By Danielle Zhong
A narrator can be a hindrance to a narrative. Yet, how can a narrative operate without one? Renee Gladman, author of Calamities, and Maggie Nelson, author of The Argonauts, both struggle to write about themselves through specific lenses. In Calamities, Gladman persistently grapples with lines, space, and language through countless attempts at writing beginnings; she starts every short essay with the words “I began the day… (1). She collects these short beginnings to display the struggle of writing, a process and journey that fails her again and again. The Argonauts, on the other hand, is a work of “auto-theory,” where Nelson explores relationships, identity, and family with her genderfluid partner, Harry. Throughout the work, Nelson litters textual excerpts of friends and theorists to answer the larger question of the limitations of written language. What Gladman and Nelson share is the gray area between narrator and narration. Gladman and Nelson both lament the gap between thinking and writing by developing distinct ideas about written expression as an ineffective container for original thought. Both authors struggle against the limitations of linguistic expression when they write about the body, queerness, and self-insertion of the narrated “I.” Gladman and Nelson harbor complex relationships between the body and writing, where the body is a hindrance to written expression. For both narrators, the body manifests itself as an obstacle in distinct ways, whether that is through a hyper-physical awareness or a container for relationships with loved ones.
In Calamities, Gladman establishes a connection between body and thought, and she uses this connection to demonstrate a gap between thinking and writing. In her talk on “The Ongoing Story,” Gladman introduces the two concepts of body and thought jointly for the first time: “I hadn’t wanted to think about narrative at the same time that I was conscious of my body lying in the object world” (6). The two processes occurring concurrently are “[thinking] about narrative” and “[being] conscious of [her] body lying in the object world,” both of which require cognitive attention (6). Another key part of Gladman’s sentence is that this simultaneous occupation of mind is something she “hadn’t wanted” (6). Yet Gladman faces an uncontrollable binding between cognitive focus on writing and the physical presence of her body, so much so that she cannot think of one without the other. Gladman later expands on this relationship between body and thought when she delineates, “[t]here was…your being able to say, I have just made a mark…—then there is all of the activity that occurs from the feeling of your body bisected, … space has changed, that history has been opened” (123). A notable observation about this sentence is its shift in tense. Gladman begins the sentence in the past tense and later picks up in the present tense with “there is,” where Gladman observes that “space has changed” and “history has been opened,” which suggest a spatial and temporal alteration (123). Significantly, these verbs are used in the past perfect and past perfect continuous tense, which denotes some sense that what has transpired is irreversible, or is still happening. The problem this sentence presents is the inevitable loss of a specific space and time in writing. Her body and thoughts are in union for a brief passage of time, but once she “[makes] a mark,” time passes and so has the specific moment in which Gladman’s writing began. Gladman is painfully aware of this temporal gap between thought and writing, and therefore views writing as an inefficient method of relaying her experiences.
On the other hand, in The Argonauts, Nelson laments her body’s inability to simultaneously hold and write. The first instance of her lamentation occurs when she claims, “I feel no urge to extricate myself from this bubble. But here’s the catch: I cannot hold my baby at the same time as I write” (36-37, emphasis in original). The bubble she refers to is Peter Sloterdijk’s “rule of a negative gynecology,” where he explains that in order to understand the fetal realm, one cannot use external input to “extricate” oneself from the internal affair between mother and child (Nelson 36). The decision to reuse the word “extricate, ” which evokes a sense of freedom, consequently reveals a deeper layer to Nelson’s lack of urge to extricate from the bubble; she doesn’t want to feel constrained by the mother-child affair. Even so, Nelson feels that she cannot immerse herself in the bubble, or “hold [her] baby,” while she strives to be a writer. A new question surfaces: Is extrication from “holding” key to Nelson’s ability to write? Further insight into this question lies in Nelson’s recount of Harry’s reaction to her first draft of The Argonauts, where Harry “tells [Nelson] he feels unbeheld—unheld, even” (46). At this point, “holding” isn’t just a word to describe Nelson’s internal struggle against motherhood, but rather an encompassing phrase for all of Nelson’s actions that don’t involve writing, whether that is through her child or partner. Nelson then reviews the draft with Harry, and soon digresses into an internal dialogue with herself. By the end of the dialogue, she expresses the dilemma of still not understanding the relationship between writing and holding (Nelson 47). However, in this case, Nelson has chosen writing over holding. Given Harry’s feeling of being unheld, readers can assume that Nelson has extricated herself from the bubble that is her happiness in her relationship with Harry and has instead given into the impulses of writing. Nelson’s hindrance to writing, in both contexts, isn’t purely her physical body; it is her body as a physical container that holds her role as a mother and a lover. The physicality of the body as an obstacle is the key difference between Gladman and Nelson. While Gladman navigates her sensitivity to the displacement of space and time through her body’s actions and thoughts, Nelson wrestles with her body’s ineffectiveness when the processes of writing and holding occur simultaneously.
