create. regardless of whatever you're seeking to find here, you'll uncover something - these are not works about love, but they also are.
this collection is out April 2nd, 2024.
--
please don't pull a me, please don't see this title and think this is maggie nelson giving you a collection of essays about love.
it's not that these essays don't include love, it's just that most of these essays already exist in the public sphere - previous interviews with figures like bjork, a forward written for the rerelease of samantha hunt's the seas, an academic essay breaking down hilton als' ability to write subversively without alienating too many readers - and are more about maggie's love for her subjects.
perhaps the most interesting part of this collection is less the essays themselves and more the fact that they're arranged chronologically - disseminating pieces of maggie's lore pertaining to the construction of bluets, of the red parts, of the argonauts - giving insight to her writing processes and how they evolve over time. it was interesting to me to read about her avoiding jacqueline rose's work in the process of writing out of fear of failure in the harsh light of comparison versus how other writers - i'm thinking darcey steinke's - seemed to motivate her by comparison. there's a four year difference between the two essays which does make you wonder if, as was touched on during the essay with sarah lucas, this is a part of diminishing potential, if by aging we're all not just harangued by the notion that new accomplishments are gradating away and it becomes more difficult not to look at ourselves through the lens of other people.
another interesting part of maggie's evolutionary journey in these works was the paradigm shift of the pandemic. harping back to the conversation with jacqueline rose, maggie notes that on freedom was drafted pre-2020, but revisions through the bulk of a year had to take place at home in the presence of a child when she had only ever gone through that process in the sanctity of privacy. the work didn't change, but the world in which it needed to be performed did.
so yes, a possibly unnecessary collection of works you may or may not have consume before made new in how they show you the cartography of maggie's life, the world, and how her work was impacted by both.
breaking this book to a granular level is also possible. some essays, for me, were ultimately skippable because i was either not interested or not able to engage. some were essays that i want to revisit after consuming more work about the subject. fred moten's black and blur has since become a piece of interest for me, as is ben lerner's 10:04. lerner's felt lovingly pieced apart, moten's just felt sublime. a few standouts for me were the epistolary piece with bjork, whose letters to maggie felt as though could have expanded into their own isolated volume of poetry, plus a piece about prince inspiring and fostering maggie's burgeoning sexuality in childhood.
this book is absolutely rife with maggie's usual fair of conversations about gender, sexuality, capitalism, feminism, and the making of art and the drive to create. regardless of whatever you're seeking to find here, you'll uncover something - these are not works about love, but they also are.
June 12, 2024
3.5. Good collection, one for Nelson fans and completists.
June 18, 2024
This was fire and sooo gay!!!! yay. i dont think i have ever read a book of essays, let alone cultural essays all about art (in so many different forms, on so many different important subjects). the pieces are collections of interviews, email exchanges (which were my favorite to read), and critical analyses, that span from 2006 to 2023. the chronologically rlly gives the book this evolving nature, and a sense of narrative as you follow Maggie and what she as a writer and thinker cares about and how that has shifted or grown or sustained throughout her publishing career. cool insights ab things she was thinking about and people she was talking to while writing her other books. also!! she speaks to and writes about some dope ass people!!!!! I literally have a giant list of artists to check out and authors to read after finishing this book. highly recommend also bc it can be consumed in bite size chunks--the essays range from length but the longest is like 30 so pages. ill def be going back to this one to re read certain essays
My favorites:
From Importunate to Meretricious, With Love
Porousness, Perversity, Pharmacopornographia - on matthew barey's OTTO trilogy
The Grind - on Prince (SO GOOD)
A continuity, imagined - a conversation with Bjork (this was so flipping cool to read)
The longest road - conversation with jacqueline rose
I just want to know what else might be available
My brilliant friend - on Lhasa de sela (cried)
The call
And with the trees
My favorites:
From Importunate to Meretricious, With Love
Porousness, Perversity, Pharmacopornographia - on matthew barey's OTTO trilogy
The Grind - on Prince (SO GOOD)
A continuity, imagined - a conversation with Bjork (this was so flipping cool to read)
The longest road - conversation with jacqueline rose
I just want to know what else might be available
My brilliant friend - on Lhasa de sela (cried)
The call
And with the trees
Read
July 2, 2024A new Nelson & I get my notebook out. By the time I finish reading, I'm left with four pages of phrases, artists, books, quotes, notes and words. This time: R.D. Laing "knots," The Weather in Proust, Peter Handke, Hammer!, Winnicott, Mary Gaitskill's "Gattino," Suicide Blonde, Herve Guibert, oddny eir, "redistributing the sensible,"shame and sedgwick?, "long silence," Marianne Moore.
