AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF RED: A NOVEL IN VERSE: BOOK REVIEW
CW: SEXUAL ABUSE
I began reading Anne Carson’s Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse with a limited understanding of its content. I knew that the novel is a retelling of Greek mythology, and as someone who read every Percy Jackson book and its predecessors, I was immediately hooked. However, I soon learned that it is so much more than this. Carson uses language and historical content, amongst many other things, to complete the fragmented myth of Geryon and Herakles in a modern, fantastical setting.
The queer, coming-of-age Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse is based on the Greek myth of Herakles who, when completing his tenth labor, killed the three-bodied giant Geryon and stole his cattle. The story is most often told from the perspective of Herakles. Though Stesichoros, a Greek lyric poet, was the first to tell it from Geryon’s in Geryoneis (The Geryon Matter). Carson uses Stesichoros as a base for her novel, attempting to fill the gaps of the fragmented Geryoneis. Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse follows Geryon, a red-winged person, from childhood to adulthood, detailing his relationship with others, including Herakles, a friend who becomes a lover, then someone who is longed for. Geryon undergoes a series of challenges throughout the novel while he constructs his autobiography and explores volcanoes with Herakles. During this time, he attempts to navigate his feelings for both his friend and himself.
Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse is the perfect novel for anyone, whether you are a lover of mythology, literary analysis, LGBTQ+ romance, or self-realization. The coming-of-age novel’s structure is comparable to a Greek nomos, or lyric performance, which Stesichoros was famous for. Such a structure includes seven sections: an essay on Stesichoros, translated fragments of Geryoneis, a palinode (or poem acting as an ode retracting a sentiment from an earlier poem), a mock interview, and two appendices. Geryon undergoes severe trauma as a child and begins his autobiography at an early age in the form of sculpture-building. Later in life, Geryon turns to photography as a form of essay-ism. These mediums represent the surviving fragmentation of Stesichoros’s Geryoneis in their ability to capture only one moment in time, leaving so much unsaid.
These fragmented images of Geryon’s life are essentially all that he has to define his past. This contributes to the large theme of identity in the novel. Most obviously, Geryon and Herakles, as well as other characters throughout the book, are queer. Further, due to molestation in Geryon’s past, he struggles with understanding his relationship with Herakles. Additionally, most characters are described as monstrous or freakish in some way. Geryon is a monster with red wings; Herakles is described as a gorilla; Herakles’s grandmother is described as asymmetrical; when Geryon and Herakles meet, they “recognized each other as two italics.” These descriptions frame the mythological aspect of the novel, but they also reinforce the feeling of being an outsider, particularly in Geryon. There are times throughout the novel when Geryon has trouble distinguishing genders or distinguishing people from animals. But most often, he is unable to define his own gender. Carson writes, “He had been here before, dangling inside the word she like a trinket at a belt.” Not only does Geryon struggle with his sexuality, but he fights to understand his gender identity as well.
For people who have similar struggles, Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse is a perfect read. Not only does Carson apply this conflict to a fantastical setting, which can be therapeutic, but in doing so, she addresses the power that language can have in reinventing one’s own story from a tragedy to an epic. In Sebastien Ducasse’s essay “Metaphor as Self-Discovery in Anne Carson’s Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse,” he writes of Geryon’s battle to come to terms with his identity in his mythological setting, “...knowing oneself cannot be achieved if the world we evolve in is not comprehended either.”