Class Blog

Dear Reader,

I worked hard to be as queer as I am and I didn’t expect to have to defend my identity from another person who shares in my struggles.

But here we fucking are.

Fuck Muñoz and his “we are not yet queer.” (Muñoz 1)

This is a problem that I think I’ve struggled with quite a bit, queerness as an ideal rather than a reality, as if there’s some faggot out there that we all aim to be like. This implication that there’s a right way to be queer is so fucking dangerous.

Do you know how much I’ve screamed?

How many streams of salt poured from my puffy eyes?

How much I craved for just one person to see me as a woman?

How many nights I’ve thought that I’d be better off dead than myself?

How many nights I still do?

You don’t and Muñoz sure as shit doesn’t

“We are not yet queer.” (Muñoz 1)

How fucking dare you.

As if queerness is something to be earned.

Even if I had never suffered then I’d still be queer.

Muñoz thinks that “Queerness is a longing that propels us forward.” (Muñoz 1)

It’s not.

Queerness has happened and continues to happen.

Have you ever seen Annie?

Annie’s an orphan and she sings a song called Tomorrow.

It’s a song of longing for a better time, for a then and there, rather than a here and now.

Do you know what the problem is with Tomorrow?

TOMORROW NEVER COMES!!!

Reality sucks but it’s the only place that you can get a decent meal.

It’s the only place that we’ll ever be.

I get Muñoz’s point. I really do. There’s a queer utopia that only exists in our wildest dreams and god be damned if we don’t try to get there.

But to rob queerness of its power by making it seem as if it is unobtainable is fucking diabolical.

I always liked Eli Claire’s Mountain as a tale of telling struggles.

It acknowledges that struggles aren’t one-way streets, that stopping and taking a breath doesn’t make you slow or weak, or that sometimes you even have to go back down the mountain to breathe a little easier.

Muñoz seems to view struggles as a sea voyage, always trying to catch the horizon, and always failing to grasp it.

I like my feet on solid ground and despise the seasickness that Muñoz gives me.

Sincerely Queer,

Carmine “Red” Zingiber

No, this is not my self declaration of straightness and returning to the closet. However, I think that Feeling Utopia by Muñoz offers me another layer to think about my identity and how political it can be. It strikes me with some kind of loss of words when I read, “We have never been queer, yet queerness exists for us as an ideality that can be distilled from the past and used to imagine a future.” When I think of the past especially as it pertains to queer history, I think of Marsha P. Johnson — a trans activist who fought and envisioned a society that would accept and redeem a community of people who have been outcasted by society. Much of the work we see today is built on the foundations that Marsha and many others have laid for us to walk on. With this in mind, Muñoz asks us to consider queerness that “propels us forward”. This rhetoric of looking back to move forward is something that is deeply engrained in practices outside of queerness as well. I think of oral traditions and master practices that are only continued and thriving because younger generations have taken on the skills of the ancestors and teachers before them to continue the lineage defined by them. Moreover, knowing what has been done gives you more direction to understand what still needs to be accomplished.

Why does this matter, and what does it have to do with being queer? Well, If we think about queerness as potentiality — something that could be in the future, it then becomes something we constantly fight for to maintain this presence for a future. We’re nearly over half-way through 2023, and the abundance of incoming news about tragedies that hit queer communities and people of color is disgusting. It is clear we are still a long ways away for fighting for a rightful seat at the table and to actually be listened and heard. To be queer is an act of resistance, a movement in a way to normalize what has been deemed abnormal. Using the “past to imagine a future” in a way Muñoz has an optimistic outlook on what he sees can be a future for queer people.

This “ideality” is an interesting word to me. What does it mean to be ideal? My definition can look so different from what you might think and in a way I think that’s the beauty of it. The future of my queerness is infinite and ever fluid — why should it be constrained to fit one niche box. Policies in our system create rigid blocks that police our queerness and undermine our complex identities. When I think of ideality, I think of a nature in which the complexities and nuances of queerness could be seen.

Using this framework of queerness as an ideality for a future, in a way it brings me back to Brokeback Mountain — and the ideality that Jack had for Ennis and himself to have an idealized life together. It is because of the lingering stigmas that exist in the parameters of even their story that it diminishes a potentiality for even a queer future for the two of them. Their story thrives within Brokeback Mountain, but in the “real world” it is only a fantasy.

