The Central Ambiguity Of Bluets By Maggie Nelson

Name Instructor Course/Class Date THE CENTRAL AMBIGUITY OF BLUETS by MAGGIE NELSON Published by a poetry-devoted publisher named Wave Books, Maggie Nelson’s Bluets is rather indexed under “Literature/Essay”. Yet, it captures the kind of writing structured to modestly challenge the regard of its genre to self-confessions and its novelistic form of realism. In the case of suggesting embellishment, the mass media interrupts its rather optimistic chronicling wherein the one writing it exposes her soul making the one reading it feel not as much as alone as he could have previously been. Empathizing depends on conviction and the truth it possesses while inventing (or what has been already invented) translates what is untrue. However, with a novel-like autobiography, is there anything that could be invented more than that? Maggie’s inventing in this book surely exceeds expectations as it is more feral, more astute and way truer. Being under Literature/Essay category, Bluets takes inspirations from autobiography, lyric poem, and philosophical tract. While such category brings about ambiguity to the book, such form of inspirations specifies a clearer image to what is ambiguous and it all lies on how Bluets think of blue’s blueness. Such is Bluets’ central ambiguity. As ambiguity takes place when something interprets openly into various forms, it can also be contextually dependent from time to time. The Ambiguity of Bluets Ludwig Wittgenstein, a 20th century philosopher, preferred to pull-the-rug-out-from-under-the-reader as his technique in experiencing intimacy and destabilization. His reverse technique enables his reader in thinking with him as the writer. How does his technique work? His authored tomes imply order due to the numbered propositions but his writing per se destabilizes such order due to a proposition being overturned in the succeeding proposition. Bluets adopts his mastery of this writing structure to absolute perfection, philosophically. Wittgenstein’s significance in Maggie’s work is further shown through their similarity of loving colors. Color seems to be a serious subject a lot of thinkers and artists ponder on as a near-death subject reflective of a serious take on life (at last!). Hence, the philosopher devoted his dying days working on Remarks on Color. Bluets portray the blue color as a means of relating physical pain, depression, loss, and love with that of Maggie’s reflecting on shame in women’s writing: “Suppose I were to begin by saying that I had fallen in love with a color. Suppose I were to speak this as though it were a confession; suppose I shredded my napkin as we spoke. It began slowly. An appreciation, an affinity. Then, one day, it became more serious. Then (looking into an empty teacup, its bottom stained with thin brown excrement coiled into the shape of a sea horse) it became somehow personal.” Bluets seems to be promising its readers a portrayal of the process of falling in love with a color. From describing bluets to cornflowers, from discovering the blue spectrum to collecting blue detritus – there really was no textual change that should have gradually happened. However, romancing the blue color clearly ended in a fade-away sense by the end of Bluets. How? Maggie...