I love that there are conversations in here, because that is what Nelson's writing often is/feels like - a big open(ish) conversation with central interlocutors and drifters and threads that pop up and disappear, voices that poke their head around the corner before wandering off back into the party.
I love that there are conversations in here, because that is what Nelson's writing often is/feels like - a big open(ish) conversation with central interlocutors and drifters and threads that pop up and disappear, voices that poke their head around the corner before wandering off back into the party.
August 1, 2024
Nuggets from conversations between Maggie and others that improved my experience of being alive:
“i just read somewhere that the difference between someone who has anxiety or someone who is narcissistic is simply the level of emotional responsibility, the ones with anxiety have too much, the ones with narcissism too little. perhaps books written in the latter manner have no relevance anymore. is the 20th century guitar solo of nietzsche and warhol's heroes over?“ - björk
“Let's face it. Were undone by each other. And if we're not, we’re missing something.” - judith butler
“i just read somewhere that the difference between someone who has anxiety or someone who is narcissistic is simply the level of emotional responsibility, the ones with anxiety have too much, the ones with narcissism too little. perhaps books written in the latter manner have no relevance anymore. is the 20th century guitar solo of nietzsche and warhol's heroes over?“ - björk
“Let's face it. Were undone by each other. And if we're not, we’re missing something.” - judith butler
May 31, 2024
This took me a while to get through. The writing was thorough, and passionate, and lyrical. And yet, I still found myself slogging through it. I listened to it on audio, which I don't think in this case helped my reading experience. It felt dense and was hard to follow, despite it being essays and therefore not an in depth plot that needed teasing apart. But alas. I am intrigued by Maggie Nelson's writing, but will most likely pick up her other books as a physical copy to give her another go. Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book.
August 2, 2024
In many ways I treated this like a Maggie Nelson Syllabus, picking up books and essays and other media to consume after. Like a lot of good writing, I think this book teaches you how to write (reviews/interviews). I skipped around a bit in the longer essays, which has more to do with my attention than with their merit.
April 1, 2024
I had never read Maggie Nelson before but now I am most definitely a stan
Want to read
February 16, 2024thank you graywolf press for the arc!
Read
May 17, 2024i spent the first couple chapters (sections? pieces?) of this book feeling rlly skeptical about this, despite loving some of maggie nelson’s other books. but, once i started to understand what kind of book it was, i ended up rlly connecting with it. this was a wonderful read, and so rewarding.
something i love about maggie nelson: i feel like she can write so beautifully about her own growth — as a person but also as an artist and writer, in explicit but also implicit ways — without ever shaming or discounting the perspectives she’s held in the past. i feel like this is her attitude towards other artists and other art as well; she writes with a radical acceptance of herself and others, and i think that’s part of what allows her to engage so genuinely with so many different artists and thinkers.
in this book, i particularly loved her conversations with others, like moyra davey and jacqueline rose (and bjork !!), where i really felt like i could see two people building ideas together. i also liked her longer essays a lot, like the one about carolee scheeman. some of the shorter pieces felt more like reviews, and their tone felt a little more evaluative than idea-building, which is inevitably less interesting if it’s in reference to a book you haven’t read or an art exhibit you haven’t seen. but even most of those were still thought-provoking and enjoyable for me.
i also loved the chronological ordering of these essays, partially because the order allows us to watch maggie nelson grow as a writer and to watch her think through some of the ideas that became the argonauts, on freedom, etc. and then to speak publicly about these works once they are released. i also loved the order because, over the last twenty years, maggie nelson has only gotten better at what she does, which means that the book gets broadly more enticing as you make your way through it.
last thought - i loved getting to find out about the art and artists that have influenced and inspired maggie nelson because i now want to read / watch / listen to / see all of it. so many new things to engage with. so exciting. thank you for this one maggie :))
something i love about maggie nelson: i feel like she can write so beautifully about her own growth — as a person but also as an artist and writer, in explicit but also implicit ways — without ever shaming or discounting the perspectives she’s held in the past. i feel like this is her attitude towards other artists and other art as well; she writes with a radical acceptance of herself and others, and i think that’s part of what allows her to engage so genuinely with so many different artists and thinkers.