In Feeling Utopia, the reader is introduced to the idea that queerness, as a utopia, does not exist yet, and if it ever does, it will not be in our lifetime. It’s a “warm illumination of a horizon,” “a longing that propels us onward,” a “doing for and toward the future,” and a “rejection of a here and now” (Munoz). I think the most important idea here is the fact that the simple act of being queer– the fact that you are a queer person who exists– means you are actively rejecting the present and all the structures that come with it. By just existing, you are living in the future. Because all the queer people that came before us never existed in a queer utopia, and therefore neither do we. We can build on our past and progress, but we are always going to be reaching toward that horizon– crossing the open space between what we know and what we try to know. 

We borrow from the past and we propel ourselves into a future that we know will be better. Celine Sciamma, the director of Portrait of a Lady on Fire, said that “You still have to tell the story. You can’t quote. Not yet” (Sciamma). She is referring to the fact that the history of queer culture is often so fragmented (she uses Sappho’s poetry as an example) that we cannot draw on it as a simple fact but rather with memory and filling in the blanks with our own experiences. Time then, circles back around as we see ourselves in the past figures who saw themselves in our future. 

To work toward this idea of a queer utopia does not mean there are specific actions or ways to be queer. Existing and remembering does the trick. “Someone will remember us / I say / even in another time” (Sappho fragment 147). This fragment is all we have left of what might have been a longer poem, or something that means something else entirely. It refers to a future time and the writer is certain that she will be remembered, and she turns out to be right, because we are reading her words thousands of years later. Yes, they have been transcribed and translated many times over, and reinterpreted. Author’s intent is pretty much impossible to distinguish. But that means we get to decide what it means for us individually and as a community, because there’s possibility in her words and so there’s possibility in ours too. 

sappho’s poetry fragments (written down, not as she would have performed/perhaps wrote them):

 

a sappho poetry fragment, as translated by anne carson with the brackets showing where words might go:

the interview excerpt and link to the article: 

Our culture is at the stage of memories. It’s not at the stage of history,” Sciamma told me, in an early conversation. The historical record is so incomplete that it has to be supplemented, even supplanted, by remembered stories. “You still have to tell the story. You can’t quote. Not yet.” She added, “That’s lesbian culture. Sorry.” Gesturing with a cigarette, she emphasized the second syllable in a French-sounding way that made it clear she wasn’t sorry. Then she quoted Sappho’s Fragment 147: “someone will remember us / I say / even in another time.”

“Someone,” she emphasized. “Not ‘this country,’ not ‘poetry,’ not ‘literature.’ Someone.”

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/02/07/celine-sciammas-quest-for-a-new-feminist-grammar-of-cinema  

Wow. Just wow. After reading only the fourth page of Carson’s prose, that was all I could think. I am amazed by the way in which she paints such a clear picture of how Geryon experiences childhood, as it is so visceral I feel as though I am going through it myself. From the soft question for his mother “What does each mean?” (Carson 11, l. 11), to “he spelled it at school on the blackboard” (l. 16), she builds a child’s world that almost anyone can easily imagine. And yet, there is room for difference, even divergence in this passage, as the lyric poetry so often focuses on.

In the first half of the page, Carson describes the fact that Geryon does not only read or hear the word “each” but he actually sees and feels it. As we discussed in class, this condition, which is called synesthesia, allows a person to hear colors. Carson beautifully puts this neurodivergent aspect of Geryon to work here, by writing “the word each blew towards him and came apart on the wind” (l. 5). I especially love this passage because while I was reading it I felt a chill run up my own spine, as if I was experiencing the word along with Geryon. and THAT is why I find Carson’s poetry even more visceral than any of the others that I have read. She not only paints the picture but paints it so vividly that I can feel it in my very being.

When she writes, further down the page, about the situation by which Geryon came to live in his brother’s room, she describes it exactly the way a child might, if that child saw through images rather than mere description. This intersection of simplicity and difference is what makes her language here so impactful. “The doctors put her together again with a big pin” (L 21-22). She shows so much, and tells so little. And that, my friends, is the beauty of Carson.

When Geryon first started writing his Autobiography , it struck me as important, because it took a step back from the scenic descriptions and started to define the truths of Geryon’s world. It reads,

“On the cover Geryon wrote Autobiography. Inside he set down the facts. Total facts about Geryon. Geryon was a monster everything about him was red. Geryon lived on an island in the Atlantic called the Red Place. Geryon’s mother was a river that runs to the sea the Red Joy River Geryon’s father was gold. Some say Geryon had six hands six feet some say wings…” (page 37).

