Line #60 Literature/AutobiographyOfRed


1	[[quoteright:258:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/autobio2.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:258:''A volcano is not a mountain like others.'']]
3
4	A 1998 [[NarrativePoem novel in verse]] by Anne Carson. It tells the story of Geryon, a boy who is red, has wings, has a whirlwind teenage romance (and miserable breakup) with a guy named Herakles, becomes a photographer, and travels to South America where he runs into Herakles and Herakles' new lover, Ancash. From Ancash, Geryon learns ''why'' he is red and has wings. (It involves him being a ChosenOne. Kind of.)
5
6	[[Characters/ClassicalMythologyMonsters Geryon]] and [[Characters/ClassicalMythologyMortalsAndDemigods Herakles]] are, of course, originally from Myth/ClassicalMythology, where Geryon is the giant, monstrous keeper of a herd of red cattle. Herakles steals the cattle -- killing Geryon in the process -- as one of his labors. Carson brings up that version of the story in some prefatory matter concerning the poet Stesichoros, who wrote the first sympathetic portrayal of Geryon in the sixth century BCE. This section of the book also discusses a separate story about Stesichoros: he is supposed to have been struck blind by [[WorldsMostBeautifulWoman Helen]] for insulting her in a poem, then had his sight restored after writing a [[AuthorsSavingThrow palinode]].
7
8	''Autobiography of Red'' was followed in 2013 by a DenserAndWackier (but also somewhat darker) sequel, ''Red Doc>''.
9	----
10	!!''Autobiography of Red'' provides examples of:
11	* AerithAndBob: Geryon, Herakles, Ancash, Lazer . . . Maria . . . Marguerite . . .
12	* AlternateContinuity: The book contains two mutually-exclusive stories about Geryon and Herakles, one in the front matter and one in the main body.
13	* AmazingTechnicolorPopulation: Geryon is red.
14	* AppeaseTheVolcanoGod: Subverted. According to Ancash, the villagers of Jucu used to throw people into the nearby volcano -- not as sacrifices, but because occasionally someone would return from the experience with "[[CameBackStrong all their weaknesses burned away]]."
15	* ArcWords: During the Argentinian interlude, Geryon repeatedly asks: "What is time made of?"
16	* ArgentinaIsNaziland: Subverted. There are many Germans in Buenos Aires -- but they are all soccer players (or psychoanalysts, or cigarette girls).
17	* BackstoryHorror: Early in the book, we hear about Geryon being sexually abused as a young child. The narrative never mentions it again, and the overall tone of the book is gentler than one might expect after a revelation like that.
18	* BadBoy: Herakles is a sub-{{delinquent}} type, with a fondness for UsefulNotes/{{graffiti}}, {{s\|tickyFingers}}hoplifting, and [[HellBentForLeather leather]]. Geryon finds him wildly attractive.
19	* BigBrotherBully: Geryon has an older brother who, when they are children, insults, undermines, and sexually abuses him.
20	* BilingualBonus:
21	** The snippets of GratuitousGerman on Geryon's postcards seem to be tailored to the recipients. In particular, ''Zum verlorenen Hören'' ("For lost hearing") seems a peculiarly poignant thing to write to one's former professor.
22	** ''Icchantikas'' sounds like {{Mayincatec}} gibberish, but actually comes from a Sanskrit term used in Mahayana UsefulNotes/{{Buddhism}} to refer to someone who is incapable of achieving enlightenment.
23	* BirthmarkOfDestiny: Geryon's unusual appearance turns out to be a sign that he is a Yazcamac.
24	* CameBackStrong: A variant (involving unlikely survival rather than a full-blown BackFromTheDead situation) is predicted to be what will happen [[spoiler:to Geryon after his descent into the volcano]]. What it actually does to him [[spoiler:ends up being somewhat vague]].
25	* CameraFiend: Geryon, especially late in the book, spends quite a bit of time either taking photographs, planning to take photographs, or thinking up titles for the photographs he is taking or planning to take.
