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Autobiography of Red (Red #1)

by Anne Carson

4.35 of 5 stars 4.35 · rating details · 6,866 ratings · 680 reviews

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

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 re ...more

Paperback , 149 pages

Published July 27th 1999 by Vintage (first published March 31st 1998)

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Recent Questions

Did all of Geryons peers and Herakles family know that Geryon had wings? and if so, how did they feel about him having wings? did they think of him as a monster or did they find him beautiful?

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Lists with This Book

Novels in Verse

38th out of 239 books — 569 voters

Shakespeare's Sonnets by William Shakespeare

The Waste Land and Other Poems by T.S. Eliot

Best Poetry Books

121st out of 1,553 books — 1,721 voters

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Community Reviews

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Jan 31, 2013 Mariel rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommends it for: gaiety transfiguring all that dread

Recommended to Mariel by: Miriam

What do they think about? Floating in there. All night.
Nothing.
That's impossible.
Why?
You can't be alive and think about nothing. You can't but you're not a whale.
Why would it be different?
Why should it be the same? But I look in their eyes and I see them thinking.
Nonsense. It is yourself you see- it's guilt.
Guilt? Why would I be guilty about whales? Not my fault they're in a tank.
Exactly. So why are you guilty- whose tank are you in?

Australian goodreader Sean (account since nuked, sadly) wrote

What do they think about? Floating in there. All night.
Nothing.
That's impossible.
Why?
You can't be alive and think about nothing. You can't but you're not a whale.
Why would it be different?
Why should it be the same? But I look in their eyes and I see them thinking.
Nonsense. It is yourself you see- it's guilt.
Guilt? Why would I be guilty about whales? Not my fault they're in a tank.
Exactly. So why are you guilty- whose tank are you in?

Australian goodreader Sean (account since nuked, sadly) wrote a review of Garden, Ashes (a wonderful book) on Christmas. He said it was his "Christmas miracle", saving the day. That had made me smile because I had felt that way about Anne Carson's Autobiography of Red. It may seem a bit weird to write that now because days after it have needed "saving". Some kind of weight on the empty place. It doesn't matter. It is enough to have it when I can have it. In the end he gets to fly, to swim. I just breathed. If you have to know how to look at it then I can look at it refracted through them. Just don't stop doing that.

We are amazing beings,
Geryon is thinking. We are neighbors of fire.
And now time is rushing towards them
where they stand side by side with arms touching, immortality on their faces, night at their back.

Geryon is a little boy and he goes to his mother. He stays by her side. They are up all night. They make dinner. They turn on every light in the house. Geryon saves the voices his mother makes when she reads to him. He keeps them safe by allowing the babysitter to read in voices she cannot get wrong, because they are not his mother's voices. She comes home to him when he is awake. He must have forgotten to stay awake for her. Would it ever be warmer than this. Days turn into nights and secrets. He meets him. Herakles on his red wing tips carrying dust. Folding back arms for a hug. She still folds his t-shirts. Mother can hug him no more. I wanted him to stay in that kitchen with his mother but he couldn't. I wonder if she turns on lights without him, or just watches the empty fruit bowl. Still life painting without the life subject. Geryon always cries when they make love. Herakles couldn't wait forever. He's so impatient I wonder if he's just waiting to get old. When he's old he'll be impatient to be young. Herakles hides on his grandmother's porch. I imagine he uses his grandmother as something of his own when he wants to shut out. He would use her as something of his own, like a secret, when he wants to invite in. This is where I live, my family, my end of the sofa. Geryon floats. Suspenders under his coat, wings kept in, he flies above the land to where the Nazis and Argentinians live. He studies volcanoes. Mountains with left over ashes and fires to be started kept within. Herakles comes back. Herakles has Ancash. Paintings that look like something from far away. When you get up close he is back in your bed. I wouldn't want to be in love with Herakles. I would be afraid to dance like Angela on My So-Called Life (to "Tears of the Sun") when she believes she's finally over Jordan Catalano. It's a dance to convince oneself. It's a denial and the only thing you can do. Don't want to find out if you're wrong. Geryon is close to the mountain. He could jump in, if he doesn't learn another place. He could have made a sacrifice. Autobiography of Red was my Christmas miracle when Geryon is okay without Herakles. I really needed that. No one can kill your red dog or anything if you can be okay with yourself. It's something about not wanting anyone else's secret. There is no power there anymore. Something about not living in dreams. Or maybe it was his new boyfriend sitting up in the cold outside. Would you look into the beluga whales and see only yourself in the tank or just wish they could swim and keep on. I'd put something with wings on top of that Christmas tree and light all the candles for that. ...more

