ANNE CARSON - AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF RED

Image: Krakatoa

File under odd and superb. This “novel in verse” uses one of Herakles’s minor labors as the inspiration for a contemporary and precisely told tale of unrequited love. The connection between the myth and the story is tenuous. But because there is a large gap to bridge between myth and story, the narrative presents a pure expression of Anne Carson’s imagination — and what a bridge that is. We see how she filters myth; at times it seems we see this process in real time. She could have taught Homer a thing or two. Read, July 2019.