In addition to the body, Gladman and Nelson struggle to capture queerness in the form of narrativity. When heteronormativity becomes synonymous with narrative, and queerness with anti-narrative, redefining queerness to narrative through written language becomes increasingly difficult. The association between heteronormativity as narrative and queerness as anti-narrative is touched upon in both Gladman and Nelson’s narratives, but it is Tyler Bradway who first establishes this relationship between queerness and narrative. In his article, Bradway provides a clearer foundation for why the aforementioned associations exist. He explains that queer theory, from the beginning, has been skeptical of narrative, for narrative has historically suppressed sexuality and framed queerness as an identity to be kept hidden (Bradway 711). Furthermore, proponents of anti-narrativity understand narrative as a conservative form that wrongly encourages heteronormativity by imposing a sense of logic and linearity on subjectivity and meaning (Bradway 711). Essentially, logic and linearity are qualities of heteronormativity in writing. Furthermore, Bradway adds, “If narrative and heteronormativity are mutually constituting structures, then queerness must be, in Leo Bersani’s words, ‘inherently antinarrative’” (Bradway 711). Gladman and Nelson recognize narrative as an effective force for queerness, so they indirectly combat the association between antinarrativity and queerness through the lens of relationships and family.
In Calamities, Gladman attempts to explain to Danielle, her white partner, “what it was like to be a lesbian in the 90s” (83). When Gladman invites Danielle over for dinner, Danielle is confused about why so many of Gladman’s ex-girlfriends are in the room and why they are in relationships with Gladman’s other ex-girlfriends (83). Gladman jests, and attributes Danielle’s confusion to “[growing] up with better boundaries in another part of the country” (83). Bradway explains that “[T]hese boundaries demarcate the difference between Gladman’s and Danielle’s racial, affective, geographic, and generational relationships to queer kinship” (722). However, Gladman uses this difference to provide more depth, color, and contrast into her narration of the gathering between ex-lovers and friends of ex-lovers. Narrativity in this excerpt lies in the coherence and linearity, through boundaries and lineage, which are qualities typically associated with heteronormativity. By utilizing “heteronormative” qualities of narrative to frame her queer experiences, Gladman deconstructs preconceived associations between queerness and the anti-narrative.
Similar to Gladman, Nelson uses preconceived “heteronormative” qualities to shed light on her queer relationship with Harry. When Nelson’s friend sees the Snapfish photo mug that depicts Nelson’s family, her friend claims that she’s “never seen anything so heteronormative in all my life” (13). As an indirect response to her friend’s words, Nelson establishes that the mug represents one of her family rituals—one that she even revived. As Bradway references Valerie Rohy argues: “[Narrative] turns queerness into LGBT identity… domesticating sexuality to fit the marriage plot” (711). Yet, the themes present in Nelson’s narrative are heteronormative ones of “the marriage plot,” namely family and tradition. When she utilizes these qualities to define and depict her queer family, Nelson invalidates the association between heteronormativity and narrative by reconstructing a bond between queerness and narrativity, thereby rendering the association between heteronormativity and narration useless. While queer theory has long avoided narrativity for its centralization around heteronormativity, Gladman and Nelson instead use narrative as a vehicle to express their queer relationships. In attempting to reposition queerness with narrative, Gladman’s and Nelson connect “heternormative” elements to their queerness, which may be seen as contradictory. This contradiction demonstrates the gap between thinking and writing about queerness, or more specifically how their narratives may be perceived as “heteronormative” despite the intrinsic queer value they possess.
The final obstacle related to perception that Gladman and Nelson both face is the narrating “I.” A narrator’s introduction of an “I” is inevitable and problematic because of the distance it creates between original thought and writing. For Gladman, this distance manifests itself in the form of “the problem of the person” (Renee Gladman Mini-Feature 93). On the other hand, for Nelson, the distance reveals itself in her frequent use of quotes from other authors. In “The Sentence as a Space for Living: Prose Architecture,” a talk that Gladman delivered at UC Berkeley, she laments the problem of the person (Renee Gladman Mini-Feature 93), a complication that occurs when using “I” in a narrative. The problem is that when a narrator attempts to relay one’s temporal experiences while using “I,” language becomes less accurate at conveying original meaning. More specifically, written language wrestles against the displacement between time and person, or a person’s memory.
