Time has passed. It is among the first thing I think when reading under way. Time tames, redistributing and feeders out. There was once a “handsome boy” with ödleskinnsbyxor and pearls. Just like the mythical hero, his name was Heracles. But that was then. Now he comes “back from the war / damaged / botched” under another name: Sad But Great. “Keep him away from your flock,” exhorts the mother her son Geryon, which like its namesake in the myth driving cattle. Once he loved Heracles passionately. But that was then.
“Red doc & gt;” name is Anne Carson’s sequel to the brilliant verse novel “Red autobiography” (1998, Swedish translation 2009). Like many of Carson’s complex works – which happily mixes elements from different genres and practices that novel, poetry, translation, essay and bibliographical comment – looking for the red books up ancient stories, both to clarify and foreign make our lives here and now.
But if the “Red autobiography” in a more robust and formally varied ways confronted the myth of Geryon and its interpretation of the poet Stesichoros who lived during the 500s BC, then the new book, ably translated into Swedish by Mara Lee, confidently assume that the fictional context and narrative terms is already established. The figures are there and they have a kind of history. While the change. That’s the point.
The story is not so complicated to recount, once you get the hang of it. Geryon has become older. He reads Proust (important in this context), manages his herd of musk oxen, talking with his mother, who is approaching death, and with his friend Ida, which evokes associations with the protagonist of Gertrude Stein’s novel of the same name. And he has left his red wings between the shoulders. But that happens then the unexpected: the youth the love returns, which induces a swirl of memories of Geryon “rödstilta brain”, where every tiny cell begins to tilt “in their mitochondrial stronghold”.
Even this short reports and the few quotes gives an indication of the mobility and inventiveness in Carson storytelling and writing. Her linguistic imagination can sink into single units or grow out of the narrative straitjacket on an apparently absurd way – just to add another layer to what is depicted. What may look like a wacky digression or Mannerist metaphor proves to be saturated with meaning. To Geryon in the story, albeit after some hesitation, let themselves be captivated by the Russian proto-absurdisten Daniil Charms is in this context appealing detail.
Heracles / Sad return soon give rise to a breakup and a road trip through northern North America (I guess). The journey leads to a glacier and ice cave filled with bats, where a psychiatric clinic with attached garage is located. If this sounds unlikely: think allegorically. It also introduces a couple of newcomers – the acronym Kingdom figures CMO and 4NO – that will bring memories to life and transform relationships and desires.
But the question is what time – or rather all possible times you can experience: from “time famine” to “the time it takes for a cow to overturn,” as it is called in an amazing passage – made with love, longing and desire. Geryon finds that he can remember “diagram” of these forces, but not the feelings. Ida and Sad united indeed for a few nights at the clinic, and 4NO, who owns a meaningless prophetic abilities – it extends just five seconds into the future – is animated by writing as aesthetic expression. Nevertheless, it had become quite late on Earth.
And not just for the story’s scarred individuals, but perhaps also for humanity at large. Carson opens the small bräscher and channels into a political contemporaries, the effects of which it is up to the reader to interpret and evaluate. Sad return from a war with its inevitable traumas and we are invited to think of Iraq and Afghanistan and other places. The journey leading to a chilly clinic let themselves be read as a measure of a mental climate, but the converted glacier and a devastating volcanic eruption also recalls how the environment and climate in the more literal sense are exposed metamorphoses pointing towards a possible final.
Meanwhile, here mikroutopiska islands. One of the most beautiful, most bizarre, but perhaps also the most hopeful scenes in the story is when Geryon shed their red wings, raises and sail away through the air, above the lava ravaged landscape, with myskoxkvigan Io (even a mythical acquaintance) and a formation of bats great as toasters. Possibly this is an incisive picture of the other ways of being and being together – the second ecologies – is necessary to construct facing an uncertain future. Meanwhile, the novel’s final insights laconic and restrained: “Caution is best. Lucky indispensable. Hope a question. “
The novel? Yes, although I would describe “Red doc & gt;” as poetry, unlike prose, the text, despite its distinct appearance, also called a novel. The strange title is said to be an effect of what the computer named document when Carson began work on his book, which incidentally is dedicated to “random number generator”. Partly, these media technical factors linked to the peculiar composition and the typographical arrangement where the body text has been shaped into narrow, right justified columns, alternating with centered and sometimes fragmented poems and exchanges. This graphic orchestration helps, anyway, to the subtle shifts, delays and anticipations that rytmiserar Carson’s story.
And what a story it is. “Red doc & gt;” may not be as emotionally compelling as its predecessor. It also takes place in a different time and speed, in a cooler and more composed atmosphere. But it is a story, a novel, a poetic assemblies that grows and is enriched with each new reading. Carson has in recent years emerged as a candidate for the Nobel Prize. There are very good reasons for that.
Carson opens the small bräscher and channels into a political contemporaries, the effects of which it is up to the reader to interpret and evaluate.
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