{"id":2481,"date":"2023-10-30T21:06:06","date_gmt":"2023-10-31T01:06:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/?p=2481"},"modified":"2023-10-30T21:06:09","modified_gmt":"2023-10-31T01:06:09","slug":"art-obiography-of-red","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/2023\/10\/30\/art-obiography-of-red\/","title":{"rendered":"Art-obiography of Red"},"content":{"rendered":"

When Geryon learned to write, his mother asked his teacher at a parent-teacher conference if Geryon \u201cever [wrote] anything with a happy ending\u201d (38). Hearing this, Geryon takes his paper from his teacher and adds a happy ending to his collection of autobiographical facts: <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

New Ending:<\/span><\/i>
\n<\/span>All over the world the beautiful red breezes went on blowing hand<\/span><\/i>
\n<\/span>in hand <\/span><\/i>(38).<\/span> \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

To me, this scene presented an interesting dichotomy between Geryon\u2019s fascination with self-representation and the idea of retelling a story from the \u201cvillain\u2019s\u201d 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\u2019s the tomato sculpture that he puts together on Tuesday night with his mom (35), then there\u2019s the notebook from Japan in which he writes his \u201cAutobiography\u201d (37), and then there\u2019s his photography (40). In all these ways, Carson gives Geryon, the \u201cvillain\u201d 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\u2019ve read this semester, causes the reader to question the narrative.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

In the parent-teacher conference scene, Geryon forgoes the ending he wrote to better conform to what was expected of him. I think it\u2019s 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\u2019ve just been introduced to Hercules, the only other person in the novel who Geryon loves. In her NYT review of <\/span>Autobiography of Red<\/span><\/i>, 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\u2019t? 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 \u201cis 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\u201d (Padel). Being at a point in the novel where I feel like I still don\u2019t know Hercules very well, Padel\u2019s synopsis is sort of foreboding for the future of Geryon\u2019s story.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

https:\/\/archive.nytimes.com\/www.nytimes.com\/books\/98\/05\/03\/reviews\/980503.03padel2t.html<\/span><\/a> \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When Geryon learned to write, his mother asked his teacher at a parent-teacher conference if Geryon \u201cever [wrote] anything with a happy ending\u201d (38). Hearing this, Geryon takes his paper from his teacher and adds a happy ending to his collection of autobiographical facts: \u00a0 New Ending: All over the world the beautiful red breezes … Continue reading Art-obiography of Red<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5325,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[346798],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2481","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2023-blog-post"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5325"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2481"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2481\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2481"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/everythinginbetween\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}