in this book, i particularly loved her conversations with others, like moyra davey and jacqueline rose (and bjork !!), where i really felt like i could see two people building ideas together. i also liked her longer essays a lot, like the one about carolee scheeman. some of the shorter pieces felt more like reviews, and their tone felt a little more evaluative than idea-building, which is inevitably less interesting if it’s in reference to a book you haven’t read or an art exhibit you haven’t seen. but even most of those were still thought-provoking and enjoyable for me.
i also loved the chronological ordering of these essays, partially because the order allows us to watch maggie nelson grow as a writer and to watch her think through some of the ideas that became the argonauts, on freedom, etc. and then to speak publicly about these works once they are released. i also loved the order because, over the last twenty years, maggie nelson has only gotten better at what she does, which means that the book gets broadly more enticing as you make your way through it.
last thought - i loved getting to find out about the art and artists that have influenced and inspired maggie nelson because i now want to read / watch / listen to / see all of it. so many new things to engage with. so exciting. thank you for this one maggie :))
June 18, 2024
Major thanks to NetGalley and GrayWolf Press for offering me an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest thoughts:
Of course, with any Nelson, it is hard to find a place to start. But Nelson starts with Hilton Als. And Hilton Als, I feel, always starts with Didion. Didion is always at the back of his mind, and mine. I just rewatched The Center Will Not Hold and I reminded again and again why I write, why I love. Because there is so much of life.
"𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘣𝘺 𝘑𝘰𝘢𝘯 𝘋𝘪𝘥𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘶𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘧𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘩𝘰𝘮𝘦: 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘊𝘰𝘢𝘴𝘵, 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘸 𝘶𝘱, 𝘰𝘳 𝘕𝘦𝘸 𝘠𝘰𝘳𝘬, 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘶𝘱. 𝘔𝘢𝘺𝘣𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘨𝘶𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘦𝘵 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘷𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘶𝘴 𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘰𝘧 𝘢 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳. 𝘐𝘵’𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘦𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘭𝘺, 𝘰𝘳 𝘪𝘵 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘣𝘦 𝘰𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘥𝘰𝘰𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘱 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘸𝘰 𝘥𝘢𝘺𝘴."
Though I see the issues with Didion's approach at times, it's in the vague does she find the concrete, make the concrete, to situate herself within the times, within the center of everything. This is how she finds the holding. These are the details. All in the story.
So much of life is wondering and centering and understand what home is. Is it who I love? is it who I care for? Is it how I build friendships? Create connections? Is it how I withstand turbulent times?
This is very much Nelson's pandemic book, a filler episode in between the larger works, a space to talk about the larger works, stitch them together, and though some of these essays have appeared online and in print in different places (ie. her email exchange with bjork and applied dislike for von Trier as a person) it was wonderful to revisit some of them (ie. her introduction to Hunt's The Seas). She has so much love. Talking about the love. Art that has shaped her, challenged her, all love adjacent.
The collection wonderfully ends with a chat with her and Eileen Myles about trees and art and going against the grain, against time. Because I think that's how love works. All against time. All against the worries. All against everything that makes a day long.
Of course, with any Nelson, it is hard to find a place to start. But Nelson starts with Hilton Als. And Hilton Als, I feel, always starts with Didion. Didion is always at the back of his mind, and mine. I just rewatched The Center Will Not Hold and I reminded again and again why I write, why I love. Because there is so much of life.
"𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘫𝘶𝘴𝘵 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘣𝘺 𝘑𝘰𝘢𝘯 𝘋𝘪𝘥𝘪𝘰𝘯, 𝘢𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘶𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘤𝘰𝘯𝘧𝘶𝘴𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘩𝘰𝘮𝘦: 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘞𝘦𝘴𝘵 𝘊𝘰𝘢𝘴𝘵, 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘨𝘳𝘦𝘸 𝘶𝘱, 𝘰𝘳 𝘕𝘦𝘸 𝘠𝘰𝘳𝘬, 𝘸𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘴𝘩𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘶𝘱. 𝘔𝘢𝘺𝘣𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘧𝘢𝘵𝘪𝘨𝘶𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘪𝘯𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘦𝘵 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘴 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘷𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘶𝘴 𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘰𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘰𝘧 𝘢 𝘧𝘪𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳. 𝘐𝘵’𝘴 𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘵𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘥 𝘪𝘯𝘴𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘦𝘰𝘶𝘴𝘭𝘺, 𝘰𝘳 𝘪𝘵 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘣𝘦 𝘰𝘯 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘥𝘰𝘰𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘱 𝘪𝘯 𝘵𝘸𝘰 𝘥𝘢𝘺𝘴."
Though I see the issues with Didion's approach at times, it's in the vague does she find the concrete, make the concrete, to situate herself within the times, within the center of everything. This is how she finds the holding. These are the details. All in the story.