26	* ChainOfCorrections: Herakles and Geryon go through a brief one of these:
27	-->You know you have to pass an examination to get into the electricians' union\
28	in Buenos Aires but all the exam questions\
29	are about the constitution. What do you mean the human constitution?\
30	No the constitution of Argentina\
31	except the last one. The last constitution? No the last question on the exam--
32	* TheChanteuse: The singer in the tango bar. A somewhat less glamorous version, if only because Geryon isn't a fan of the music.
33	-->It was a typical tango song and she had the throat full of needles you need to sing it.
34	* ChekhovsVolcano:
35	** Subverted with the volcano on Hades, which doesn't erupt within the timeframe of the story.
36	** Played more-or-less straight with Icchantikas: it doesn't actually ''erupt'', but it's a lot more active than Ancash originally implied, and it becomes directly plot-relevant at the end.
37	* ChosenOne: Geryon, as a Yazcamac, is assumed to be fated to become [[spoiler:an immortal]] wise man.
38	* ClimacticVolcanoBackdrop: Subverted. Geryon apparently does [[spoiler:fly into a volcano and emerge unscathed]], but it's an OffscreenMomentOfAwesome.
39	* ColorMotifs: Several. In particular, yellow seems to represent things that pass out of Geryon's life:
40	** Herakles dreams of Geryon reviving a dead yellow bird and then freeing it.
41	** [[OnlyKnownByTheirNickname The yellowbeard]] and Lazer (who wears a yellow scarf) are people Geryon socializes with for a day, with no follow-up or ongoing acquaintance.
42	** Though it isn't directly stated in ''Autobiography'', ''Red Doc>'' makes it clear that Herakles is blond. The way his path keeps crossing with and reseparating from Geryon's is a huge part of both books.
43	* ComingOfAgeStory: The story follows Geryon from childhood into his early twenties, dealing especially with his FirstLove and first breakup, and with his development as an artist.
44	* ComingOutStory: Unexpectedly for a QueerRomance involving adolescents, this is averted. Geryon's mother instantly intuits the nature of his relationship with Herakles, and accepts it without batting an eye.
45	* DisappearedDad: Herakles and Ancash both suffer from this. Geryon's dad is present, but doesn't play any part in the story.
46	* DudeLooksLikeALady: Geryon and Ancash are momentarily fascinated by two people in furs and high heels, who they suddenly realize are men.
47	* EyeMotifs: There are frequent references to eyes, especially Geryon's eyes, as a sort of conduit to the outer world. This echoes the FramingDevice, which discusses Stesichoros being blinded and then having his sight restored.
48	* FilmTheHand: A variant, in some ways closer to CameraObscurer. One of the pictures in the PhotoMontage sequence towards the end is "a close-up photograph of Geryon's left pant leg just below the knee." The backstory is that Geryon was about to photograph some soldiers (which would presumably not have been a good idea) and Ancash's mother pushed the camera down at the last second.
49	* FireIsRed: Geryon, who is red, frequently thinks and feels using fire imagery.
50	* FirstLove: Herakles seems to be this to Geryon, which leads to Geryon taking their breakup ''much'' harder than Herakles probably anticipated.
51	* FramingDevice: The Stesichoros matter isn't quite a frame ''story'', but it serves a similar function of providing context and perspective to the main narrative.
52	* FreakinessShame: Geryon is embarrassed by his wings and often hides them under a trenchcoat. Much later, [[spoiler:Ancash's admiration of them sets off the final subplot of Geryon's descent into the volcano]].
53	* GoodWingsEvilWings: Averted in canon, as the form of Geryon's wings is never directly addressed.[[note]]The closest we get is a passage that describes them as ''both'' "fingerwork," suggesting bat wings, and "lace," suggesting feathers.[[/note]] FanArt tends to interpret them as birdlike.
54	* GottaHaveItGonnaStealIt: Herakles takes a shine to the wooden tiger figure on a merry-go-round and convinces the other two to help him steal it.
55	* GratuitousGerman: The "bits of Heidegger" Geryon scribbles on his postcards home. For that matter, the place he's writing from is called the Café [[LonersAreFreaks Mitwelt]].
56	* GrayRainOfDepression: A rainstorm occurs halfway through the book, while Geryon is still reeling from Herakles breaking up with him. In a variant of this trope, it isn't so much an EmpathicEnvironment as it is {{Irony}}: the storm is portrayed as dynamic and forceful, in contrast to Geryon's inertia.