This was the first thing that Geryon wrote, supposedly. Before this, he’d still been trying to create an autobiography, just from a cigarette and a tomato (page 34-35), because he couldn’t write yet. After suspending disbelief about how a child who just learned to write knows the word “autobiography,” we can examine these “facts.” Geryon has expressed the importance of facts to him previously. He seems to respect facts in a peculiar way, especially considering how most of his story is in prose. I propose that he values facts so much because his life feels so fragmented and uncemented, as described by the “cinematic”-like chapters. So, he has to cement some realities and believe the things he writes about himself are true.

The first thing Geryon describes about himself is his redness. He takes his identity as “a monster” without question, and then furthers a certain devilish image by saying “everything about him” is red. Not just his appearance but his emotions, his state of being, his intentions. Red is associated with anger, lust, embarrassment, hunger– most of which are things Geryon has described in some way at this point. Geryon then describes not consistent with what we have read so far, saying he lives on an island. By this he might mean he lives in isolation, but surrounded by a positive resource, his mother the river. A river is very mystical, an uncontainable, ever-changing fixture of an environment. He sees beauty and refuge in her existence, but does not feel that she is corporeal in the same way as him. Even further removed is his father’s description, just “gold.” Perhaps the color, perhaps the mineral– this vagueness makes sense considering the father has barely been mentioned thus far.

In the bigger picture, Geryon’s motivations for even writing an autobiography are conflicted and yet intuitive. Even a child, he is desperate to tell his story, to describe himself for what he is. Yet, his descriptions are not all that kind. I think his words are the expressions of a person who is so suppressed that they cannot help but try and escape their existence, through metaphor and truth-telling, but who has a hard time escaping the marginalization that have been placed upon them while in that cage. It reminds me of how a lot of our readings have had a lot to do with personal stories– we read many works by Eli Clare, and he outlined many intricate details of his life. Even Written on the Body, while still unnamed, the narrator is very concerned about the “self,” and what they have experienced. This idea of “autobiography” is a reoccurring one, and might tell us something about the importance of stories, and understanding individual experiences on a case by case basis instead of through generalities.

When Geryon learned to write, his mother asked his teacher at a parent-teacher conference if Geryon “ever [wrote] anything with a happy ending” (38). Hearing this, Geryon takes his paper from his teacher and adds a happy ending to his collection of autobiographical facts:  

New Ending:
All over the world the beautiful red breezes went on blowing hand
in hand (38).  

To me, this scene presented an interesting dichotomy between Geryon’s fascination with self-representation and the idea of retelling a story from the “villain’s” point of view. During just this first part of the novel, Geryon can be seen representing himself through art in many different ways. First there’s the tomato sculpture that he puts together on Tuesday night with his mom (35), then there’s the notebook from Japan in which he writes his “Autobiography” (37), and then there’s his photography (40). In all these ways, Carson gives Geryon, the “villain” the reins to tell his story and express himself. However, the scene I quoted from above shows a sort of filtering of the story, and like a lot of the other books we’ve read this semester, causes the reader to question the narrative. 

In the parent-teacher conference scene, Geryon forgoes the ending he wrote to better conform to what was expected of him. I think it’s significant that he changes his story here to please his mother. One of the only people he seems to really love in the novel. That makes me wonder about how the rest of this book will go. We’ve just been introduced to Hercules, the only other person in the novel who Geryon loves. In her NYT review of Autobiography of Red, Ruth Padel talks about how Hercules ends up deserting Geryon and breaking his heart. Since Geryon loves Hercules so much at this point in the novel, will he feel a sense of loyalty that causes him to filter his point of view, or will Hercules try to convince him that his story is something that it isn’t? Seeing as Hercules is the one who helps Garyon escape his cage, that would be sadly ironic, but Padel does not paint a very favorable picture of Hercules in her review. She writes that the novel “is about knowing and loving a man who has a good time with you, but will never know you back. Geryon’s redness is his inmost being, his selfhood, but Hercules dreams about him in yellow” (Padel). Being at a point in the novel where I feel like I still don’t know Hercules very well, Padel’s synopsis is sort of foreboding for the future of Geryon’s story. 

 

https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/98/05/03/reviews/980503.03padel2t.html  

I couldn’t help but notice that Geryon’s relationship with his mother is almost always signified by some sort of mention or source of light throughout the first part of the novel. To me, the presence of light is representative of the love and trust Geryon feels for his mother. 

