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Pages are clean with normal wear. May have limited markings & or highlighting within pages & or cover. Includes dustjacket if applicable. May have some wear & creases on the cover. The spine may also have minor wear. Does not come with CD DVD if applicable. Access code has been used if applicable. Does not come with any supplementary materials. Pages are clean with normal wear. May have limited markings & or highlighting within pages & or cover. Includes dustjacket if applicable. May have some wear & creases on the cover. The spine may also have minor wear. Does not come with CD DVD if applicable. Access code has been used if applicable. Does not come with any supplementary materials. See less
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The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning Paperback – August 13, 2012

by Maggie Nelson (Author)
4.4 out of 5 stars 182 ratings
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"This is criticism at its best." ―Carolyn Kellogg, Los Angeles Times

Writing in the tradition of Susan Sontag and Elaine Scarry, Maggie Nelson has emerged as one of our foremost cultural critics with this landmark work about representations of cruelty and violence in art. From Sylvia Plath’s poetry to Francis Bacon’s paintings, from the Saw franchise to Yoko Ono’s performance art, Nelson’s nuanced exploration across the artistic landscape ultimately offers a model of how one might balance strong ethical convictions with an equally strong appreciation for work that tests the limits of taste, taboo, and permissibility.

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  1. Print length
    304 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    W. W. Norton & Company
  4. Publication date
    August 13, 2012
  5. Dimensions
    5.5 x 0.8 x 8.3 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0393343146
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0393343144
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From the Publisher

"Criticism at its best."-Carolyn Kellogg, Los Angeles Times

"Reading it can feel like having the best conversation of your life."--Rachel Syme, NPR Books

"Fascinating and bracingly intelligent."-Troy Jollimore, Boston Globe

Editorial Reviews

Review

"An important and frequently surprising book… could be read as the foundation for a post-avant-garde aesthetics… Nelson, who is also a poet, is such a graceful writer that I…just sat back and enjoyed the show."
― Laura Kipnis, New York Times Book Review

"[Nelson’s] critiques of individual artists are delightfully fierce without being mean spirited… Fascinating and bracingly intelligent…The Art of Cruelty’s prose is often gorgeous."
― Troy Jollimore, Boston Globe

"A lean-forward experience, and in its most transcendent moments, reading it can feel like having the best conversation of your life."
― Rachel Syme, NPR Books

"I hope that critics, and aspiring critics, and those who are interested in the relationship between art and ethics, read [The Art of Cruelty]."
― Susie Linfield, New Republic

"[Nelson] dexterously, and creatively, manages to hold a mirror to our culture’s fascination with cruelty and invites us to reflect on our personal reasons for indulging it."
― Eleni Theodoropoulos, Literary Hub

About the Author

Maggie Nelson is the author of many acclaimed books of poetry and prose, including Like Love, The Argonauts, and Bluets. She currently teaches at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition (August 13, 2012)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0393343146
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393343144
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 2.31 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.5 x 0.8 x 8.3 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.4 out of 5 stars 182 ratings

About the author

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Maggie Nelson

Maggie Nelson

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Maggie Nelson is the author of several acclaimed books in multiple genres, including Pathemata, Or, The Story of My Mouth (Wave Books, 2025), Like Love: Essays and Conversations (Graywolf Press, 2024), On Freedom: Four Songs of Care and Constraint (Graywolf Press, 2021), The Argonauts (Graywolf Press, 2015), global best-seller, one of the New York Times's Top 100 Books of the 21st Century, and winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award; a landmark work of cultural, art, and literary criticism titled The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning (Norton, 2011), which was named a NY Times Notable Book of the Year; the cult classic Bluets (Wave Books, 2009), which was named by Bookforum one of the 10 best books of the past 20 years; a memoir about her family, media spectacle, and sexual violence titled The Red Parts (originally published by Free Press in 2007, reissued by Graywolf in 2016); and a critical study of painting and poetry titled Women, the New York School, and Other True Abstractions (University of Iowa, 2007; winner, the Susanne M. Glassock Award for Interdisciplinary Scholarship). Her books of poetry include Something Bright, Then Holes (Soft Skull Press, 2007), Jane: A Murder (Soft Skull, 2005; finalist, the PEN/Martha Albrand Award for the Art of the Memoir), The Latest Winter (Hanging Loose Press, 2003), and Shiner (Hanging Loose, 2001). She has been the recipient of a Creative Capital Literature Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship in Nonfiction, an NEA Fellowship in Poetry, and an Andy Warhol Foundation/Creative Capital Arts Writers Grant. In 2016 she received a MacArthur "genius" grant. She currently teaches at the University of Southern California.

