Autobiography of Red [Paperback]

Anne Carson (Author)

Book Description

Series: Vintage Contemporaries | Publication Date: July 27, 1999

A NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR
National book Critics Circle Award Finalist  

"Anne Carson is, for me, the most exciting poet writing in English today."--Michael Ondaatje

"This book is amazing--I haven't discovered any writing in years so marvelously disturbing." --Alice Munro

            
The award-winning poet Anne Carson reinvents a genre in Autobiography of Red, a stunning work that is both a novel and a poem, both an unconventional re-creation of an ancient Greek myth and a wholly original coming-of-age story set in the present.

Geryon, a young boy who is also a winged red monster, reveals the volcanic terrain of his fragile, tormented soul in an autobiography he begins at the age of five. As he grows older, Geryon escapes his abusive brother and affectionate but ineffectual mother, finding solace behind the lens of his camera and in the arms of a young man named Herakles, a cavalier drifter who leaves him at the peak of infatuation. When Herakles reappears years later, Geryon confronts again the pain of his desire and embarks on a journey that will unleash his creative imagination to its fullest extent. By turns whimsical and haunting, erudite and accessible, richly layered and deceptively simple, Autobiography of Red is a profoundly moving portrait of an artist coming to terms with the fantastic accident of who he is.

"A profound love story . . . sensuous and funny, poignant, musical and tender."--The New York Times Book Review

"A deeply odd and immensely engaging book. . . . [Carson] exposes with passionate force the mythic underlying the explosive everyday."  --The Village Voice

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Anne Carson's Autobiography of Red is a novel in verse, the author's first. A classicist by profession as well as a poet, Carson has drawn on antiquity for her cast, updating the myth of Geryon and Herakles. In the original version, of course, Herakles killed the red-skinned, winged Geryon. In Carson's very contemporary retelling, he merely inspires, but does not return, the monster's passion. By choosing Geryon as her central character, Carson can bring up the questions of existence as if they hadn't been asked before. After all, the monster's instincts have not been numbed by civilization. Fires twist through him. We feel the pain of learning the most elementary things, and then the volcanic intensity that comes with that more advanced thing, love. Yet Carson doesn't so much tell the story of Geryon's love as mediate his very being through semiological surfaces: cafes, video stores, lipstick, a library where he shelves government documents with a "forlorn austerity, / tall and hushed in their ranges as veterans of a forgotten war." Carson seldom satisfies herself with an image of the world. Instead she atomizes the world, leaving it broken down, refracted, and glinting. At times her verbal pyrotechnics manage to render pure energy:

A little button at the end of each range activated the fluorescent track above it.
A yellowing 5 x 7 index card
Scotch-taped below each button said EXTINGUISH LIGHT WHEN NOT IN USE.
Geryon went flickering
through the ranges like a bit of mercury flipping the switches on and off.
The librarians thought him
a talented boy with a shadow side.

No novelist could have gotten away with that last line. Yet it's very much to the point: Carson's Geryon is, among other things, a camera freak who doesn't understand that an observer must inevitably alter the nature of the thing observed. Here is Heisenberg's uncertainty principle, cheek-by-jowl with the ancients! And indeed, Carson's achievement is to interweave the archaic and the modern so seamlessly that by the time we finish reading Autobiography of Red, the entire landscape looks inside out. --Mark Rudman --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Is it poetry? Is it a novel in verse? A fable? A myth? However you define Carson's distinctive and wildly inventive new work, it is riveting reading. At the center of the narrative is a winged red monster named Geryon; throughout, we see him struggling with his family, falling for the indifferent Herakles, and discovering photography as a means of comfort and escape. Wistful yet whimsical, offhand yet intense, funky yet erudite (Carson, a classics professor at McGill, grounds this work in ancient Greek myth), this is a reading experience like no other.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Vintage (July 27, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 037570129X
• ISBN-13: 978-0375701290
• Product Dimensions: 5.1 x 0.4 x 8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (34 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,411 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #1 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Canadian
  • #37 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Poetry
  • #59 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Mythology

More About the Author

Anne Carson was born in Canada and teaches ancient Greek for a living. Her awards and honors include the Lannan Award, the Pushcart Prize, the Griffin Trust Award for Excellence in Poetry, a Guggenheim fellowship, and the MacArthur "Genius" Award.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars this book has gotten under my fingernails, September 28, 1999

By 

Emily Sobel (Columbia University, NYC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Autobiography of Red (Paperback)

Anne Carson has created a mindscape. Her choice of style, dialogue (both Internal and Between), and language situate her characters on a mental landscape rather than a physical one. Even the frame of the story grounds the book in time as opposed to space. The book's construction and layout are beautiful. Carson's character Geryon holds such integrity that I now see little red wings on men and women everywhere. Read this book in one or two sittings for a completely overwhelming experience.

13 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazed, March 3, 2003

By 

"fattsmorla2" (Albuquerque, NM) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Autobiography of Red (Paperback)

This is one of the most interesting books I have read in a while. It moves beautifully between a mysterious, mythic presence to a heavy, all-to-human narrative. And this is to say nothing of its form! The economy of the writing is precise and exacting. The Verse was strangely magical, projecting me into the nebulous space beyond what Carson had written. I will certainly have to read this a few more times, because I think there is still much to be revealed even after one pass.

24 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Magical, lovely and effective., December 21, 2002

By 

Hovig J. Heghinian (Houston, TX USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Autobiography of Red (Paperback)

"Autobiography of Red" is the story of Geryon, a young boy with red skin and large wings, who grows into a young man. He is in love with Herakles, a young man who seems to return Geryon's affection, but is actually quite cruel in his fickleness. The two encounter each other on and off over the years, Geryon seeking love, Herakles seeking adventure. Their paths eventually cross in Buenos Aires, of all places, where Herakles is with another young man, Ancash, recording the sounds of various volcanos. The three venture through South America together, the tension between the three of them almost palpable, at least to the more sensitive two of the group, Ancash and Geryon. It is here that the three must decide on the nature of their friendship, and Geryon on the nature of his life.

This book is written in poetic free verse, and Ann Carson's style is nothing less than magical. It might seem difficult for readers accustomed to straightforward prose, but if one lets the words wash over them, their meaning will all be clear soon enough, and their beauty alone will convince the reader of their merit. The story is based on Greek myth, but rather than Herakles killing Geryon the monster literally, he "kills" by breaking his heart. Ultimately, the book's message seems to be that Geryon must learn to love himself first. The book is beautifully written, and cannot be recommended highly enough, to any reader who wants to read a delicate story in a challenging format.