hayden
Well-known member
Agreed. It wouldn't work.
WLF Prize 2024 - Anne Carson
- Thread starter Bartleby
- Start date
Agreed. It wouldn't work.
Ben Jackson
Well-known member
Not yet. Plainwater incorporated Short Talks, an earlier poetic publication. All her books are independent publications.
Americanreader
Well-known member
Just picked up Float. (Thanks Penn State Library!) I’ll let y’all know how it is.
Today I read Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson, this book is amazing. The closer I got to the end, the more I reread the parts I loved so I wouldn't finish it. If this book has been recommended in previous posts as a starting point, I can't wait to read the rest of her books.
juanje94
Member
Today I have received all the books that I have purchased from our WLF nominees for this coming year. I share a photo of Anne Carson's books (all translated into Spanish):
English titles (in order of appearance of the photo from left to right):
Nox
Autobiography of Red
When I finish to read one of them I will publish here my impressions.
Regards,
Juanje
English titles (in order of appearance of the photo from left to right):
Nox
Autobiography of Red
When I finish to read one of them I will publish here my impressions.
Regards,
Juanje
I read "Autobiography of Red" and is quite an interesting book. Beautifully written, full of remarkable imagery that sometimes made my heart skip a beat. I must admit though that when Geryon arrives in Argentina, the book became a drag for me (although the "tango" scene was my favorite). I found myself wanting to finish it as quickly as possible. And somehow, I connected my feelings to the protagonist's. I wanted to get to that volcano quickly, just so I could leave right away. Or something like this... Every now and then during my reading, I thought of Wong Kar Wai's film "Happy Together". Of how the protagonist wanted to get to Iguazu Falls, only to leave immediately too... because he was heartbroken. Lai Yiu Fai, Geryon, and I share similar bits os soul.
alik-vit
Reader
It's her "Epitaph: Zion"
Murderous little world once our objects had gazes. Our lives
Were fragile, the wind
Could dash them away. Here lies the refugee breather
Who drank a bowl of elsewhere.
Can you, folks, explain me the grammar or syntax of first sentence? This little word was murderous, when or if our objects had gazes?
Murderous little world once our objects had gazes. Our lives
Were fragile, the wind
Could dash them away. Here lies the refugee breather
Who drank a bowl of elsewhere.
Can you, folks, explain me the grammar or syntax of first sentence? This little word was murderous, when or if our objects had gazes?
Leseratte
Well-known member
"Lai Yiu Fai, Geryon, and I share similar bits of? soul." Beautifully expressed!
Leseratte
Well-known member
Elegant Editions, Juan!
Me and these two sharing a table in a "not-so-clean" bar in Buenos Aires, 3am of a saturday, each one in profound silence, drinking cheap beer with the background noise of an erupting volcano, the falls, the pit-a-pat of my heart and a tango apasionado (el último de la noche) trying to soothe that early morning. Each of us trying to contain the tears, maybe Lai Yiu Fai and Geryon will dance together eventually and I... I will cry alone at that table... but the night (morning?) is long, I guess...
Bartleby
Moderator
Maybe she's addressing the murderous little world, but instead of placing a comma right after "world", she just kept on going. Like when you call to someone, e.g. "Joe, once our objects had gazes". In which case "once" would mean an unspecified point in time, long ago. It seems here she is anthropomorphising the objects, saying they could see, but now are blind (or refuse to look?).
Liam
Administrator
This is just another interpretation but I read the sentence as "once our inanimate objects had the power to look back at us, the world became a murderous little place." NO IDEA what she means, but you should always look back to the title of the text (if appropriate) for its ultimate meaning.
This particular poem is merely four lines long, but it is a self-described epitaph: so, something that may be uttered aloud as a lament or etched on a tombstone to commemorate a person. In this case, of course, there is no person: there is just the idea/ideal of "Zion" (promised land?), whatever it means for Carson.
The inanimate objects having eyes and suddenly gaining the ability to stare back at us recalls the graven images of the biblical idolaters. As humans we are scared of the divine, and it brings us comfort to clothe it in solidity and concreteness and even to give it eyes to look back at us: we feel comforted by the notion of our gods being just like us.
Carson addresses something else here, however: I do think she is lamenting the ideal of the promised land of happiness, of things having gone terribly wrong in human history, somewhere at some point.
Anyway, just my thoughts, but I am still largely unfamiliar with her work, so not sure if this makes any sense, LOL
This particular poem is merely four lines long, but it is a self-described epitaph: so, something that may be uttered aloud as a lament or etched on a tombstone to commemorate a person. In this case, of course, there is no person: there is just the idea/ideal of "Zion" (promised land?), whatever it means for Carson.
The inanimate objects having eyes and suddenly gaining the ability to stare back at us recalls the graven images of the biblical idolaters. As humans we are scared of the divine, and it brings us comfort to clothe it in solidity and concreteness and even to give it eyes to look back at us: we feel comforted by the notion of our gods being just like us.
Carson addresses something else here, however: I do think she is lamenting the ideal of the promised land of happiness, of things having gone terribly wrong in human history, somewhere at some point.
Anyway, just my thoughts, but I am still largely unfamiliar with her work, so not sure if this makes any sense, LOL
alik-vit
Reader
Thanks, @Bartleby , thanks, @Liam !
