Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Anne Carson

I've read one of Anne Carson's short stories before and I really liked it but this book was dramatically different in style and subject. Carson's descriptions were strong in language but I never really got a clear picture of the world Geryon lived in or what he looked like exactly. I also found that Carson language sometimes confused me even upon a second reading. I thought the book jumped around a bit too. I was never sure what year it was or how old Geryon was, but that might have been Carson's intention. The most confusing part of the book was the interview at the end that did not give any real answers so I was wondering why it was placed at the end. I would think something at the end would wrap things up for the reader and clarify the verse but I was further confused. While Carson's sometimes confusing writing in the book initially turned me off to the book, her beautiful descriptions kept me reading (besides the fact that I had to keep reading for class); i.e. "Then the rock silenced him. It pitched away on all sides utterly blank except for one crazed blackish unit of intraplate light bouncing from rock to rock as if looking for lost kin" (63).
-Becky Slinger

1 comment:

Claire said...

I also was moved by Anne Carson's descriptions in the novel. It is shocking that I didn't even think about Geryon's physical appearance, but I believe it was because I was too consumed by his thoughts and feelings. Anne Carson truly is able to elicit feeling from the readers with her description of Geryon's train of thought.
I too was perplexed by the dialogue at the end of the story; I had trouble relating it to the story of Geryon.