57	* HellBentForLeather: Herakles is a BadBoy type and wears a black leather jacket.
58	* ItWasWithYouAllAlong: Implied. Ancash says that the Yazcamac return as red {{Winged Humanoid}}s. Geryon was a red WingedHumanoid to begin with; in a way, he can already be identified as a Yazcamac. [[spoiler:He decides to fly into the volcano anyway. He doesn't seem dramatically different afterward.]]
59	* LadyLooksLikeADude: In Argentina, Geryon briefly mistakes a tuxedo-clad female tango singer for a man.
60	* LoveAtFirstSight: Geryon and Herakles.
61	-->. . . and there it was one of those moments\
62	that is the opposite of blindness.\
63	The world poured back and forth between their eyes once or twice.
64	* LoveTriangle: Geryon, Herakles, and Ancash. At first, Herakles and Ancash seem to be mutually involved and Geryon is one-sidedly attracted to Herakles. Later, [[spoiler:Geryon briefly becomes reinvolved with Herakles, which sends Ancash into a fit of jealousy]].
65	* TheMagazineRule: {{Lampshaded}} when Geryon looks over the magazines at a newsstand:
66	-->Architecture, geology, surfing,\
67	weight lifting, knitting, politics, sex. ''Balling from Behind'' caught his eye\
68	(a whole magazine devoted to this?\
69	issue after issue? year after year?)
70	* MagicalMinorityPerson: Ancash has shades of this, being a quechuaphone Peruvian who serves up traditional wisdom for the benefit of the anglophone North American protagonist.
71	* MultipleNarrativeModes: The main story is all in novelistic (though versified) third person limited, but the front and back matter use several other modes, including a nonfiction-style prose introduction to Stesichoros, fragmentary poems in Stesichoros' voice, and a section made up of extracts from other ancient authors.
72	* MythologyGag: More literally mytholgical than most. The version of his autobiography that Geryon writes in elementary school is basically a rewrite of the version of the ''Geryoneis'' found in the front matter, complete with red cattle, red dog, and a murderous Herakles. (That last bit is all the more interesting because ''this'' continuity's version of Herakles hasn't even shown up yet.)
73	* NeverTrustATitle: The words ''Autobiography'' and ''Red'' are both a bit off-center. The book is not presented as an autobiography (although Geryon does attempt to produce one in-story). And, while Geryon ''is'' red, it isn't his name and nobody calls him by it.
74	* NewhartPhoneCall: A couple of examples, colored by the fact that the entire story is told from Geryon's point of view.
75	** Played straight early on, when Geryon's mother calls her friend, [[TheGhost Maria]].
76	** Zig-zagged later. Geryon gets a call from Herakles, and both sides of the conversation are provided. But in the next chapter Geryon calls his mother and we only hear his side.
77	* NominalImportance: Played with. Apart from the central trio, the only named characters are minor ones, such as Maria (Geryon's mother's friend, [[TheGhost who never appears onscreen]]), or Lazer (who has only one scene -- part of which is devoted to him explaining his name). More important characters such as Geryon's mother and brother go unnamed.
78	* NoNameGiven: Several characters, but special note goes to "the yellowbeard," who is never called anything else even though the narrative seems, briefly, to be teasing him as a {{Love Interest\|s}} for Geryon.
79	* NoPunctuationIsFunnier sometimes more evocative too
80	* OffscreenMomentOfAwesome: Geryon [[spoiler:flying into the volcano]] at the end of the story.
81	* OldFlame: Herakles and Geryon become involved again after running into each other in South America.
82	* OrphanedPunchline: The joke told in Spanish by the philosophers, which Geryon fails to get. All the reader is told is that it involves [[NoodleImplements monks and soup]] and that the punchline includes the phrase "bad milk."
83	* OurMonstersAreDifferent: A rare application of this trope to a single being. In Myth/ClassicalMythology Geryon is a red giant with an unusual number of heads and/or limbs, and sometimes with wings, who lives somewhere west of here. In [[Literature/TheDivineComedy Dante]] he is a huge, flying MixAndMatchCritter who lives in Hell. Here he is an ordinary-sized WingedHumanoid, red, who lives in Canada.
