Author: Violet Torres

I love the use of color in this book. Often, Carson does not use colors beyond what we think of in the rainbow today (minus indigo) as well as white, black, and I believe pink. But, importantly, she does not use shades of these colors to describe specific variants. I like that because there is such a large emphasis on color, especially red. There are those who can see red and those who cannot (not literally, of course). But I do believe it is important to note that Herakles does not often say red, if at all. Which is ironic considering Geryon loves him. A few pages before Ancash sees Geryon’s wings, we get this point where Herakles – and I swear he jumps out of nowhere in each scene – interrupts a conversation and talks about the parrots in the house. He says, “Yes she has a room full of parrots at the front of the house. / Must be fifty birds in there. / Purple green orange blue yellow it’s like an explosion” (Carson 123). He literally lists every single color except for red. In my opinion, this signals his inability to change. This sentence would be less odd if 1) he did not mention 5/6 colors of the rainbow and 2) he did not mention parrots. Personally, when I think of parrots, I think of those red ones with blue and yellow feathers often seen with pirates. There are many different species of parrots, but it is clear that the lack of red in Herakles’s words was intentional. Although, he was not talking about Geryon, it becomes evident that Herakles doesn’t know what red means in the metaphorical sense, which is thus portrayed by his lack of physically acknowledging its existence. Back when they were kids, in his dream, Herakles thought of Geryon as yellow. This dissonance between who Geryon actually is and what Herakles sees is evident through these colorful words. Ironically, Herakles is bad at “reading” people. It seems he either does not care or is willfully ignorant about the feelings of others. He never seems to connect with anyone. On the other hand, the conversations between Ancash – who actually says and sees red – and Geryon are more emotional and trusting than the conversations including Herakles. In fact, Herakles often interrupts the conversations between Geryon and Ancash. Interestingly, Geryon says “In the photograph the face of / Herakles is white,” noticing the line break emphasizes “Herakles is white” (144). Other things described as white in Autobiography of Red include Lima and specific days while Geryon is there. There is this gloomy, almost upsetting, use of white as a verb. White is like the absence of color. The absence of red. An inability to see. In the end, it all demonstrates Herakles’s lack of change and inability to actually see people.

         When thinking of how I wanted to start this blog post, I thought back to the free writes we did in class, because I had many questions about the concept of Cereus Blooms at Night. The first thing I would like to draw attention to is Tyler’s notes on pages 3 and 105. I liked their structure within the book, and how they almost set up the concepts of Part I and Part II. However, the most obvious aspect of these is the fact that their premise feels false. For a letter that is supposed to be for Asha, Tyler uses “I” a lot (Mootoo 3). The whole concept of these starting letters is Tyler saying he is not going to talk about himself. Yet, 4/6 lines are about himself or talking about himself and his efforts, and 2/6 of the lines reference Asha. The word “myself” is used five times in three lines (Mootoo 3). Similarly, the second starting letter Tyler talks about himself and his efforts 4/5 lines, and Asha once.

            My version of close reading in this sense is more about structure and repetition. At first, these annoyed me, because it is very contradictory, and the concept of this book is that it is a letter to Asha Ramchandin about her sister (if that is the case, why is he relaying to her a lot of her own childhood trauma? Perhaps a question for a different blog post). Yet, I feel a lot of it is about Otoh and then a good amount is about Tyler. So, I stress that AT FIRST this annoyed me. Because, of course, I had some revelations.

            We can never separate ourselves from what we are writing, especially for those of us who are queer. When I look at my own writings, whether they be fictional or not, my own biases but also my own experiences are reflected. I do not think we should separate ourselves from our writing. The use of first person, in Tyler’s case, is a direct insertion of ourselves. Frankly, we need to. Without knowing the history or biases of a writer, we cannot fully appreciate the work or analyze it correctly.

          Personally, I believe writing, in and of itself, is a version of queer space. Typically, when thinking of that concept, I envision a physical space, but I think mental space is also important. Books are a view into a different world, and we all interpret them differently. They can be safe spaces as well. As a writer, I feel safest within my own writing because I can freely express myself and who I am. Growing up, I did not read a book that represented my sapphic identity until I was in high school, and I had to seek it out myself. But upon opening that book, I felt seen. I felt that similarly when I started writing as well. So, perhaps inserting ourselves is not as self-centered as it may seem. But, rather, and integral part of our own identities and cultivating a space to freely be ourselves.