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Aug 13, 2007 Laurie Neighbors rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites

Oh, you should read this book. It's smart and sweet and tender and original. It's erotic, but just under your skin. It's a novel in verse, but don't let that deter you. You can pick it up off the shelf and settle into a big armchair in the bookstore and read the whole thing for free in an hour (even relishing and re-reading parts). But then you'll probably want to buy it anyway so that you can take it home and sleep with it under your pillow for the rest of your life.

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Sep 10, 2011 Jessica rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Jessica by: samantha morgan

Shelves: favorites , leetle-boys , hagging-out , love-and-other-indoor-sports , don-t-cry-for-me , people-turn-to-creatures

I read this book when I was about twenty, and it was the greatest thing that I'd ever read. Then I purposely avoided rereading it for over a decade after that, terrified that it couldn't be as incredible as I remembered.

So recently I did have to reread it, for school. And no, it didn't do to me what it did the first time that I read it, and it no longer seems light years greater than any other book in human history. HOWEVER, it is still really great and one of my all-time favorites, and I'd reco ...more

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Aug 29, 2015 Aubrey rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry , rage-against-the-sexuality , reality-check , macarthur-fellows , shorty-short , 1-read-on-hand , r-2015 , r-goodreads , reviewed , 4-star , antidote-think-twice-read

It was taking him a very long while
to set up the camera. Enormous pools of a moment kept opening around his hands
each time he tried to move them.

Every so often my education comes in handy when I am confronted by a piece that does not seize me by the heart and wring it till I weep like it has apparently done for most everyone else. One could say peer pressure, or one could admit to capitalism and how a measure of discipline is needed in analyzing any work that is mandated, regardless of personal adoration. Besides, this is one of those works that I really need to go back and reread The Iliad and The Odyssey and co. for, albeit I dislike necessitating the swallowing of the same old canon for a work that should stand on its own, albeit there's many a confabulation of myth and written and blasphemy tickling my brain that I would so like to pin down to the count, albeit what the hell am I doing in the major of English if I want to forgo more reading for reading's sake, so. Sometimes the internal to-and-fro works like these provoke is worth the cost of purely academic parsing alone.

What have you written that could strike you blind? Not lie or truth but sacrilege, much like that fine line between fanfiction and kindred souls of Pulitzer Prize winners that so troubled a professor when I responded to his offer of The Hours with lack of interest. I'd believe there was a difference in type rather than quality were the halls not so full of Shakespeare and Milton and those who knew what one should steal in order to enjoy the better legacy of Prometheus. Go big, go ancient, go poetic and/or historical, go foundering on the threat of military might or the wracking of the very own soul, the mind of a male of red-rued means that bypasses death for the photo volcano and finds a refuge, like so many of us, in art. Perhaps not from love, or wings, or child on child sexual assault, but from real to representation nonetheless. There's reasons why Plato banished the stuff.

I didn't like this as much as The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos . Course, I was reading poetry a lot more regularly back then, so I may be thinking myself set on track while in reality dangling preciously off the back of the horse. Still, I can appreciate the feeling of the need to pay tribute in whys and wherefores that take wordselves far more seriously than the world deems fit to grant. Imagine all those objects rising up against their subjects and tearing eyes from their sockets. What a riot.

People, thought Geryon,
for whom life
is a marvelous adventure. He moved off into the tragicomedy of the crowd.

...more

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Jun 09, 2010 Miriam rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommends it for: synesthetes

Recommended to Miriam by: Ceridwen Christensen

Shelves: poetry , mythology

Seldom have I seen a writer so maximize the balance between raw, grated, difficult, emotional pain and beautiful words that make me want to clutch them to my bosom and squeeze them with delight while making burbling noises of pleasure.

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Mar 08, 2015 Ellie rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: poetry , 2015indchallenge

Sometimes I read a work that is so complete that I don't want to write a review. Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson is that kind of book.

A retelling of the story of Geryon, a red-winged monster who has a short but painful affair with Heracles that reverberates through his life.