This connection is first made through frequent mentions of light, lamps, and luminosity in the section titled Tuesday. Here Geryon clearly states his love for the weekly occasion, and this security and genuine happiness are accompanied by images and descriptions of light that fills the house and memories of Tuesdays with his mother(34). Lamps flare when Geryon is given genuine praise from his mom, and thus allows Geryon to describe his own skull (brain, creativity, mind?) as luminous (35). 

Space and Time: “He and his mother eyed each other from opposite shores of the light” (42). Geryon is growing up, something quite unfamiliar to both himself and his mother. In adolescent turmoil and confusion, they have become separated from the relationship they once had with each other. They stand opposite one another, Geryon reflects briefly on his departure from childhood with the line Stale peace of old bedtimes filled the room. Love does not-” (42), I would like to note that this thought on love is broken up into two lines, where the thought is continued on with slightly different context than it would if the line ended with “love does not” suggesting a double meaning here, but more so the emotional conflict within Geryon. This is a conflict that his mother is clearly unaware of shown by their opposite stances. But she herself is also slightly detached from this light when she refuses Geryon’s offer to light her cigarette (43). 

She: This section starts with the line: “Back at the house all was dark except a light from the porch” (57). After this distinction, Geryon gets an unusual urge to call his mother. I had a hard time making sense of this section in the following moments; however, darkness and light are used here in relation to his mother, but also allow Geryon to express feelings of fear or relief in this scene of distress “He had been here before in the dark…He banged the light off ”(57). This light then extends itself to The Grandmother who, perhaps being a maternal figure herself, is viewed as slightly more approachable for Geryon in his adolescence and attachment to Herakles. 

Fruit bowl: In this section, Geryon takes a break from volcanoes to focus on a conversation with his mother. There is only one mention of light here “They spoke of a number of things, laundiy, Geryon’s brother doing drugs, the light in the bathroom”(69). There is a certain shortness and fragmentation emphasized in this section through the use of clipped, almost unfinished sentences, “Wanted to go straight to his room”, “Hands in his jacket”, “Eyes on his chest” (68), this is then followed by a number of short, punctuated thoughts. Both of these express the distance and unfamiliarity that has clearly grown between Geryon and his mother. Where once they sat together under the lamplight in Geryon’s childhood, they now only share the light in infrequent moments of small talk that are shortlived, but perhaps still valued by Geryon despite his discomfort. 

There are more examples that I don’t have space to touch on (not to mention electricity and a deeper exploration of Geryon’s relationship with the grandma). The “elements” as depicted in various forms are a vital mode of symbolism throughout the novel I’m excited to see how they play a part in the second half. 

I want to dedicate this close reading to focus on a few lines from chapter nine of Autobiography of Red. The chapter, for me, was one a bit more difficult to understand, but I hope by writing out the thought process of my analysis, it brings us both, as author and reader, closer to the text. Or at the very least, to the deeper meanings associated with it.

The part of text that I’m most interested in is towards the end of the chapter. After Geryon’s mother asks about Herakles, Geryon has a small mental spiral of all the emotions and moments that Herakles represents (Carson 43). This detail bulks the emotion depth that I believe the following sentences offer.

“‘How does distance look?’ is a simple direct question. It extends from a spaceless / within to the edge / of what can be loved. It depends on light.” (Carson 43). 

If you were to ask me how distance looks like, to be frank, I’m not sure I could give you an answer. However, keeping in consideration Geryon’s relationship with photography, distance is determined by the amount of light that is exposed to the lens of a camera. I would like to maybe stretch the bounds of this quote, and draw a comparison to Geryon and Herakles relationship. Naturally, when we fall out of love with our first love, life tends to feel like it can either brighten or darken, depending on your relationship. I also believe that this has to do with the idea that, just beyond the horizon (get it, horizon line in photography? no. alright.), there is a place where the light of love has yet to reach.

As Geryon is beginning to realize, Herakles is not nearly as impressive or amazing as he first thought. The spaceless, referring to our innate vastness of mind, to the end of what can be loved, in Geryon’s case, Herakles. I want to believe that the light in the novel refers to the likelihood of that relationship to work. In tandem with photography, a photo cannot be taken without light. The same way a relationship can’t work if the people are incompatible. Given this, you cannot see distance in the dark, the same way you cannot love without a spark, or light.

Please correct me if I’m wrong,

JAY WALKER