Discussion Guide
Autobiography of Red
By Anne Carson
These book club questions are from the publisher, Penguin Random House.
Book club questions for Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson
Use these discussion questions to guide your next book club meeting.
As an epigraph to the introduction, Carson quotes Gertrude Stein: "I like the feeling of words doing as they want to do and as they have to do" [p. 3], and goes on to say that she admires the way Stesichoros broke away from the conventional use of language: "Stesichoros released being" [p. 5]. Which passages of Carson’s own writing in Autobiography of Red exemplify this ideal of unconventional language, unconventional perception, unconventional seeing?
Geryon, we are told, likes to plan his autobiography "in that blurred state between awake and asleep when too many intake valves are open in the soul" [p. 60]. As a child he has difficulty with the intensity and strangeness of his own perceptions. He suffers, but he also has powers that make him unique. Is there a connection between being a monster and being an artist? In what ways does Geryon’s creativity manifest itself as his story proceeds?
How important to his story–he calls himself, at one point, "loveslave" [p. 55]– is the relationship of Geryon’s masculinity to his lovelorn state? How important is his homosexuality? What is the poem making clear about the relationship between desire and will? If you have read The Beauty of the Husband, how does Geryon’s position compare to that of the wife?
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Create My ClubGeryon’s autobiography begins with "Total Facts Known About Geryon" [p. 37]. Carson takes these elements from Stesichoros, but she creates a different ending. Instead of being killed by Herakles, Geryon proves himself to be one of the Yazcamac, "People who saw the inside of the volcano. / And came back" [pp. 128-29]. Why does she alter the original story’s plot?
How do the imagery and symbolism of the volcano work throughout the poem? How does the image of the volcano shed light on Geryon’s problems with inside and outside, as well as his fear of entrapment or confinement? More specifically, how does the Emily Dickinson poem that appears on page 22 ("The reticent volcano keeps / His never slumbering plan") relate to chapter XLVI of Geryon’s autobiography?
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