What struck me was Geryon's unending effort to make art out of his life-first through writing, even as a child before he could actually write, and then as a photographer. Geryon's life is painful but he constantly searche ...more

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Sep 26, 2015 Neal Adolph rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2015-reads , north-american , poetry , novellas , to-reread

In my short life I have learned that short novels need to be read for as long as they can be. Then the good ones should be reread. This is a challenge. These short novels masquerade themselves as something that you can appreciate in a few hours of reading. Yes, you can read The Lover in an afternoon, or The Hour of the Star in a few hours on a park bench with a good coffee in hand, or you can sit with The Crying of Lot 49 one Tuesday evening and get through it all. If you have the ability to han ...more

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Oct 27, 2013 Pewterbreath rated it 4 of 5 stars

Not in a long time have I obsessively read anything, just to want to obsessively re-read it all in one fell swoop. There's two parts to this book: first is the meta-writing bit--poem fragments and the like from the original Hercules myth, a writer who goes blind for insulting Helen, and then regains his sight again for rescinding his comment (how very political) and the like. This part is good (not great--just good).

It's the story itself that is absolutely wonderful. Anne Carson is good at many ...more

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Jul 12, 2007 Andrew Tibbetts rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommends it for: Any fan of creative literature

Shelves: canadian

This novel was written for me, it feels. It has the perfect blend of funny and sad, raw and elegant, intellectual and sensual. It blew my mind when I read it. And it's the one of only two books I've re-read several times (Great Expectations being the other.)

There are some clever metafictional framing sections which come at the material from historical and literary angles, but the central section, the heart of the book, is the story, the novel in verse.

"Verse" in Anne Carson isn't strident metri ...more

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Jun 24, 2013 Jeff Jackson rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: poetry

This was surprisingly engaging, emotional, and compulsively plot-driven. I've found other Carson texts occasionally too knotty and the first 20 pages made it seem like this was more of the same. But the importance of the set-up soon becomes clear and gives way to a poetically charged and compelling coming-of-age story that seamlessly mixes modern life with Greek legend. There are lots of wonderful reviews for this, so the only thing I'll add is that if you've been hesitating DON'T BE DAUNTED. Ta ...more

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Nov 05, 2008 brian rated it 4 of 5 stars

if you no like this book, i no like you

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Mar 15, 2011 Kathryn rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: poetry , religion-myth

I liked this very much. The entire work is perfection, with the exception of the evasive ending. The awe I felt while reading was lessened due to this, which makes me very sad as this is a beautiful and heartwrenching book. I really wish it had ended with a stronger conclusion.

This book managed to smack against my ick wall pretty early. Umm, yeah, I am so not qualified to write a review or anything resembling a review about this book.

I found the book accessible yet distant, dreamy but familiar I liked this very much. The entire work is perfection, with the exception of the evasive ending. The awe I felt while reading was lessened due to this, which makes me very sad as this is a beautiful and heartwrenching book. I really wish it had ended with a stronger conclusion.

This book managed to smack against my ick wall pretty early. Umm, yeah, I am so not qualified to write a review or anything resembling a review about this book.

I found the book accessible yet distant, dreamy but familiar. Carson wrote in a tone I am unused to but learned to love quickly. The author crawled into her character's head and grasped so much, understood so much of what it is to be young, in lust, unsure, and in pain. Geryon is one of the most fascinating characters I have ever read. He saw the world unlike anyone else in the book. For example,

It was the year he began to wonder about the noise that colors make. Roses came
roaring across the garden at him.
He lay on his bed at night listening to the silver light of stars crashing against
the window screen...
Why is grass called blades? he asked them. Isn't it because of the clicking?

Geryon is a romantic, a red monster with wings, lost in the world. I knew before starting that in Greek myth, Geryon was killed by Heracles, a hindrance to the hero completing his tenth labour. Carson included commentary and analysis, at times wry and loosely interpreted, of Stesichorus' incomplete poem about Geryon. Once Carson began her novel in verse, the reader was prepared for a young, humanized character, which Carson was quick to provide a back story for, eliciting deep sympathy from the reader.

