Mel Campbell's Reviews > The Argonauts

I taught this book at La Trobe University in the subject ‘Narrative Analysis’. It was the one I was most looking forward to – I’d been meaning to read it for ages – but as soon as I got started I realised how badly I’d misjudged it. I’d had the idea it was going to be a fun Jennifer Egan-style romp but instead it was a turgid autofiction in the vein of Chris Kraus, whose work I struggle to enjoy.

I was thinking the students, who were mostly second-year undergraduates, would struggle with the critical theory and the fragmented structure, but to my surprise they loved it almost unanimously, and many students chose to write their essays about it.

Meanwhile I was like, “Life is too short to keep reading this.”

I mean, she couldn’t even get the Ship of Theseus metaphor right.