There are more ruminations about this short poem:
First hear the lines, with their run of dactyls (‘murderous’, ‘world once our’, ‘objects had’) leading to the much slower, largely iambic last line. Then interpret, or track allusions: Rilke’s Death, a bluish drink in a saucer; the refugees of postwar Europe, bound for ‘Zion’ as in Israel-Palestine or as in the afterlife; perhaps a suicide; Greek pneuma, the spirit or breath of life. Like Carson’s other ‘Epitaphs’, it offers mysteries where no single solution will do. (Their look on the page, though not their sound, suggests the distichs of Greek epitaph that she discussed in her 1999 book, Economy of the Unlost.)
From this review:
www.lrb.co.uk
On the other hand, for my ear it's more allusion not Rilke, but to Celan (yes, I remember, he was ... FRENCHMAN) - this "breather
Who drank a bowl of elsewhere".
There are more ruminations about this short poem:
First hear the lines, with their run of dactyls (‘murderous’, ‘world once our’, ‘objects had’) leading to the much slower, largely iambic last line. Then interpret, or track allusions: Rilke’s Death, a bluish drink in a saucer; the refugees of postwar Europe, bound for ‘Zion’ as in Israel-Palestine or as in the afterlife; perhaps a suicide; Greek pneuma, the spirit or breath of life. Like Carson’s other ‘Epitaphs’, it offers mysteries where no single solution will do. (Their look on the page, though not their sound, suggests the distichs of Greek epitaph that she discussed in her 1999 book, Economy of the Unlost.)
From this review:
Stephanie Burt · Professor or Pinhead: Anne Carson
www.lrb.co.uk
On the other hand, for my ear it's more allusion not Rilke, but to Celan (yes, I remember, he was ... FRENCHMAN) - this "breather
Who drank a bowl of elsewhere".
Liam
Administrator
I can't believe that, after all this time, Celan's French-ness is still being questioned!! ?
Ben Jackson
Well-known member
I can't remember the poetic volume this poem came from, but here's my interpretation.
I think syntax, that's the elimination of comma which ought to have been placed after the word world, is meant to reflect the chaotic state of either history or the Jewish individual. If you have read the poems of Nelly Sachs, Sachs writes in sentences (full of cryptic lines just like this poem) without observation of full stop or semi colons (Celan was also fond of this), sometimes only ending the poems with dash, which she meant to reflect on the pain and suffering of Jewish people and Israel in general. Stones reflecting on the individual, as Liam has already said, reminds us of the Biblical graven images, but it also suggests the imagery of stones used by Octavio Paz and George Seferis as well as an image suggesting national identity and suffering.
alik-vit
Reader
Yep, the world is full of atrocities.
Leseratte
Well-known member
Finished Autobiography of Red.
First Impression: How well versed Anne Carson is in Greek mythology and poetry!
She selected a mythical figure, Geryon, that though recurrent under the Greek writings, is at least it seems to me, only indirectly known (as present in the 10th work of Hercules/Heracles) in Western taking up of Greek mythology. As a bridge between her own rendering of the Geryon story, and the original myth, Anne Carson interposes the fragmented version of the poet Stesichoros. It contains some important changes: It tells the story in fragments and it focuses on and humanizes the protagonist .
Anne Carsons postmodern take supposes a play with the fragments of the Stesichoros' narrative. In fact she encourages the reader to find his/her own
combination. As to her own story, convincing in itself, I found that the original myth was so changed, that she might have taken another mythological monster as basis for her own narrative. The emphasis is all on Geryon, Hercules becomes a secondary figure, although maintaining some of his original destructiveness. The red herd, which is the motivation in the Hercules myth disappears altogether.
Carson has a wonderful poetic style, her beautiful images is what I liked best. Yet I am somewhat perplexed by it all. I feel that I have to read it again. I also feel that I must read other works by her.
First Impression: How well versed Anne Carson is in Greek mythology and poetry!
She selected a mythical figure, Geryon, that though recurrent under the Greek writings, is at least it seems to me, only indirectly known (as present in the 10th work of Hercules/Heracles) in Western taking up of Greek mythology. As a bridge between her own rendering of the Geryon story, and the original myth, Anne Carson interposes the fragmented version of the poet Stesichoros. It contains some important changes: It tells the story in fragments and it focuses on and humanizes the protagonist .
Anne Carsons postmodern take supposes a play with the fragments of the Stesichoros' narrative. In fact she encourages the reader to find his/her own
combination. As to her own story, convincing in itself, I found that the original myth was so changed, that she might have taken another mythological monster as basis for her own narrative. The emphasis is all on Geryon, Hercules becomes a secondary figure, although maintaining some of his original destructiveness. The red herd, which is the motivation in the Hercules myth disappears altogether.
Carson has a wonderful poetic style, her beautiful images is what I liked best. Yet I am somewhat perplexed by it all. I feel that I have to read it again. I also feel that I must read other works by her.
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Leseratte
Well-known member
Just musing about the sentence: "once:" brings for me a idea of change. There are two times. Then, when objects didn't have gazes and now, when they do have gazes. The objects might be people,who once they have acquired consciousness gazes back and try to defend themselves.
.