This is one of those books I want to buy to have on my shelves so I can periodically take it down and again read one of the many beautiful or startling lines Carson wrote. I hope to read more of her work soon. ...more

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Sep 25, 2010 Msmurphybylaw rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: best-of-the-best

Most people who know me through work or socially find my cynicism biting yet funny. I get compliments often on my wit, though it is dark and sharp. I'm surprised when people tell me that I'm quite entertaining, because I tend withdrawal and am generally introverted. I have psychological test to back this up. I am forever the INTJ. Sometimes bordering on the J, but never the I.
This review contains, what may seem an infinite narcissistic hall of mirrors, reflecting Fibonacci images of big ol' Al, Most people who know me through work or socially find my cynicism biting yet funny. I get compliments often on my wit, though it is dark and sharp. I'm surprised when people tell me that I'm quite entertaining, because I tend withdrawal and am generally introverted. I have psychological test to back this up. I am forever the INTJ. Sometimes bordering on the J, but never the I.
This review contains, what may seem an infinite narcissistic hall of mirrors, reflecting Fibonacci images of big ol' Al, but that is what the book did for me.
It brought ME out.
Every page was exquisite and I can only describe my feelings that emoted while reading this book as paper-thin alabaster porcelain. It may be hard to grasp this tactile description, but the best way to put it is: bone-hard-butterfly-delicate. Maybe glass heart would be the best description.
I'm losing you.
Unique bits of virgin emotion or unearthed buried crap needing to bubble up and work itself out through prose or verse wriggled through the chapters slowly fingering my synapses tricking me to believe again in art.

Here is the best part to hear me out and my reflective side: I'm a pretty rough around the edges kinda manly-Momma. I wasn't always this way, but life happens. I'm pessimistic and fuck the water in the glass; I don't care how many angels can dance on the head of a freaking pin, but this book of verse touched me. It reached into my teeniest of tiny air sacks and breathed life into them. It rearranged my current mindset and shook my perspective to its core.
I like that.
I like that a book can do that.
That I can become:
An admirer of romance
Embracing of Tragedies
Tolerant of love triangles
A patron of the Tango, even if it is not for everyone
A lover of Lava Bread
Blinded because I still think Helen may be a whore

I read a lot of books and when I find myself skipping pages in them and falling into the negative camp or I feel myself drifting towards the blues, I read a passage or two from Red. Close the book, breath in deeply and softly stroke the cover feeling revived. ...more

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Dec 06, 2011 Patty rated it 5 of 5 stars

It's not often that a book of poems makes my heart pound.
I started reading it before bed on Sunday night. I was EXCITED TO WAKE UP ON MONDAY MORNING because I couldn't wait to get on the subway and continue reading it. On a Monday. Morning. Enough said?

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Aug 05, 2007 Bina rated it 5 of 5 stars

This hybrid novel / epic poem is one of my favorites. It wreaked havoc on my life, mostly in a good way.

Based on the Greek myth of Herakles (Hercules for all you Romans), it recasts Geryon, the slayed, sheepherding red-winged monster, as a protagonist who also takes form as a gay, socially-marginalized school boy. From the monster's perspective, a story unfolds that is at once disturbing, coruscating, and beautiful.

The way Carson shapes verse awes me, you want to touch her craft, know its conto ...more

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Jan 06, 2011 Eric rated it 3 of 5 stars

Recommended to Eric by: Ceridwen Sparkle Princess

Shelves: poetry , bagatelle

Formally very beautiful, delivers all the pleasures (celerity, compression, wit) I associate with "A Novel in Verse." But I found the story (assuming it can be considered apart from form) wan and Geryon vaguely annoying. Looking forward to Plainwater .

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Jun 27, 2012 Beth rated it 5 of 5 stars

This book is the perfect combination of story and philosophy. It conveys the immediacy of sensory and emotional experience while simultaneously asking serious intellectual questions about that experience. The main character, Geryon, is a version of a monster from Greek mythology. Carson turns his monstrosity into all that is both beautiful and difficult about being a creative and desiring person.

The main part of the book is the story of a romance between Geryon and Herakles (In Greek mythology H ...more

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Jun 24, 2008 Ruby rated it 5 of 5 stars

Recommends it for: poets, underdogs, people who have fallen in love with a breeze

Shelves: teen-obsessions , poetry , classics , favorites

This book marks, without an ember of doubt, the first time I've ever felt burned by my lack of education in the classics. I approached this book ready to feel cowed and lost, so I was enthralled when that was not the case.

I understand Geryon intimately, for I, too am a red creature.