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4.4 out of 5 stars
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Top reviews from the United States

  • Meg Tuite
    5.0 out of 5 stars Nelson is brilliant! Unparallleled and unforgettable! GET A COPY! LOVE!!!
    Reviewed in the United States on June 17, 2017
    Verified Purchase
    lingered over "The Art of Cruelty: A Reckoning," for a while. With every book Nelson writes I am making lists of artists, writers, and films to visit or revisit. The questions that Nelson raises are not only fascinating, but necessary for me as a writer. Delving into the human experience of violence, trauma, and what it is to survive the every day existence is absolutely focal to the artists she includes in this panorama of carnival rides. How much can one take? Are you ready for the slaughterhouse in Wender's film? Asphyxiation? Mutilation? Human as meat on the canvas and on stage? "Francis Bacon was one of those who insisted that humans will always suffer, no matter how just their circumstances, and that to argue otherwise is to deny a fundamental aspect of the human condition." YES! Nelson asks us to "think of pain of being poor, of being raped, of being enslaved, of being gay-bashed, of being forced into exile, of losing everything in a natural disaster, of suffering from an illness such as HIV or cancer (or any illness, especially if one does not have access to health care to treat it): such experiences swirl all kinds of human-made and primordial sufferings together."
    Nelson lays it all out, but leaves the judgment to us.
    6 people found this helpful
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  • Blaze Gottschalk
    5.0 out of 5 stars Dense, though personable. Countless, rich perspectives.
    Reviewed in the United States on October 23, 2015
    Verified Purchase
    I hand-picked this book for a class requirement to review a book, so I read it a bit beyond my more comfortable reading speed.

    That said, I enjoyed every perspective it gave; and perspectives are the entirety of this book. It's very open about criticisms and attacking the author's own initial beliefs. Nelson does a great job remaining unbiased, or if she's biased, to address it and explain it.

    There's numerous critiques of common perspectives, but most of this book is regarding art which the common person might not know of, providing a new ground for understanding.
    7 people found this helpful
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  • John F.
    4.0 out of 5 stars Interesting book
    Reviewed in the United States on October 9, 2011
    Verified Purchase
    Maggie Nelson in this book is clearly experimenting with language in art criticism. I much appreciated this aspect. Common readers, i.e. readers that are not trained in art criticism, often find art theory pure invention, fanciful speculation or arcane discourse. Nelson investigations and questions are simple, specific, concrete and objectively reasonable. How did she managed to do this? talking in first person as personally and emotionally engaged. The topic, artistic issues related with an hypothetical (since theorized in theater by Artaud and barely mentioned in art) "Art of Cruelty", is very original and Nelson is brilliant in raising it to critical attention.
    9 people found this helpful
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  • Sarah
    5.0 out of 5 stars Very interesting read.
    Reviewed in the United States on December 31, 2019
    Verified Purchase
    Good experience with this seller, no issues. The item was just what I was looking for.
    One person found this helpful
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  • Ariane
    5.0 out of 5 stars Muy contenta
    Reviewed in the United States on December 29, 2019
    Verified Purchase
    Me gustó mucho
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  • William Wilkins
    5.0 out of 5 stars Great Product! Great Price!! Great Service!!!
    Reviewed in the United States on April 14, 2019
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    Great Product! Great Price!! Great Service!!!
    One person found this helpful
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  • Jean-Jacques Baguette
    5.0 out of 5 stars a significant book: timeless and timely
    Reviewed in the United States on July 29, 2011
    Verified Purchase
    incredibly wide-ranging reading informs a focused erudition and incisive analysis of an important subject many people have trouble merely thinking about; highly intelligent, yet readable and approachable... great style
    9 people found this helpful
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  • LB
    2.0 out of 5 stars maybe
    Reviewed in the United States on August 15, 2011
    Verified Purchase
    While this writer is clearly a brilliant person, she is not a clear writer. She has written about a very interesting topic in a manner more akin to a doctoral dissertation than to a book for mainstream readers. It is possible to be an intellectual, even a theorist, but still communicate directly. That doesn't happen here. When she includes political comments she is consistently "politically correct." The problem with that is that one quickly pigeonholes her perspective. To me it is always more interesting when an essayist is unpredictable. I wish I could recommend this book but that isn't the case.
    14 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

  • Synth
    5.0 out of 5 stars Thorough, considered and diverse.
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on June 23, 2014
    Verified Purchase
    My favourite art criticism book, readable. Personable and covering art, life, media, film and literature. Well written and powerfully presented. A great overview of a vastly unchartered, subject- viewed with an eye which assesses but does not overly assert.
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  • Avid reader
    3.0 out of 5 stars Disappointed with this book
    Reviewed in the United Kingdom on May 26, 2016
    Verified Purchase
    This was far too academic and intellectual for me. Not that I couldn't understand it but more that Ms Nelson seems to have erected a barrier between her heart and the reader, something which she did not do when she wrote JANE.
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