For Gladman, the problem of the person appears when she writes: “… I was still trying to say what I wanted to say, an idea that occurred to me many moments ago, that was now no longer with me but had a hold of me nonetheless” (Gladman 125). There is an idea occupying the intangible space between Gladman’s thoughts and writing—between past and present. The passage of time, which consequently implies change in a person, makes it impossible to capture a thought at the exact moment it came to fruition.
Nelson, in contrast, feels that conventional narrative is not accommodating enough, so she constantly references the works of theorists and other authors, which subsequently creates a narrated “I” that draws away from the self more than the usual narrated “I” does. In “Speak for Your Self: Psychoanalysis, Autotheory, and The Plural Self,” Carolyn Laubender explores how “Nelson tries to upend the individualizing effects of autobiography specifically by pluralizing the self and thereby challenging the assumed singularity of the first-person address” (49). The plurality of self can be attributed to the textual excerpts littered throughout The Argonauts, but the question of why Nelson wants to challenge first-person address still remains. Although not directly stated, Nelson draws away from herself because “[she] learned to stop talking, to be (impersonate, really) an observer,” as a result of previously being perceived as someone who was too expressive (47). She feels the need to step back in various aspects of her life: not wanting to overwhelm her son Iggy, not wanting Harry to feel unbeheld, not wanting to take up space that women of color could occupy (hence providing excerpts from so many women of color). The italicized excerpts that Nelson includes on almost every page draw attention away from herself, a white woman, and instead shift the focus towards a pluralized, extended self that absorbs the voices of many. According to Laubender, Nelson describes the shift as “rearticulating the relationship between theory and the self, productively blurring the line between a theory of the self and a theory performed or enacted by the self” (Nelson qtd. in Laubender 50). While Gladman and Nelson’s works have their differences, they both conflict with the unintended insertion of the narrating “I.”
As a result, they experience the dilemma of the narrating “I” in unique ways. Gladman encounters the problem in the temporal gap between thinking and writing, but she does not actively do anything besides shed light on her frustration about the matter. Nelson understands the potentially negative impact of self-insertion, so she frequently includes excerpts from friends and theorists to get her own point across without truly taking ownership, which also demonstrates a gap between personal thought and written expression.
Throughout their respective works, Gladman and Nelson face distinct thoughts around the body, queerness, and self, and the gap created in attempting to write about them. While Gladman is all too aware of the spatial and temporal difference between thinking and writing, Nelson faces her body’s inability to simultaneously hold and write. Beyond the body, there are intangible factors that prohibit writing that accurately conveys original meaning. One of these factors is queer theory. Long-held associations between queerness and the anti-narrative, as well as between heteronormativity and narrative, frame perceived understandings of how queerness and narrative should relate to each other. Gladman and Nelson both attempt to tear down this preconceived notion in distinct ways. Another factor that relates to perception is that of self. In writing about the self, inserting a narrating “I” is inevitable, but doing so also introduces complexity that makes original written language less effective in conveying thought. A narrative cannot exist without a narrator, but a narrator also cannot ignore the gap between thinking and writing in forming a narrative. The question that narrators must answer is: Is writing a sufficient or effective vehicle for relaying meaningful thought, and how do we reconcile with the gap between thinking and writing?
Works Cited
Bradway, Tyler. “Queer Narrative Theory and the Relationality of Form.” PMLA/Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, vol. 136, no. 5, 2021, pp. 711–727., doi:10.1632/S0030812921000407.
Gladman, Renee. Calamities. Wave Books, 2016.
Gladman, Renee. “The Sentence as a Space for Living: Prose Architecture.” WordPress, June 2019.
Laubender, Carolyn. “Speak for Your Self: Psychoanalysis, Autotheory, and the Plural Self.” Arizona Quarterly: A Journal of American Literature, Culture, and Theory, vol. 76, no. 1, 2020, pp. 39–64. EBSCOhost, https://doi-org.avoserv2.library.fordham.edu/10.1353/arq.2020.0001.
Nelson, Maggie. The Argonauts. Graywolf Press, 2015.
