The Autobiography of Red (20 page)
Read The Autobiography of Red Online
Authors: Anne Carson
Tags: #Literary, #Canadian, #Poetry, #Fiction
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It is a photograph he never took, no one here took it.
Geryon is standing beside the bed in his overcoat watching Ancash struggle awake.
He has the tape recorder in hand.
When he sees Ancash’s eyes open he says,
How long are the batteries good for?About three hours,
Ancash answerssleepily from the pillow.
Why? What are you up to? What time is it anyway?About four-thirty,
says Geryon,
go back to sleep.Ancash mumbles a word and slides back under his dream.
Want to give yousomething to remember me by,
whispers Geryon closing the door. He has not flown for years but why not
be a
black speck raking its way toward the crater of Icchantikas on icy possibles,
why not rotate
the inhuman Andes at a personal angle and retreat when it spins—if it does
and if not, win
bolts of wind like slaps of wood and the bitter red drumming of wing muscle on air—
he flicks Record.
This is for Ancash,
he calls to the earth diminishing below. This is a memory of ourbeauty. He peers down
at the earth heart of Icchantikas dumping all its photons out her ancient eye and he
smiles for
the camera: “The Only Secret People Keep.”
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Flour powders the air around them and settles on their arms and eyes and hair.
One man shapes the dough,
the other two shovel it on long handles into a square hole filled with flames
cut into the back wall.
Herakles and Ancash and Geryon have stopped outside the bakery to stare
at the hole of fire.
After quarreling all day they went out to walk the dark streets of Jucu.
It is a starless windless midnight.
Cold drills up from the ancient rocks below. Geryon walks behind the others.
Little spurts of acid
keep filling his mouth from two red pepper tamales eaten fast a few hours ago.
They are following the palisade.
Pass down an alley then turn a corner and there it is. Volcano in a wall.
Do you see that,
says Ancash.Beautiful,
Herakles breathes out. He is looking at the men.I mean the fire,
says Ancash.Herakles grins in the dark. Ancash watches the flames.
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.
I:
One critic speaks of a sort of concealment drama going on in your work some special interest in finding out what or how people act when they know that important information is being withheld this might have to do with an aesthetic of blindness or even a will to blindness if that is not a tautology
S:
I will tell about blindness
I:
Yes do
S:
First I must tell about seeing
I:
Fine
S:
Up to 1907 I was seriously interested in seeing I studied and practiced it I enjoyed it
I:
1907
S:
I will tell about 1907
I:
Please
S:
First I must tell about what I saw
I:
Okay
S:
Paintings completely covered the walls right up to the ceiling at the time the atelier was lit by gas fixtures and it glowed like a dogma but this is not what I saw
I:
No
S:
Naturally I saw what I saw
I:
Naturally
S:
I saw everything everyone saw
I:
Well yes
S:
No I mean everything everyone saw everyone saw because I saw it
I:
Did they
S:
I was (very simply) in charge of seeing for the world after all seeing is just a substance
I:
How do you know that
S:
I saw it
I:
Where
S:
Wherever I looked it poured out my eyes I was responsible for everyone’s visibility it was a great pleasure it increased daily
I:
A pleasure you say
S:
Of course it had its disagreeable side I could not blink or the world went blind
I:
So no blinking
S:
No blinking from 1907 on
I:
Until
S:
Until the start of the war then I forgot
I:
And the world
S:
The world went ahead much as before let’s talk about something else now
I:
Description can we talk about description
S:
What is the difference between a volcano and a guinea pig is not a description why is it like it is is a description
I:
I take it you are speaking formally what about content
S:
No difference
I:
How about your little hero Geryon
S:
Exactly it is red that I like and there is a link between geology and character
I:
What is this link
S:
I have often wondered
I:
Identity memory eternity your constant themes
S:
And how can regret be red and might it be
I:
Which brings us to Helen
S:
There is no Helen
I:
I believe our time is up
S:
Thank you for this and for everything
I:
It is I who thank you
S:
So glad you didn’t ask about the little red dog
I:
Next time
S:
That’s three
A Note About the Author
Anne Carson was born in Canada and teaches ancient Greek for a living.
Other titles available by Anne Carson in eBook format
Red Doc>
• 978-0-307-96058-0
For more information, please visit
www.aaknopf.com
Acclaim for
Anne Carson’
sAUTOBIOGRAPHY OF RED
“Wildly imaginative … [a] masterful, quirky prose poem … unsettling and strangely moving.”
—The San Diego Union-Tribune
“Memorably passionate … bravely original … whimsical and delightedly peculiar.”
—Boston Phoenix
“A modern reimagining of an ancient myth … full of small, deftly wrought delights.”
—Los Angeles Times
“Carson’s prayerful electricity is charged by the lustration of writing.… A brilliant book.”
—The Nation
“Oddly affecting and technically brilliant … one of the most interesting novels of the year.… It is generous, sweet and absolutely sui generis.”
—Time Out
“A spellbinding achievement … Anne Carson is a daring, learned, unsettling writer.”
—Susan Sontag
“Anne Carson is an inspiration to us all. She is that rarest of entities, a writer as fearless as she is gifted, and
Autobiography of Red
is that rarest of books, one that satisfies emotionally, aesthetically, and intellectually.”—Michael Cunningham
Also by Anne Carson
Red Doc>
Antigonick
Nox
An Oresteia:
Agamemnon
by Aiskhylos;
Elektra
by Sophokles;
Orestes
by Euripides
(translation)Decreation: Poetry, Essays, Opera
Grief Lessons: Four Plays by Euripides
(translation)If Not, Winter: Fragments of Sappho
(translation)The Beauty of the Husband:
A Fictional Essay in 29 Tangos
Men in the Off Hours
Economy of the Unlost: Reading Simonides of Keos with Paul Celan
Plainwater: Essays and Poetry
Glass, Irony and God
Eros the Bittersweet: An Essay
