Tenth Labor of
Herakles
Heracles ( ; grc-gre, Ἡρακλῆς, , glory/fame of Hera), born Alcaeus (, ''Alkaios'') or Alcides (, ''Alkeidēs''), was a divine hero in Greek mythology, the son of Zeus and Alcmene, and the foster son of Amphitryon.By his adoptive ...
, especially on surviving fragments of the lyric poet
Stesichorus
Stesichorus (; grc-gre, Στησίχορος, ''Stēsichoros''; c. 630 – 555 BC) was a Greek lyric poet native of today's Calabria (Southern Italy). He is best known for telling epic stories in lyric metres, and for some ancient traditions abou ...
' poem ''
Geryoneis''.
Summary
''Autobiography of Red'' is the story of a boy named Geryon who, at least in a metaphorical sense, is the
Greek monster Geryon. It is unclear how much of the mythological Geryon's connection to the story's Geryon is literal, and how much is metaphorical. Sexually abused by his older brother, his affectionate mother too weak-willed to protect him, the monstrous young boy finds solace in photography and in a romance with a young man named Herakles. Herakles leaves his young lover at the peak of Geryon's infatuation; when Geryon comes across Herakles several years later on a trip to
Argentina
Argentina (), officially the Argentine Republic ( es, link=no, República Argentina), is a country in the southern half of South America. Argentina covers an area of , making it the second-largest country in South America after Brazil, th ...
, Herakles' new lover Ancash forms the third point of a
love triangle
A love triangle or eternal triangle is a scenario or circumstance, usually depicted as a rivalry, in which two people are pursuing or involved in a romantic relationship with one person, or in which one person in a romantic relationship with so ...
. The novel ends, ambiguously, with Geryon, Ancash, and Herakles stopping outside a bakery near a
volcano
A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface.
On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates are ...
.
The book also contains Carson's very loose translation of the ''Geryoneis'' fragments, using many
anachronism
An anachronism (from the Ancient Greek, Greek , 'against' and , 'time') is a chronology, chronological inconsistency in some arrangement, especially a juxtaposition of people, events, objects, language terms and customs from different time per ...
s and taking many liberties, and some discussion of both Stesichorus and the Geryon myth, including a fictional interview with "Stesichoros", a veiled reference to
Gertrude Stein
Gertrude Stein (February 3, 1874 – July 27, 1946) was an American novelist, poet, playwright, and art collector. Born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, in the Allegheny West neighborhood and raised in Oakland, California, Stein moved to Paris ...
.
Style
Critic
Sam Anderson
Sam Anderson (born April 2, 1947) is an American actor. He is best known for his character roles such as Sam Gorpley on '' Perfect Strangers'', Holland Manners on ''Angel'', dentist Bernard Nadler on ''Lost'' and in film, as the principal in ''F ...
describes the book as follows:
The book is subtitled "A Novel in Verse," but—as usual with Carson—neither "novel" nor "verse" quite seems to apply. It begins as if it were a critical study of the ancient Greek poet Stesichoros, with special emphasis on a few surviving fragments he wrote about a minor character from Greek mythology, Geryon, a winged red monster who lives on a red island herding red cattle. Geryon is most famous as a footnote in the life of Herakles, whose 10th labor was to sail to that island and steal those cattle—in the process of which, almost as an afterthought, he killed Geryon by shooting him in the head with an arrow.
''Autobiography of Red'' purports to be Geryon's autobiography. Carson transposes Geryon's story, however, into the modern world, so that he is suddenly not just a monster but a moody, artsy, gay teenage boy navigating the difficulties of sex and love and identity. His chief tormentor is Herakles, a charismatic ne'er-do-well who ends up breaking Geryon's heart. The book is strange and sweet and funny, and the remoteness of the ancient myth crossed with the familiarity of the modern setting (hockey practice, buses, baby sitters) creates a particularly Carsonian effect: the paradox of distant closeness.
Reception
''Autobiography of Red'' was warmly received by authors and critics, with highly positive reviews from
Alice Munro
Alice Ann Munro (; ; born 10 July 1931) is a Canadian short story writer who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2013. Munro's work has been described as revolutionizing the architecture of short stories, especially in its tendency to move f ...
,
Michael Ondaatje
Philip Michael Ondaatje (; born 12 September 1943) is a Sri Lankan-born Canadian poet, fiction writer, essayist, novelist, editor, and filmmaker. He is the recipient of multiple literary awards such as the Governor General's Award, the Giller P ...
,
Susan Sontag
Susan Sontag (; January 16, 1933 – December 28, 2004) was an American writer, philosopher, and political activist. She mostly wrote essays, but also published novels; she published her first major work, the essay "Notes on 'Camp'", in 1964. Her ...
, among others.
The book also sold unusually well for literary poetry, with at least 25,000 copies sold by the year 2000, two years after its publication.
It was described as "one of the crossover classics of contemporary poetry: poetry that can seduce even people who don't like poetry"
[Sam Anderson, "The Inscrutable Brilliance of Anne Carson," ''The New York Times Magazine'', March 17, 2013.] and Carson herself as "that rarest of rare things, a bestselling poet."
The book was referenced, alongside Carson's previous work ''
Eros the Bittersweet
''Eros the Bittersweet: An Essay'' (1986) is the first book of criticism by the Canadian poet, essayist, translator, and classicist Anne Carson.
A reworking of her 1981 doctoral thesis ''Odi et Amo Ergo Sum'' ("I Hate and I Love, Therefore I Am" ...
'', in a 2004 episode of
The L Word
''The L Word'' is a television drama that aired on Showtime from January 18, 2004 to March 8, 2009. The series follows the lives of a group of lesbian and bisexual women who live in West Hollywood, California. The premise originated with Ilene Ch ...
.
References
External links
*{{Commonscatinline
''New York Times Magazine'' on Anne Carson
1998 Canadian novels
1998 fantasy novels
Canadian fantasy novels
Verse novels
Novels with gay themes
Canadian romance novels
Alfred A. Knopf books
Classical mythology in popular culture
LGBT speculative fiction novels
Canadian LGBT novels
1990s LGBT novels
LGBT poetry
Bildungsromans
Novels set in Buenos Aires
Novels set in Peru
English-language novels
LGBT literature in Canada