Author: baz

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  

In Qwo-Li Driskill’s poem, “Cherokee Love Haiku,” they offer the same poem in three different forms; the first is in their language, the second is transliterated, and the third is in English. In class we talked about how Driskill’s use of a haiku was significant because of how highly structured they are. The haikus also take up the page in an interesting way. The poem in the indigenous language is first; then the transliterated one, which is also intended; and lastly, all the way on the left again, is the one in English. I think this feeling of structure could connect to the institutions that forced indigenous people to assimilate to white society. However, the transliterated haiku being indented gives the page an illusion of movement and the passage of time, like each poem flowing into the next. This feeling is also strengthened by the fact that there’s a transliterated poem, which seems to represent a transition period/the process of assimilation, but also resistance. Resistance comes from the easy, wavelike movement of the poems within such a strict structure. Also, though, Indigenous children were forced to learn English, usually at the expense of their native language, and Driskill’s use of the English alphabet and (I’m assuming) Cherokee words seems to push back against that. The wave like pattern of the poems also suggest an ebb and flow. If it were read from bottom to top, it could be seen as Indigenous people slowly reclaiming their languages and cultures. 

We also talked about Driskill’s use of the word “persimmon,” which is a fruit native to North America. I read the Wikipedia page for the persimmon’s native here, and they don’t seem to be endangered, which I think is interesting. Colonial settlers wiped out/endangered a lot of animals native to North America, but the persimmon made it through alive, and Driskill’s poem seems to argue that their culture did too. Like love and persimmons, Driskill’s culture was able to withstand immense hardships 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diospyros_virginiana  

Louise’s grandmother, the Pea, though present for less than ten pages, is an extremely interesting character. One of the most interesting things about her is the way she is introduced. She lives with Louise’s mother, and although she had a steady hand, she liked to spill because “[i]t made work for her daughter” (164). From this description, I assumed the Pea was a jerk. However, we later learn that Louise’s mother is even more of a jerk, which in turn, makes the Pea a lot more likeable. Louise’s mother, I think, can be seen to represent or at least be a product of white, heterosexual, patriarchal, British (even though she’s Australian) society. She is very concerned about appearances and propriety (165) and she knows more about England than her mother (ie. The fact that they do not have a Disinfectant Department [165]). She also talks very formally, calling the Pea “mother”, while the Pea calls her “Kitty” which I assume is a nickname (165).  

Because of this, the Pea being a pain in her ass is comparable, I think to taking digs at the patriarchy. This starts even before the Pea has Louise’s mother. The Pea had “over one hundred proposals of marriage in the 1920s” from high society men, like bankers, but she “married a sheep farmer” (167). Which goes against the classism of British society as well as capitalistic society. The Pea moved out to the country with her husband where their “nearest neighbour had been a day’s ride away” (167). In class we talked about “cottage core” and the idyllic nature of being away from society and escaping from patriarchy, which is particularly relevant to people who do not fit society’s idea of “normal”. The Pea also strays from societal norms with her crudeness. While Louise’s mother puts on a polite and proper front when the narrator visits them looking for Louise, the Pea does nothing to hide her personality and try to fit into British society’s idea of “normal”. She uses slang, contradicts Mrs. Fox, has no reserves about bad-mouthing Elgin, and makes a racket “screaming” and “banging her stick” in a way that reminds the narrator of a “knife thrower in the circus” (166). 

Associating the Pea with the circus is an interesting choice, because the circus often houses “queer” things for “normal” people to observe and be entertained by. The “queer” people in the circus are an interesting contrast to queer people in society, because in society, few queer people are as open about their queerness, and even fewer invite “normal” people to gawk at them. We established in class that there is something queer about the narrator and their relationship with Louise, and by presenting the Pea as queer too, the narrator creates a sense of community there, which is kind of reassuring; even if the narrator does not have Lousie, they have the Pea. 

Louise is one of the few people who make the narrator feel free but also in control, which is something that they seem to value. Toward the end of the book, when the narrator is reminiscing about the good times they had with Louise, they describe her as “My Lady of the Verdigris. Louise is one of the few women who might still be beautiful if she went mouldy” (161). When I first read this, I assumed the “Lady of the Verdigris” was some painting, but upon minimal further research, it seems like the narrator just means Louise is their teal woman. This is an interesting way to describe her, because having grown up in the US, the most famous “Lady of the Verdigris” is the Statue of Liberty. I don’t know if it symbolizes the same things in the UK or if they even think about it at all, but the going “mouldy” (161) and the “copper” hair (161) definitely seem to point to a copper statue that’s oxidized. I feel like the Statue of Liberty can signify two things, especially for people who don’t live in the US.  

The first is, of course, freedom or liberty. The narrator leads a life that seems free of commitment. They describe settling down with Jacqueline as “wallow[ing] in contentment,” and explain that “[c]ontentment is the positive side of resignation” (76). I think that the narrator telling us about all the people they’ve dated in the past characterizes them as a free person who doesn’t get hung up break ups and moves on (fairly) easily. I think this is also demonstrated through the fact that almost all the women the narrator dates are married, while the narrator isn’t; they aren’t legally tied to another person, which gives them the ability to easily date around.  

The second idea the Statue of Liberty could signify, looking at the US in the 1990s from a queer perspective, could be control. There was the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy (1993) and the Defense of Marriage Act (1996), for example, and while both of these were implemented/passed after Written on the Body was published (1992), I’d imagine that the suppression of queer identity was present throughout the earlier ‘90s as well. After the narrator hits Jacqueline, they say that they always prided themselves on being the “superior partner” who didn’t overreact and was able to control themselves (86). They had control in their relationship with Louise until she got cancer, and then they attempted to maintain their control by running away to the run-down house in the country. I think it’s in the country where the narrator starts to develop as a character and starts to loosen their control over both the narrative and their relationship with Louise. They start to tell us more about themselves. And in the very end, they embrace the cliches (180) and possible lose control of their sanity (188). 

(source: https://library.law.howard.edu/civilrightshistory/lgbtq/90s)