84	* PerspectiveFlip: This story builds on the sympathetic portrait of Geryon that originated with Stesichoros, and takes it a step further by making the situation LighterAndSofter so that Geryon and Herakles can both be sympathetic at the same time.
85	* PhotoMontage: Evoked non-visually late in the book, in a series of seven chapters/poems all formed on the same pattern: a title including the word "Photographs," a one-line description of the picture, and a narration of the circumstances in which it was taken. Subverted in the seventh of the series, "Photographs: #1748," in which the description is, "It is a photograph he never took, no one here took it." Since this is the chapter in which [[spoiler:Geryon flies into the volcano]], and he apparently ''does'' take a photograph, the negating description recalls the Stesichorean palinode.
86	* QueerRomance: The troubled romance between Geryon and Herakles is a big part of the plot.
87	* RamblingOldManMonologue: Herakles' grandmother has one of these. She starts off talking about the physiology of drowning, which brings up the time she met Virginia Woolf, which brings up a dog she once had (which drowned), which brings up her acquaintanceship with Sigmund Freud... (She does dial it back once Geryon asks her a specific question.)
88	* RapeAsBackstory: Young Geryon is repeatedly molested by his brother early in the book.
89	* ShirtlessScene: Herakles has one on the rooftop in Lima. There's a striking image of him eating a papaya and letting the juice run down his chest.
90	* ShoutOut: There are repeated references to Creator/EmilyDickinson.
91	** One of her poems, #1748, is used as an {{epigraph}}.
92	** Herakles and Ancash are working on a documentary about her.
93	** Geryon gets a line from one of her letters [[EarWorm stuck in his head]].
94	** The title of the penultimate poem, "Photographs: #1748," echoes the epigraph.
95	* SpookyPhotographs: A (probably) non-literal version: Geryon takes a picture of Herakles which appears to him as "the face / of an old man . . . a photograph of the future."
96	* TastesLikePurple: Midway through the story, Geryon is revealed to be a synesthete by means of a flashback to a school project that he did about "the noise the colors make." This sheds retroactive light on things like the "red" smell of grass from the first poem.
97	* TimeSkip: Eight presumably uneventful years elapse between the breakup and Geryon's trip to South America.
98	* UnnamedParent: Geryon's and Ancash's mothers, and Herakles' grandmother, are all left nameless despite appearing in several scenes apiece.
99	* ViewerGenderConfusion: An odd in-universe case. When Geryon gets a job at a library, he pays so little attention to his co-workers that when he gets home he can't remember whether they are men or women. His mother guesses they are mostly men, based on his photographs of their shoes.
100	* VisibleSilence: Very late in the book, Geryon tries to strike up a conversation with Ancash, who's mad at him for [[spoiler:sleeping with Herakles]]. Ancash's non-responses are represented by rows of twelve dots.
101	* WeirdnessCensor: Geryon may ''feel'' like a monster, but we don't see a lot of people treating him as one: he seems to draw surprisingly little attention for someone who is completely red and has wings. It's possible that these traits are, at least initially, InvisibleToNormals; whether this changes after he [[spoiler:emerges from the volcano]] is not clear.
102	* WhereTheHellIsSpringfield: Total known facts about Geryon's hometown:
103	** It is on an island, which Geryon once describes as "an island in the Atlantic called the Red Place."[[note]]But we don't know how literal he is being, since the same passage is full of references to things that don't actually happen in this continuity.[[/note]]
104	** It's near a beach where American money and "a piece of an old war helmet" are not unusual things to find.
105	** On the other end of the island -- seven hours away by bus -- are a town called Hades and an active volcano.
106	** Geryon has a North American accent but denies being from the U.S.
107	* WingedHumanoid: Geryon. His wings are apparently small enough to hide easily, but big enough to fly with.
108	* WithAFriendAndAStranger: In the final section of the story, there is the trio of Geryon, Herakles (Geryon's OldFlame), and Ancash (stranger to Geryon, newish {{Love Interest\|s}} to Herakles).

Context Literature / AutobiographyOfRed