So much of life is wondering and centering and understand what home is. Is it who I love? is it who I care for? Is it how I build friendships? Create connections? Is it how I withstand turbulent times?
This is very much Nelson's pandemic book, a filler episode in between the larger works, a space to talk about the larger works, stitch them together, and though some of these essays have appeared online and in print in different places (ie. her email exchange with bjork and applied dislike for von Trier as a person) it was wonderful to revisit some of them (ie. her introduction to Hunt's The Seas). She has so much love. Talking about the love. Art that has shaped her, challenged her, all love adjacent.
The collection wonderfully ends with a chat with her and Eileen Myles about trees and art and going against the grain, against time. Because I think that's how love works. All against time. All against the worries. All against everything that makes a day long.
April 4, 2024
Like Love is primarily a collection of conversations with artists/thinkers with some essays included along a similar vein. Maggie Nelson is someone who is constantly challenging form and structure, and here what she's able to do is put twenty years of conversations into further conversation with one another. It's like a time capsule tracing twenty years of discourse on art, power, detournement, affect, sex, violence, trauma, and freedom. I particularly loved the sections with Bjork - who I love - and Carolee Schneemann - who I hadn't known about. This collection offers a lot to think about and brings to light some subversive artists that aren't necessarily garnering mainstream attention.
Anyone who has an interest in queer, transgressive art will find some moving conversations in this collection.
I thank NetGalley and Graywolf Press for this arc.
Anyone who has an interest in queer, transgressive art will find some moving conversations in this collection.
I thank NetGalley and Graywolf Press for this arc.
July 4, 2024
Thinking of this mostly as a “pre read”–listening first so that, when I’m encountering Nelson’s writing and thinking and conversations on the page I have already moderately “churned,” to use her word for both making and thinking of art, the enormous ideas that she throws around casually, an intellectual powerlifter.
Once again, Nelson has staggered me with the clarity and depth of her analysis and uncertainty. It is hard to even appreciate uncertainty as a trait of good writing, but it is a defining characteristic of this book, and Nelson’s thinking in general, her willingness to go towards what she doesn’t know and grapple, in front of you, with its attractions and defections.
This being a listen of an incredibly rigorous text, my grasp of it feels more felt than understood. So I’ll end this review here, for now, awaiting reading.
Once again, Nelson has staggered me with the clarity and depth of her analysis and uncertainty. It is hard to even appreciate uncertainty as a trait of good writing, but it is a defining characteristic of this book, and Nelson’s thinking in general, her willingness to go towards what she doesn’t know and grapple, in front of you, with its attractions and defections.
This being a listen of an incredibly rigorous text, my grasp of it feels more felt than understood. So I’ll end this review here, for now, awaiting reading.
March 28, 2024
Like Love is a collection of essays and interviews spanning around 20 years of Maggie Nelson’s career. I love Nelson’s work and came into this expecting to fall in love with it, and there were certainly parts I did fall in love with—I found the interviews especially illuminating, and I enjoyed the literary criticism. Much of the book, though, is art criticism, and art criticism of a variety that seems to presume a familiarity with the artist and/or the work—some of which can’t be found online with simple google searches. I found myself lost—or losing interest—a few times for this reason.
It’s an admirable collection insofar as it attempts (I think) to get around the problem of “How do I turn a bunch of disparate pieces into a book?” by showing that the same preoccupations with art, and love of certain artists, have followed Nelson around throughout her career—it was very interesting to see the names of these artists recur in various contexts, to show how Nelson situations them in place with one another. But I found myself wishing that there had been attempts to better familiarize me with the objects of criticism in question; when the object remains obscured there’s only so much insight one can draw from the writer’s circumlocutions, I think. Suddenly this feels like a broader philosophical take than I had intended to make when I sat down to write this, so feel free to challenge me; something something epistemology. Maybe more to the point, that kind of criticism—if it exists—would I think function on the presumption of the reader’s lack of familiarity. I mentioned earlier I enjoyed the literary criticism more, and that’s probably telling about me as a reader: I am much more familiar with the world of literature and of literary criticism than I am of visual art, so it’s unsurprising that I felt able to draw more from those sections than I did those about visual art.
In any case, like much of Nelson’s work, this is probably something I will return to.
