Autobiography of Red (Paperback) ~ Anne Carson (Author) Cover Art

Autobiography of Red (Paperback)

By: Anne Carson (Author)

More About this Product
List Price: $15.00
Download eBook

Also available from:

Provider Name Price From Rent
1   ECampus $7.02 Rent

Provider Name Price From Condition Buy
1   ValoreBooks.com $8.91 New Buy
2   Alibris $9.27 New Buy
3   Bigger Books $10.97 New Buy
4   ECampus $11.20 New Buy
5   Biblio $11.92 New Buy
6   Books-a-million $12.99 New Buy
7   Random House $15.00 New Buy
 
8   ECampus $7.80 Used Buy
9   ValoreBooks.com $8.23 Used Buy
10   Biblio $8.25 Used Buy
11   PhatCampus $11.25 Used Buy

Ebook Download

  • Editions available from:

Product Description

Run a Quick Search on "Autobiography of Red" by Anne Carson to Browse Related Products:

Browse more products related to "Autobiography of Red"

Browse more products related to "Anne Carson"

Review

Anne Carson''s Autobiography of Red is a novel in verse, the author''s first. A classicist by profession as well as a poet, Carson has drawn on antiquity for her cast, updating the myth of Geryon and Herakles. In the original version, of course, Herakles killed the red-skinned, winged Geryon. In Carson''s very contemporary retelling, he merely inspires, but does not return, the monster''s passion. By choosing Geryon as her central character, Carson can bring up the questions of existence as if they hadn''t been asked before. After all, the monster''s instincts have not been numbed by civilization. Fires twist through him. We feel the pain of learning the most elementary things, and then the volcanic intensity that comes with that more advanced thing, love. Yet Carson doesn''t so much tell the story of Geryon''s love as mediate his very being through semiological surfaces: cafes, video stores, lipstick, a library where he shelves government documents with a "forlorn austerity, / tall and hushed in their ranges as veterans of a forgotten war." Carson seldom satisfies herself with an image of the world. Instead she atomizes the world, leaving it broken down, refracted, and glinting. At times her verbal pyrotechnics manage to render pure energy:

A little button at the end of each range activated the fluorescent track above it.
A yellowing 5 x 7 index card
Scotch-taped below each button said EXTINGUISH LIGHT WHEN NOT IN USE.
Geryon went flickering
through the ranges like a bit of mercury flipping the switches on and off.
The librarians thought him
a talented boy with a shadow side.
No novelist could have gotten away with that last line. Yet it''s very much to the point: Carson''s Geryon is, among other things, a camera freak who doesn''t understand that an observer must inevitably alter the nature of the thing observed. Here is Heisenberg''s uncertainty principle, cheek-by-jowl with the ancients! And indeed, Carson''s achievement is to interweave the archaic and the modern so seamlessly that by the time we finish reading Autobiography of Red, the entire landscape looks inside out. --Mark Rudman

Short Desription

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

"Anne Carson is, for me, the most exciting poet writing in English today."--Michael Ondaatje

"This book is amazing--I haven''t discovered any writing in years so marvelously disturbing." --Alice Munro

            
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 red monster, reveals the volcanic terrain of his fragile, tormented soul in an autobiography he begins at the age of five. As he grows older, Geryon escapes his abusive brother and affectionate but ineffectual mother, finding solace behind the lens of his camera and in the arms of a young man named Herakles, a cavalier drifter who leaves him at the peak of infatuation. When Herakles reappears years later, Geryon confronts again the pain of his desire and embarks on a journey that will unleash his creative imagination to its fullest extent. By turns whimsical and haunting, erudite and accessible, richly layered and deceptively simple, Autobiography of Red is a profoundly moving portrait of an artist coming to terms with the fantastic accident of who he is.

"A profound love story . . . sensuous and funny, poignant, musical and tender."--The New York Times Book Review

"A deeply odd and immensely engaging book. . . . [Carson] exposes with passionate force the mythic underlying the explosive everyday."  --The Village Voice

Customer Reviews for "Autobiography of Red (Paperback)" by Anne Carson (Author)

There are no customer reviews yet. Be the first to write a review!

Submit your Review

Explore More Great Tower Sales & Specials

Tower.com Sales, Promotions & Special Features

Tower.com Sales & Boutiques

  • Tower Essentials Sale
    Visit the Essentials Sale for a wide selection and huge savings on your favorite music, DVD, Blu-ray and Books.
  • Great Gift Ideas
    Tower has Great Gift Ideas and Huge Savings on Your Favorite Music, CDs, DVDs, Books and More at Prices that Make Giving A Breeze!

Interact with Tower.com