From a forgotten notebook of mine:

"On my steady diet of nicotine and coffee, my thoughts grind (like bad teeth) into points. I am a sharp-shaped thing. A needle, an arrow, I cut. I can touch rage: rage that was the o ...more

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Dec 10, 2012 August Smith rated it 5 of 5 stars

I'll be honest, my initial reaction as I began "Autobiography of Red" was a rolling of my eyes. The book opens with a short, informal "essay", which functions as a way of contextualizing the main narrative in the mythological/historical framework of Stesichoros' writing. And while reading this essay, I grew worried that the "novel in verse" was going to be another fragmented postmodern reference-fest; the essay evokes a snarky sense of humor, drops a Baudrillard quote, and talks about how "words I'll be honest, my initial reaction as I began "Autobiography of Red" was a rolling of my eyes. The book opens with a short, informal "essay", which functions as a way of contextualizing the main narrative in the mythological/historical framework of Stesichoros' writing. And while reading this essay, I grew worried that the "novel in verse" was going to be another fragmented postmodern reference-fest; the essay evokes a snarky sense of humor, drops a Baudrillard quote, and talks about how "words bounce" and "float", all within the first three or four pages. The book's brief page count pushed me to power through it.

Interestingly, the book changes mood, voice, and subject matter multiple times in the first fifth of the book, throwing a lot of information at the reader before sending them sailing through the main narrative. This technique is initially confusing, but eventually effective: the Appendices' ideas and snippets- now floating around in the head of the reader- become increasingly relevant and interesting as the book progresses, and the reader may find themselves flipping back to these earlier chapters to observe parallels and clues to the narrative.

As for the narrative itself, I'm surprised I don't see people referring to it as "magical realism" more often. The blending of mythologies and contemporary society in a seamless narrative arc reminded me of something like Neil Gaiman meets Marquez. But that comparison doesn't do justice to Carson's control of language: she masterfully walks the dangerous line between poetic abstractness/subjectivity/non-linearity and straightforward narrative. As I slowly got a grasp on Carson's shrouded sense of humor and keen eye for pacing and setting, I started to enjoy the book immensely. And retroactively, the introduction essay "opened up" for me; my gripes with the book dematerialized, and all I have left is admiration for it.

Let it wash over you. Be like Geryon, rolling along with the narrative as best as you can, and you will find yourself turning from the last page to the first page again almost immediately. ...more

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Apr 25, 2015 Pete rated it 5 of 5 stars

i could quibble and say that the novel aspect trails off a little but that would be only quibbling. this is smart, cruel, loving, literary, accessible, weird, universal, poetry, prose, short, voluminous, comic and tragic. all books should be more like this book.

here is Geryon flying in a plane to Buenos Aires:

Fear of time came at him. Time
was squeezing Geryon like the pleats of an accordion. He ducked his head to peer
into the little cold black glare of the window.
Outside a bitten moon rode fast ...more

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Sep 01, 2009 Leanna rated it 2 of 5 stars

Well, I finally finished this. I suppose I find the style intriguing (long lines, short lines)) as well as the concept (red-winged monster-person has his heart broken), but ultimately the book didn't do much for me. I know this book is much loved by many friends of mine, so I do kind of have that "what am I missing?" feeling.

I guess here is why I didn't like it that much--what's the point of all that framing stuff in the introduction? And, more importantly, I found the love story very ordinary- ...more

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Jan 01, 2015 Will rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: favorites , pantheon , ancient-world , poetry

Autobiography of Red is an epic without the endless description and patronymics. And that only makes it better. Anne Carson is a literary genius. Her syntax is remarkable and her purpose is never clear. Those are two reasons I loved this, but there are many others. Read it. You will feel strange, but undoubtedly you will learn something from this. I don't know what you'll learn, nor do I know what I learned. Judge it for yourself.

