Autobiography of Red

by Anne Carson

What is an adjective? Nouns name the world. Verbs activate the names. Adjectives come from somewhere else. The word adjective (epitheton in Greek) is itself an adjective meaning “placed on top,” “added,” “appended,” “imported,” “foreign.” Adjectives seem fairly innocent additions but look again. These small imported mechanisms are in charge of attaching everything in the world to its place in particularity. They are the latches of being.

Geryon walked the red length of his mind and answered No It was murder And torn to see the cattle lay All these darlings said Geryon And now me

Are there many little boys who think they are a Monster? But in my case I am right said Geryon to the Dog they were sitting on the bluffs The dog regarded him Joyfully

The red world And corresponding red breezes Went on Geryon did not

This would be hard for you if you were weak but you’re not weak, she said and neatened his little red wings and pushed him out the door.

QUESTIONS Why did Herakles kill Geryon? 1. Just violent. 2. Had to it was one of His Labors (10th). 3. Got the idea that Geryon was Death otherwise he could live forever.

Up against another human being one’s own procedures take on definition.

He stood against the wind and let it peel him clean.

They say the reason for all these blocks and rubble on top is strains produced when the glass chills so rapidly. She made a little sound. Reminds me of my marriage.

She stumbled then and Geryon caught her other arm, it was like a handful of autumn. He felt huge and wrong. When is it polite to let go someone’s arm after you grab it?

Are you going to tell me none of the stars are really there? Well some are there but some burned out ten thousand years ago.

I don’t believe that. How can you not believe it, it’s a known fact. But I see them. You see memories. Have we had this conversation before?

“Gaiety transfiguring all that dread.” Who said that? Yeats.

“The strongest harpoons are made from the bone inside the skull of a whale that beaches on Tierra del Fuego. Inside the skull is a canalita and along it two bones. Harpoons made from a jawbone are not so strong.” A delicious odor of roasting seal was wafting through the aeroplane. He looked up. Rows away at the front servants were distributing dinner from a cart. Geryon was very hungry.

There is no person without a world.

Sie sind das was betreiben there are many Germans in Buenos Aires they are all soccer players the weather is lovely wish you were here GERYON

Zum verlorenen Hören There are many Germans in Buenos Aires they are all psychoanalysts the weather is lovely wish you were here

It was the year he began to wonder about the noise that colors make. Roses came roaring across the garden at him. He lay on his bed at night listening to the silver light of stars crashing against the window screen.

Die Angst offenbart das Nichts There are many Germans in Buenos Aires they are all cigarette girls the weather is lov—

Geryon and bit into an olive. The pimiento stung his mouth alive like sudden sunset.

How old is your daughter? asked Geryon. Four—not quite human. Or perhaps a little beyond human. It is because of her I began to notice moments of death. Children make you see distances. What do you mean “distances”?

That is who we are. Creatures moving on a hill. At different distances,

I am a philosopher of sandwiches, he decided. Things good on the inside.

And for a moment the frailest leaves of life contained him in a widening happiness.

Who can a monster blame for being red? What? said Geryon starting forward. I said looks like time for you to get home to bed, she repeated, and stood, pocketing her cigarettes.

Geryon would have liked to wrap his coat around this feather man. They walked on bent against the wind. A winter sun had thrown its bleak wares on the sky and people going past looked dazzled.

He has not flown for years but why not be a black speck raking its way toward the crater of Icchantikas on icy possibles, why not rotate the inhuman Andes at a personal angle and retreat when it spins—if it does and if not, win bolts of wind like slaps of wood and the bitter red drumming of wing muscle on air—

It is a starless windless midnight.

We are amazing beings, Geryon is thinking. We are neighbors of fire. And now time is rushing towards them where they stand side by side with arms touching, immortality on their faces, night at their back.