''Bluets'' is a book by American author Maggie Nelson, published by Wave Books in 2009. The work hybridizes several prose and poetry styles as it documents Nelson's multifaceted experience with the color

blue Blue is one of the three primary colours in the RYB colour model (traditional colour theory), as well as in the RGB (additive) colour model. It lies between violet and cyan on the spectrum of visible light. The eye perceives blue when obs ...

, and is often referred to as lyric essay or prose poetry. It was written between 2003 and 2006. The book is a philosophical and personal meditation on the color blue, lost love, grief and existential solitude. The book is full of references to other writers, philosophers and artists. The title refers to the painting ''Bluets'' by the artist Joan Mitchell.

Structure and subject

''Bluets'' is a "formal experiment" that contains an arrangement of 240 loosely-linked prose poems which Nelson refers to as "propositions". Each proposition is either a sentence or a short paragraph, none longer than two hundred words; the book totals some nineteen thousand words. The propositions are arranged neither chronologically nor thematically, but in each one, Nelson produces links between different blues and their associations. Nelson shuffled the propositions around "countless times" before arriving at their final order. The critic Thomas Larson refers to the structure as a "nomadic mosaic": "Its structure is built by pulling away from the core and by keeping attached to the core. The goal (if there is one) is nomadic, a sort of nomadic mosaic. As one reads, the book, despite its progression, loses its linearity and feels circular, porous, a tad unstable". The three main topics that Nelson investigates within ''Bluets'' are her affinity to the color blue; the loss of her lover, whom she calls "the prince of blue"; and her relationship to a close friend rendered quadriplegic after an accident. However, most of the text is an analysis of her reading, often referring to other writers' reflections on the color blue, art, literature, philosophy, emotion and female desire. The references include

Joni Mitchell Roberta Joan "Joni" Mitchell ( Anderson; born November 7, 1943) is a Canadian-American musician, producer, and painter. Among the most influential singer-songwriters to emerge from the 1960s folk music circuit, Mitchell became known for her sta ...

, Leonard Cohen,

Ralph Waldo Emerson Ralph Waldo Emerson (May 25, 1803April 27, 1882), who went by his middle name Waldo, was an American essayist, lecturer, philosopher, abolitionist, and poet who led the transcendentalist movement of the mid-19th century. He was seen as a champ ...

Sei Shōnagon was a Japanese author, poet, and a court lady who served the Empress Teishi (Sadako) around the year 1000 during the middle Heian period. She is the author of . Name Sei Shōnagon's actual given name is not known. It was the custom among arist ...

, Catherine Millet, Chögyam Trungpa,

Isabelle Eberhardt Isabelle Wilhelmine Marie Eberhardt (17 February 1877 – 21 October 1904) was a Swiss explorer and author. As a teenager, Eberhardt, educated in Switzerland by her father, published short stories under a male pseudonym. She became interested ...

, John Berger, and Marguerite Duras. The exploration of the color blue is particularly inspired by

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (28 August 1749 – 22 March 1832) was a German poet, playwright, novelist, scientist, statesman, theatre director, and critic. His works include plays, poetry, literature, and aesthetic criticism, as well as trea ...

's ''Theory of Colours'', and

Ludwig Wittgenstein Ludwig Josef Johann Wittgenstein ( ; ; 26 April 1889 – 29 April 1951) was an Austrian-British philosopher who worked primarily in logic, the philosophy of mathematics, the philosophy of mind, and the philosophy of language. He is considere ...

's ''Remarks on Colour''.

Reception

''Bluets'' has been referred to as a "cult favourite". Writer and critic

Hilton Als Hilton Als (born 1960) is an American writer and theater critic. He is a teaching professor at the University of California, Berkeley, an associate professor of writing at Columbia University and a staff writer and theater critic for ''The New Yor ...

praises ''Bluets'' as a new form of classicism: "Balancing

pathos Pathos (, ; plural: ''pathea'' or ''pathê''; , for "suffering" or "experience") appeals to the emotions and ideals of the audience and elicits feelings that already reside in them. Pathos is a term used most often in rhetoric (in which it is c ...

with philosophy, she created a new kind of classicism, queer in content but elegant, almost cool in shape".

References

{{Reflist

External links

* Maggie Nelson reads fro
''Bluets''
at the Festival of Poets. September 22, 2008. American poetry collections 2009 poetry books