Experimental Summer: Genre Hopping with Anne Carson

Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse, written by Anne Carson and reviewed by Brian C.

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Genre must be a weird thing for an artist to think about. The creative process seems almost the antithesis of the preconceived ideas, tropes, or expectations that live within genres. But you don’t have to look long to find a Literary giant who is experimenting with a new genre. They just can’t get enough. Denis Johnson ventured into crime fiction,

Thomas Pynchon wrote a mystery, and no one can quite figure out what Cormac McCarthy is doing, but we’re pretty sure it can fit into some kind of a box. So why would Anne Carson, one of the great writers of our time, decide to not only write a genre novel, but write an all-the-genres novel? Maybe she needed to, or maybe she didn’t think it could be done, but almost assuredly, whether she was cornered by a creative challenge, or spurred-on by some interior and sadistic guide, she’s the only one who could have accomplished the goal, and she did. The Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse is primarily concerned with genre and reading closely.

This is a tough task, but Carson isn’t one to cower from a fight, so she takes the all-the-genre test to task from the beginning, with the title. Let’s break it down word by word:

Autobiography:  We know what this means, but we know it’s a lie. Anne Carson wrote this book, and her name ain’t Red, it’s Anne. But being the accomplished liar that she is, she doesn’t stop at just one untruth. How can it be an Autobiography if it’s also a novel? And why doesn’t it use the standard ‘The’ before Autobiography. We’re thrown for a loop, tossed on our heads, left with nothing to hold onto, but we remain comfortable because we know what the word means. It’s part of our bookish lives.

of:  A space holder that forms a familiar cadence, and a familiar format. We’ve seen lots of books that go _______ of _______. It’s weighty, canonical, and it’s nostalgic. She’s calmed us down, and we’re back in our Lazy Boy.

Red:  What!?! Red’s a color. In fact it’s a color from the small box of crayons. It isn’t something that can write, or be a part of an autobiography. Now I’m confused, again. Red might not fit perfectly with the Autobiography, but if we keep reading, we’ll see it does fit wonderfully with our concept of Verse. Poets have clung tight to the notion of Red—flowers, fury, seeing red, blood…etc. Red and poetry go together like chili and cinnamon rolls (try it). So our initial dejection at the expense of Red is mitigated a bit.

A:  Singular, but not all inclusive. Our good friend ‘a’ tells us that there’s got to be another novel in verse that’s also an autobiography of a color. Right. This is just one possible way for this story to exist. That’s comforting.

Novel:  New. Fictional. Prose. Novels are what we read the most, so they’re sort of a control for Carson’s experiment. It’s the most welcoming of words in this title. I understand novels, this is a novel, therefore I can understand this strange book. It keeps us reading. Plus, now I know to compare Carson to William Faulkner and not Ezra Pound. I’m getting closer to the end every word.

in:  This seems off putting. Novels aren’t ‘in’ things, they are things. If it’s a novel, you don’t have to do anything except announce its Novelocity. Now I’m still a little confused, put off, but I remain comfortable. The genre bending title pushes and pulls, but not enough to crack the concrete.

Verse:  Now it all explodes. Verse is such a frightening and dynamic word that I almost have to cringe, bite the towel, think of England, and move on. Multiplying the genres and announcing them in the title creates the proper starting point for this book. Every author has to decide the best way to write their story, but Carson chooses not to whittle away her choices until she reaches to best one, but to take all choices at once, pull from a full set of tools, and make genre choices for each page as opposed to each book. The result speaks for itself. Incredible and incalculable, the book is the closest thing to a conversation that most of us will have with Carson. I’m grateful for it. She writes that, “Sometimes a journey makes itself necessary.” I’m happy this book made itself necessary to her.

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This is the latest in a series of reviews of experimental fiction written by BookPeople Brian C. and Jenn S.

Brian and Jenn have made it their mission this summer to open up their reading lives to the weird, the odd, the curious, the avant garde, and the totally out-there in the world of fiction.  The previous review in this series, of the work of César Aira, is available HERE.