It’s an admirable collection insofar as it attempts (I think) to get around the problem of “How do I turn a bunch of disparate pieces into a book?” by showing that the same preoccupations with art, and love of certain artists, have followed Nelson around throughout her career—it was very interesting to see the names of these artists recur in various contexts, to show how Nelson situations them in place with one another. But I found myself wishing that there had been attempts to better familiarize me with the objects of criticism in question; when the object remains obscured there’s only so much insight one can draw from the writer’s circumlocutions, I think. Suddenly this feels like a broader philosophical take than I had intended to make when I sat down to write this, so feel free to challenge me; something something epistemology. Maybe more to the point, that kind of criticism—if it exists—would I think function on the presumption of the reader’s lack of familiarity. I mentioned earlier I enjoyed the literary criticism more, and that’s probably telling about me as a reader: I am much more familiar with the world of literature and of literary criticism than I am of visual art, so it’s unsurprising that I felt able to draw more from those sections than I did those about visual art.
In any case, like much of Nelson’s work, this is probably something I will return to.
Read
June 25, 2024I received this book through a Goodreads giveaway
This large collection of Essays from Maggie Nelson covers a wide variety of topics. The writing reads largely academic in tone with plenty of critical analysis and citations sprinkled throughout most of the essays.
The pieces I tended to enjoy more were the conversations with other interesting people. It's where I felt Maggie Nelsons voice really shine through . Special shout out to the "conversation" with Bjork. It became my favourite both through it's self deprecating humour and examination of violence in art.
I would recommend this to people who are more familiar with Maggie Nelsons other work.
This large collection of Essays from Maggie Nelson covers a wide variety of topics. The writing reads largely academic in tone with plenty of critical analysis and citations sprinkled throughout most of the essays.
The pieces I tended to enjoy more were the conversations with other interesting people. It's where I felt Maggie Nelsons voice really shine through . Special shout out to the "conversation" with Bjork. It became my favourite both through it's self deprecating humour and examination of violence in art.
I would recommend this to people who are more familiar with Maggie Nelsons other work.
March 27, 2024
Maggie Nelson is incredible! We are very lucky to be living in a time where we can read her books. Like Love is a collection of Nelson’s essays and conversations spanning many years, organized chronologically. Each one is insightful, incredibly generous, and hopeful. In addition to being a tour through Nelson’s mind, I think the root of this collection is about friendship and community through art, poetry, and writing. I’m honored to have gotten to read this arc and now am eager to go back and reread all of Nelson’s books.
May 9, 2024
Another bestselling book that seemingly was destined to chart for just a week with good reason. Less a book and more a vignette of the author’s musings.
Would be great for a someone studying for the SAT, don’t think I’ve ever had to lookup the definitions of so many words in a mainstream book. Many of the author’s references to other authors whose work was unkown to me became frequent enough that I stopped determining who was being referred to.
David Foster Wallace-like in some eloquent prose capturing the zeitgeist. Some excellent passages.
Would be great for a someone studying for the SAT, don’t think I’ve ever had to lookup the definitions of so many words in a mainstream book. Many of the author’s references to other authors whose work was unkown to me became frequent enough that I stopped determining who was being referred to.
David Foster Wallace-like in some eloquent prose capturing the zeitgeist. Some excellent passages.
June 25, 2024
I will absolutely read anything that Maggie Nelson writes, but personally I couldn't connect much with these pieces. Maybe it's the specific topics it covers not resonating with me as I didn't have any familiarity with the majority of the media and/or artists/authors mentioned in this one, or maybe the collection aspect didn't work for me as I have previously enjoyed her works the most as they deeply considered a particular subject from many different angles. I didn't dislike this by any means, but it didn't resonate as much as I had hoped it would.
March 20, 2024
Maggie has packed a suitcase. Inside: her looking, feeling, leaning, leaking, measuring a decade of various artists, art pieces, shows and oeuvres. And we run laps around her sensibility, which, at times, exhausts one. But I feel my own sensibility—of art making and art metabolizing—stronger after reading, a marathon worthwhile.
May 3, 2024
A lot of circling without a lot of landing spots. I understand wanting to keep a variety of points in mind and not be prescriptive, but its hard to figure out the point or understand some of these pieces without more definitive meaning making. Also it's hard to picture or understand what some of these art peices look like or even are at points without prior more context for readers unfamiliar with the work.
July 24, 2024
Maggie Nelson is one of my favorite non-fiction writers. She expands and excites my thinking. My favorite essay here was the one on Judith Butler's Precarious Life, wow. If you haven't read On Freedom, I cannot recommend it more highly (for a certain type of reader, eres tu?)
June 23, 2024
half of these essays are good and i rated 3.5 stars. half of these essays made me cry scream and die inside and for that i rate 7 stars. lets go for a happy halfway 5.
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