Pain, or The Story of My Mouth

PATHEMATA, or, The Story of My Mouth

🩸“The only thing that frightens me more than pain and its cruelty is numbness.”
The latest work by Maggie Nelson, author of "Bluets" and "The Argonauts"
Sixteen years later, an echo and variation of "Bluets"
🏥A personal chronicle blending clinic notes, dream fragments, and memory flashbacks,
👄In pain and disarray, it reawakens memories, desires, and the love that cannot be abandoned.
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From 2020 to 2023, the pandemic shattered the continuity of time and space, and broke the accustomed order of life. For Maggie Nelson, everything was also quietly disintegrating: recurring mouth pain with no identifiable cause despite repeated treatments, emotional distance from her partner, the sudden death of a close friend, and frequent flashbacks of old traumas... The pain spread in her mouth, like a lurking language, pressing in daily yet always unspeakable. So she responded to this disorienting journey through writing, producing "Pain, or the Story of My Mouth."
In this book of profound hurt, Nelson uses mouth pain as a thread, weaving together daily life, dreams, memories, and physical sensations, attempting to capture the fluid, elusive nature of pain—pain that is not only physiological but also cultural, emotional, and structural.
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【Editor's Recommendation】
🩹Maggie Nelson, author of "Bluets" and "The Argonauts," delivers her latest life narrative, transforming the body into poetry
*Using "mouth pain" as a starting point, from the metallic foreign sensation of a frenectomy to diagnostic experiences during the pandemic, and the misaligned bite between dreams and reality, Nelson writes the body as a battleground for pain, intimacy, and the struggle of language.
*She continues her characteristic "sharpness and tenderness," weaving together medical records, dream fragments, and cultural metaphors to create a modern allegory about the difficulty of expression and the pain of existence.
🩹The true sequel to "Bluets," reconstructing the philosophical map of pain through fragmented narrative
*Sixteen years later, Nelson continues to respond to the emotional themes of "Bluets" in an episodic style, linking pain and love within a broader, more contemporary historical and cultural context, achieving a contemplation and analysis of intimate relationships, epochal trauma, and life experiences.
*Individual pain acts like a prism, reflecting the shared anxiety of inarticulacy and emotional fissures in the post-pandemic era.
🩹A specimen of pain in the pandemic era: when personal medical records become an X-ray of the spirit of the times
*During the lockdown in Los Angeles, she documented the physical pain of her "teeth like estranged cousins" while witnessing the rapid decline of her friend C's life due to cancer.
*As "Zoom meetings," "COVID panic," and "medical disarray" are embedded in the private narrative, the unspeakable pain in her mouth intertwines with the inflammation of the social body, becoming the most honest testament to pain in the 2020s.
🩹Binding as a visual translation of pain: the synesthetic aesthetics designed by Yamakawa
*The 106×176mm hardcover miniature format is easy to hold, echoing the "intimacy of pain"; the flowing texture of the cover resembles the tremor of a dislocated jaw, conveying the sensory experience of "pain."
*The binding design itself becomes part of the reading experience, a silent response to "unspeakable pain," and a tactile resonance between literature and the body.

2025-08-01

北京联合出版公司

Lucida

168

9787559684172