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Dec 05, 2014 Nick Jirsa rated it 4 of 5 stars

Recommended to Nick by: Mary M

Shelves: poetry , structure , 2014-reading

Stellar read. This work could be mentally exhausting at times. It's large in scope, yet incredibly intimate. Sensual, funny, and philosophical at turns; thoughts are shaded by emotions, colors run magnificently, and push inward, and outward. Anne Carson does a heck of a lot with the language she uses. It's fairly minimal in a sense since it tells the story through verse, but there always something greater than the words being used. A sense that goes beyond the words, and reaches up past the page ...more

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Jul 02, 2014 Lori rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: absolute-favorites

Anne Carson took all the words and did something with them that I've never seen before. I read in awe and wonder, and often laughed or had to stop and catch my breath. All I want to do here is write some of the dozens of passages I underlined, sentences, phrases, word pairs circled, starred, noted. The 'what' of this astonishing book is marvelous (other reviews or the blurb provide that), but it's the 'how' of it that is unlike anything else. There are echoes of her phrases bouncing around in my ...more

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Jan 20, 2014 Zoe rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: poetry , queer , unacquired , z

In this tender but brutal book, Anne Carson writes an iron-fortified queer heart, a little red monster hiding his wings:

"A healthy volcano is an exercise in the uses of pressure.
----
Geryon sat on his bed in the hotel room pondering the cracks and fissures

of his inner life. It may happen

the the exit of the volcanic vent is blocked by a plug of rock, forcing

molten matter sideways along

lateral fissures called fire lips by volcanologists. Yet Geryon did not want

to become one of those people

who thin ...more

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Aug 31, 2013 Jim rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2013

With the publication of Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse in 1998, Anne Carson became something of a cult figure.

Carson employed the familiar trope of taking a story out of Greek lore and making it contemporary. But Autobiography of Red is neither epic like James Joyce's Ulysses nor archaic like Mary Shelley's retelling of "The Modern Prometheus" in Frankenstein.

Carson uses the obscure story of Herakles' killing of Geryon, a red-winged creature who watches over a herd, to explore why we are With the publication of Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse in 1998, Anne Carson became something of a cult figure.

Carson employed the familiar trope of taking a story out of Greek lore and making it contemporary. But Autobiography of Red is neither epic like James Joyce's Ulysses nor archaic like Mary Shelley's retelling of "The Modern Prometheus" in Frankenstein.

Carson uses the obscure story of Herakles' killing of Geryon, a red-winged creature who watches over a herd, to explore why we are cursed with "the human custom of wrong love." What little we know of the original tale survives in fragments attributed to Stesichoros, who lived, Carson tells us with tongue planted firmly in cheek, in the time between Homer and Gertrude Stein.

In Carson's version, Geryon is an inordinately sensitive young man who can "feel his eyes leaning out of his skull on their little connectors." Abused by his brother and shunned by his mother, when Geryon comes of age, he trades the domestic nightmare of his childhood home for the rough companionship of Herakles, who proves to be even more indifferent to Geryon's affection than his mother. Red's "autobiography" documents their on-and-off romance and Geryon's burgeoning relationship to art.

Geryon is a hugely sympathetic character—a wounded bird who has to be coaxed from the nest he's built for himself. He's also a monster: His skin is red, and he possesses enormous wings that he keeps hidden underneath his clothing. Geryon is both a modern figure and a mythological creature in the same way that Carson's book is both a novel and a poem.

If an artist is someone who makes the old new and the familiar unfamiliar, then Carson certainly qualifies. The fact that she's an expert in mythology and teaches ancient Greek for a living is both the key to her work and beside the point, because her concerns are contemporary and her language fresh.

"A church bell rang across the page and the hour of six P.M. flowed through the hotel like a wave. Lamps snapped on and white bedspreads sprang forward, water rushed in the walls, the elevator crashed like a mastodon within its hollow cage."

All you really need to know is that Carson writes whatever the hell she wants. Her stories, structure and language are unique, which probably says something about our culture's ambivalent attitude toward history and its chroniclers. ...more

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Sep 21, 2009 Leslie rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: read-in-2009 , ooh-fantastical

Allison: So is it, like, an autobiography of the color red?

Me: No, it's the autobiography of this red, winged monster guy who--

Allison: Oh my god, is he a metaphor for menstruation?!

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Sep 18, 2015 Stine rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: poetry , 1990-2000 , canada

Kan man gi fem stjerner til en bok man ikke fullt ut forstår? Ja.

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Oct 11, 2013 Troy rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: poetry , read-in-2013

Wow, I read this in one setting. While engulfed in the party culture that is Berlin.