Eli Clare in “stones in my pocket, stones in my heart” speaks a lot about complex dynamics between bodies and identity, and how the outer world perceives bodies and identities that are not their own. At one point he says, “I lose the bigger picture, forget that woven through and around the private and intimate is always the public and political” (149). We briefly touched on this statement in class, but I wanted to go back at flesh out some more ideas I had. I do not think that Clare is saying that the two sets of ideas are synonymous. Rather, they coincide and loop around each other. We spoke about how politics often have an impact on our privacy. There are court cases and laws that deem whether two people of the same gender can get married. Additionally, there are laws that used to criminalize homosexuality, and it took a long time to legalize it in every state. These are policies by lawmakers in the past that have an effect on people’s current intimate and private lives. Additionally, there is always public opinion. Growing up in my conservative town, there was a stigma around being queer. Even now, the rhetoric being dispersed from TV shows, movies, political figures, or even just our friends, can influence our private and intimate lives (whether that is through hate or fear or even positive ideas like staying hydrated). People always have an opinion. Often, they can be damaging to our self-perceptions and how we go about our private lives. Especially when people go about imposing their opinions on our lives.

            Additionally, people with disabilities are also seen a certain way by the public eye as Clare mentioned in both of the chapters we have read. What is going on with a person’s body is private and intimate, yet people who have no idea what is going on often make judgments or think they know what is best for that person. Despite having a different body and not having experienced these things. Then, on the other hand, like Clare said in “the mountain,” there are instances where no one told him he did the right thing when he turned around while hiking. There are people always pushing goals on others without thinking about what the person feels. There is never not a public opinion.

            Further, when I think of Clare talking about the “public and political” being “woven through and around the private and intimate,” I think of a woven basket or blanket (149). And, thinking in those terms, I believe it is fair to say the opposite, that the “private and intimate” also fold over the “public and political” (149). By that, I mean, and what I think Clare is saying, that there is a cyclic cause and effect relationship. Queer people got the right to marriage (public) because queer people exist in private spaces and were willing to go public to argue for equality. Additionally, accessibility is enhanced to infrastructure or curriculums because people who are affected by the lack of accessibility in private, go public and argue for equality. That being said, one should not have to sacrifice their privacy for the sake of the public (it is a personal choice).

            There are often people who try to limit the access of other bodies and identities to be seen and heard. There are often people who want legislative control over other people’s bodies (as we can see now with laws against access to gender-affirming care). Yet, there are also people who speak out against the transphobes and homophobes and ableists. People do this in both public and private. The public only exists because the private exists and vice versa. We only know what one is because we have experienced the other. And, thus, there will always be a push and pull, an under and over, a cause and effect. It is how we align and accept ourselves that we can affect the public to protect our privacy. We learn our limits and how to speak for ourselves in the face of adversity.

The narrator of Written on the Body consistently has these beautiful excerpts between normal observation or action that abstractly articulates this person’s thoughts. They are often profound, cosmic, or meta. When the narrator arrives at the cottage after leaving Louise, there is this section where they are describing their house, and it evolves into this commentary on “movement” and “life” accompanied by naturalistic imagery (107). The narrator states, “I want to rot here, slowly sinking into the faded pattern invisible against the dead roses,” then proceeds to personify death in themselves by saying “Death’s head in the chair, the rose chair in the stagnant garden” (107). There is this consistency with life and death or nature and rot that the narrator circles back to throughout this passage and the novel. These two sentences feel almost as if they are inverses. The narrator wants to rot, but is alive, while the roses are dead. In the second sentence, the narrator is dead (synonymous with rot), and the roses have become placed in a garden (associated with life). These sentences are tied to the current plot of the book: Louise’s cancer and the inevitability of death. Louise has cancer in her blood, and one could associate the sickness with the rot the narrator is speaking of. Louise has always been this character that is full of light and life as seen through the narrator’s eyes. There could be this conflict within the narrator of wanting themself to rot/to personify death, and thus free Louise of her sickness. I believe this because the narrator has run away from Louise, as if the narrator is a part of Louise’s sickness (as if they are the rot). By leaving, the narrator either believes Louise will get healthier with Elgin or that Louise will get healthier without the narrator.

Further, the narrator believes that by sitting in that chair, they have “neither life nor hope” because “movement indicates life and life indicates hope,” and they refuse to move (107-108). This could emphasize the narrator’s dependency on Louise. They feel stagnant without her and thus lifeless and hopeless. Additionally, the narrator mentions the idea of death and dust and that “daily we breathe the dead” (108). The narrator believes it is better for them to become dust (death) since they are immobile and thus void of life and hope. I believe the latter quotation goes beyond the actual aspect of breathing in dust. In class, we spoke of how our experiences are written on our body; and how that could be a possible meaning of Winterson’s writing. Since breathing is a function of the body, “daily we breathe the dead” could have a similar meaning (108). The dead are always with us; they are in our memories and written on our bodies. Breathing is essential to life (the antithesis of death), and as long as we are breathing, we will always have our pasts and remember those who have died.