What I Happen to Be Reading At the Moment
"A thirteen-year-old is a kaleidoscope of different personalities, if not in most ways a mere figment of her own imagination. At that age, what and who you are depends largely on what book you happen to be reading at the moment.”
While not 13 anymore, the desire to read almost anything and everything in order to read for fun and for experience is still around. I'm currently working on my PhD in a physical science, but I love to read and books are one of my non-science hobbies.
Bluets
My favorite color is blue.From a recommendation from a friend, I found a copy of Bluets and in the process found my favorite new bookstore in Tucson. So, a win all around.
Maggie Nelson has organized Bluets into a series of propositions, she calls them, and each one varies from a few lines to significantly longer (though never more than about a page). Each one focuses on the color blue in some way, shape, or form. The physical, like Newton, to the emotional, like depression, play together in a way that alternates between quirky and deeply sorrowful. Occasionally these changes throw the reader, but that's part of the beauty of the work.
I was strongly reminded of Terry Tempest Williams' When Women Were Birds in terms of the structure, and I have to say I am a huge fan of the short essay structure. The combination of stream of consciousness where the thoughts are so brief that only one or two things are captured is combined with a numbered structure and this is something I need more of, as soon as possible. There's something about it that's incredibly special and innovative.
Bluets is a masterwork of contemplating the social, emotional, and physical implications of the color blue in the most interesting and fascinating way.
Cross-posted at BookLikes.com