Uh... I mean, really, you should go to someone else to read a synopsis. But this book is rough re-telling of one of Stesichoros' poems, which is a re-telling of one of the "labors" of Herakles. In the common myth, Geryon is a fearsome monster with many heads and hands and wings and all red, and Herakles kills his dog, his friend, and then pops his skull with an arrow. And then steals his cows. Stesichoros tells Wow, I read this in one setting. While engulfed in the party culture that is Berlin.

Uh... I mean, really, you should go to someone else to read a synopsis. But this book is rough re-telling of one of Stesichoros' poems, which is a re-telling of one of the "labors" of Herakles. In the common myth, Geryon is a fearsome monster with many heads and hands and wings and all red, and Herakles kills his dog, his friend, and then pops his skull with an arrow. And then steals his cows. Stesichoros tells the story from Geryon's perspective, but most of his version is lost—

Enough of that. Anne Carson's Geryon is goth. Or maybe not goth but definitely goth-y, ya know? Like tortured and alienated and not too sure of himself and he's got these fucking wings and they're gross and big and he has to bind them down so that no one can see him. And he's, like, a monster, all red and shit.

And then this young hot drifter kid comes to town and his name is Herakles. And he's so hot, and he doesn't give a shit, and he just does what he wants, and he likes Geryon. And then they're having sex (and did I tell you that Geryon might have had sex with his brother? like near rape style?).

Anyway, time passes. And it doesn't mean anything to say "spoiler alert." That doesn't mean anything in a Carson book. Anyway, time passes. And Geryon is in Buenos Aires. And he's now a photographer; roughly continuing this project that he started as a kid which was a autobiography, sort of. But it was fully internal and his photography is fully external.

Enough. Anyway, shit happens. And it's sad. And it will resonate. With you. Because who hasn't felt like a monster at some point? And who hasn't had their hearts ripped out by someone that they idealized? And who hasn't tried to do something honest and true and found it so hard to find a voice that felt honest and true; that wasn't just following someone else, but was a spreading of your own gay monstrous freaky-ass red wings? Who hasn't wanted to soar above a volcano, even if you might get burnt, or sacrificed, or... ...more

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Jun 04, 2013 Anastasia Hobbet rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: novel-in-verse

I've long been an Anne Carson addict but had myself under control for years--until a profile of her appeared in The New York Times a couple of months ago and plunged me back into her weird, tangled, miraculous world. I first read this...novel--or maybe novel in verse is more accurate--shortly after it came out, but began anew, experiencing her dark and powerful undertow all over again. Stronger this time.

Autobiography of Red is a retelling of a Stesichorus poem (he lived 640 – 555 BC) about Hera I've long been an Anne Carson addict but had myself under control for years--until a profile of her appeared in The New York Times a couple of months ago and plunged me back into her weird, tangled, miraculous world. I first read this...novel--or maybe novel in verse is more accurate--shortly after it came out, but began anew, experiencing her dark and powerful undertow all over again. Stronger this time.

Autobiography of Red is a retelling of a Stesichorus poem (he lived 640 – 555 BC) about Herakles' last labor, the killing of Geryon, who was a giant, bright-red, winged monster. The 'auto' in the biography is Geryon: the book is told from his POV, and is set in a semi-recognizable present-day North America. Geryon is a thoughtful, troubled young man. Herakles is his fitful and unfaithful lover. They live in suburban houses. Geryon has trouble at school but becomes a philosopher. He's a camera bug. There's a trip to South America, and Emily Dickinson steps on stage with inimitable words about volcanoes. Geryon is still red and winged.

Did I say something about reality? Obviously I'm finding it a challenge to summarize this book. I'll just say that when I'm reading Carson's work, questions throng in my mind, all sparked by amazement: Why did she choose this, do this, say this, leave this out? HOW did she do this? How did she craft this piece of work--so beautiful and moving--from the brutal, fragmented tale left behind by a long-gone Greek?

She succeeds so brilliantly that I find myself wondering what planet she came from. She is definitely not one of us.

Next up: her newest book, which carries Geryon into middle age: Red Doc> (sic)

...more

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About Anne Carson

A professor of the classics, with background in classical languages, comparative literature, anthropology, history, and commercial art, Carson blends ideas and themes from many fields in her writing. She frequently references, modernizes, and translates Ancient Greek literature. She has published fifteen books as of 2010, all of which blend the forms of poetry, essay, prose, criticism, translation ...more

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Other Books in the Series

Red (2 books)

Books by Anne Carson

The Beauty of the Husband: A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos

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