Cannonball Read 13

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time

Search This Site

| Log in
  1. Follow us on Facebook
  2. Follow us on Twitter
  3. Follow us on Instagram
  4. Follow us on Goodreads
  5. RSS Feeds

  • Home
  • About
    • About CBR
    • Getting Started
    • Cannon Book Club
    • Diversions
    • Fan Mail
    • Holiday Book Exchange
    • Book Bingo Reading Challenge
    • Participation Badges
    • AlabamaPink
  • Our Team
    • Leaderboard
    • The CBR Team
    • Recent Comments
    • CBR Interviews
    • Our Volunteers
    • Meet MsWas
  • Categories
    • Review Genres
    • Tags
  • Fight Cancer
    • How We Fight Cancer
    • How You Can Donate
    • Book Sale
    • CBR Merchandise
    • Supporters and Friends of CBR
  • FAQ
  • Contact
    • Contact Form
    • Newsletter Sign Up
    • Newsletter Archive
    • Follow Us
> FAQ Home
> Genre: Fiction > He came after Homer and before Gertrude Stein, a diffi-cult interval for a poet.

He came after Homer and before Gertrude Stein, a diffi-cult interval for a poet.

Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson

May 20, 2020 by vel veeter Leave a Comment

This a short verse novel that takes on a few forms (and like it’s subject could maybe be said to have many faces?). It’s an autobiography of a poet, it’s a novel about a mythical being, and it’s form of mythopoesis that brings that myth into the modern world. It’s not always doing all three at once, and at times jumps back and forth among those different tasks.

We mostly are following Geryon, a three headed mythical creature who guards cattle in a far off land, and these cattle are one of Herakles’s twelve labours. So already, like in John Gardner’s Grendel, we are getting the story of a being whose sole purpose in the stories about him to provide meaning and shape to another heroic quest. It doesn’t work out the same way as in Grendel, but that same sense of purpose outside yourself does show up throughout this novel. The story takes us through ideas about language and object (the relationship between signifier and signified that is part of the way we talk about things, about idea, about people and it muses on the nature and purpose of adjectives in a way that’s reminiscent on the various books and articles about “the wine dark sea”). And in her discussion of the relationship between Herakles and Geryon, we take on the relationship between love object and lover, or pursuer and pursued in interesting ways.

I do like Anne Carson’s various works, and I do like this one as well, though I don’t think I am as enamored with it as so many other people.

(Photo: https://www.amazon.com/Autobiography-Vintage-Contemporaries-Anne-Carson-ebook/dp/B00BH0VSO4/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3LXT66C11DBZY&dchild=1&keywords=autobiography+of+red&qid=1589974464&sprefix=autobio%2Caps%2C216&sr=8-1)

Filed Under: Fiction, Poetry Tagged With: Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red

vel veeter's CBR12 Review No:282 · Genres: Fiction, Poetry · Tags: Anne Carson, Autobiography of Red ·
Rating:
· 0 Comments

About vel veeter

CBR13 participantCBR12 participantCBR11 participantCBR10 participantCBR  9CBR 8

https://www.goodreads.com/user/show/69444656-vel-veeter View vel veeter's reviews»

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.



Recent Comments

  • Ashlie Daigle on CBR Diversions – It’s Never too Late to Have a Happy ChildhoodDid you see the news that the Nimona film adaptation was cancelled? Sob.
  • markabaddon on CBR Diversions – It’s Never too Late to Have a Happy ChildhoodSame. Her interpretation of vampirism was soooo cool to me as a teenager.
  • esme on CBR Diversions – It’s Never too Late to Have a Happy ChildhoodOMG- the Great Brain- I wonder if it holds up? I’ll have to see. I also used the love the Three Investigators. And Encyclopedia Brown....
  • andtheIToldYouSos on CBR Diversions – It’s Never too Late to Have a Happy Childhoodalso- Louis Sachar's HOLES! it came out when I was in middle school and I loved it, and my current students love the movie, but...
  • andtheIToldYouSos on CBR Diversions – It’s Never too Late to Have a Happy ChildhoodHOW DID I FORGET PINKWATER?! aggh! Lizard Music, Snarkout Boys, Worms of Kukimilia... I re-read that section of the library over and over again
See More Recent Comments »

Want to Help Out?

CBR has a great crew of volunteers, and we're always looking for more people to help out. If you have a specialty or are willing to learn, drop MsWas a line.

  • How You Can Donate
  • FAQ
  • Shop
  • Volunteers
  • Leaderboard
  • AlabamaPink
  • Contact

Help Our Mission

You can donate to CBR via:

  1. PayPal
  2. Venmo
  3. Google Pay
© 2021 Cannonball Read | Log in