From the offset, questions regarding what Anne Carson’s Autobiography of Red, a “novel in verse”, is doing with the autobiographical genre arose. In my reading, I was reminded of Paul de Man’s “Autobiography as De-facement”, where he suggests that we tend to assume that life produces an autobiography and not the other way around. I wonder if one could suggest that Geryon’s making of an autobiography creates his life. Geryon is, from a young age, invested in the writing of an autobiography and the search for meaning. This is evident as early as in the second chapter, where we are told about his interest in the word each and his process of assembling, disassembling, and attempting to make meaning out of this word, with the help of his mother.
