Welcome to The Librarian Is In, The New York Public Library's podcast about books, culture, and what to read next.

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This week Frank and Rhonda went back to the 125 Books We Love list and chose a book to both read for this book club episode.

Autobiography of Red: A Novel in Verse by Anne Carson

Geryon, a young boy who is also a winged red monster, reveals the volcanic terrain of his fragile, tormented soul in an autobiography he begins at the age of five. As he grows older, Geryon escapes his abusive brother and affectionate but ineffectual mother, finding solace behind the lens of his camera and in the arms of a young man named Herakles, a cavalier drifter who leaves him at the peak of infatuation. When Herakles reappears years later, Geryon confronts again the pain of his desire and embarks on a journey that will unleash his creative imagination to its fullest extent. By turns whimsical and haunting, erudite and accessible, richly layered and deceptively simple, Autobiography of Red is a profoundly moving portrait of an artist coming to terms with the fantastic accident of who he is. (Publisher summary)

And sadly, as she mentioned in the episode, the next one will be Rhonda's last. It's been a great year with her as co-host and we'll miss her!

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Transcript

[Music]

[Frank] Hello, and welcome to The Librarian Is In, the New York Public Library's podcast about books, culture, and what to read next. I'm Frank.

[Rhonda] And I'm Rhonda. And you are just -- you have your serious, somber tone ready to discuss --

[Frank] Do I?

[Rhonda] -- the Autobiography of Red.

[Frank] Yeah. I want to -- yeah, I'm trying to focus. Oh, you know, speaking of which, we got a great comment on the blog post in the last podcast where someone said they were grateful for us and that they loved listening to us, which is wonderful, and they were thankful for -- they were admiring of Rhonda for focusing Frank. So thank you for Rhonda. I take that --

[Rhonda] I'm always appreciative of those comments.

[Frank] Yeah, they're very sweet, and I took that as a complete compliment too because it's true. I have focus issues, which I never really thought I did, but I do. And I like the fact that someone picked up on that probably because [multiple speakers].

[Rhonda] And I [multiple speakers] feel that I focus you. I feel like you focus OK on your own. But maybe -- I don't know. Maybe it's just the pandemic [multiple speakers].

[Frank] You have a calm voice.

[Rhonda] What was that?

[Frank] You have a calm voice.

[Rhonda] Ah! Thank you.

[Frank] You do. You do. So you did mention that we did read the Autobiography of Red by Ann Carson. It's on the New York Public Library's 125 Books We Love List, which is a list from last year that celebrated the 125 years of the New York Public Library's wonderful existence. And I had read it before, and I wanted to read it again for sure, and I was very curious to have you read it with me, Rhonda. I did talk about it on the podcast a couple years ago [multiple speakers].

[Rhonda] Yeah, no, I'm just saying, you know, again, I think that this is definitely a book where after a second reading you might have a really different experience, so I'm interested to hear what your second reading was like.

[Frank] Well, don't hype me up. But --

[Rhonda] OK.

[Frank] -- I know that you had said before that you had listened to it but then had also gone back at points to read. Well, tell me about that experience.

[Rhonda] So I didn't do that a lot, but when -- after I had finished reading it, you know, I just wanted to follow up on some of the points of the book, so I did a little research. And, of course, like online, I was able to see how it looked inverse, and I'm like, oh, interesting, and I wondered if that if I had actually read it or maybe if I had listened to it and read it would my experience be different reading it in verse. And, you know, when you're listening to it, you can't tell that it's in verse. And I don't know if that means, you know, knowing where the line breaks are or what.

[Frank] Right.

[Rhonda] But it just sounds like a narrative, you know, when you hear just a story when you're listening to it. So I wondered if that would be a different experience.

[Frank] Yeah. I thought about you bustling about listening to this and how that experience was. I mean, it is called the Autobiography of Red, and the subtitle at least on the front cover is A Novel in Verse. So, you know, I do know that Anne Carson doesn't particularly, at some point, didn't describe herself as a poet or identify as such. So it begs the question that you really brought up, like what is verse as opposed to a narrative. And like you also said, is reading poetry or what looks like poetry physically on the page require that you dead stop after the end of the line, like is there a reason why the author cut the line there and then started in the next line down. So do you read in that manner, or do you read it as something that flows like a narrative sentence in a novel? I think it's -- like I've said before -- it's the most fun to read difficult books. One of the questions is why read difficult books that don't seem immediately comprehensible. It's to discover that rhythm of the writer, like what they are actually in terms of meaning trying to say and also in terms of sentences, punctuation, how that flows, how that rhythmically moves, and to catch that rhythm is one of the most exciting things that I know in life really to be honest. So it is a difficult book. I mean, we talked about that before too. You know, right?

[Rhonda] Yeah, no. It is a difficult, well, difficult in the -- there were parts that were more difficult than others, and I think the introduction or if that's what it's called is -- that part I think was what was, and, you know, I was like, uh-oh, what am I in for, you know, when they're talking about Stesichorus, and we're kind of hearing this slight lecture on Greek mythology.

[Frank] Right.

[Rhonda] And I'm like where, you know, where are we going with this.

[Frank] Right. Right. Because the main body of the book, Autobiography of Red, is the main body of the book, and there are a couple of pre-chapters before that, and then a final little interview. And Autobiography of Red, you know, was based on a -- rifts off of or is inspired by whatever word you want to use by the myth of Hercules or Herakles as he's also known and the monster, Geryon. The myth is one of Hercules' 12 or Herakles -- actually, she calls him Herakles in the book, so I'll say Herakles, Herakles' 12 laborers and the tenth laborer is to go this island where a read monster lives and this red monster, Geryon, tends to have heard of red cattle, and the laborer for Herakles is to get that cattle, and he does, and he also in the process ends up killing Geryon the monster. And as you mentioned, Stesichorus is an ancient Greek writer who told this myth -- was one of the only ones from the ancients who told this myth from the point of view of the monster rather than the hero Hercules or Herakles. So he told it from the point of view of Geryon. So the first couple of chapters -- I mean, Anne Carson is an academic. She's a professor, if that means anything. I mean, you have to know background. But the first couple of chapters, more or less, seem to me a parody. Almost like a send-off of academia because she brings up questions --

[Rhonda] Yeah.

[Frank] -- that she periodically doesn't really answer.

[Rhonda] Exactly.

[Frank] In the voice of Stesichorus and what -- there's a side story about how the Helen of Troy blinded him, and, you know, because he said something rude about her, and then he atoned by writing something wonderful about her, and then she returned his sight or something like that. But the actual -- so, I don't know, I'm sort of less inclined to spend time on that unless you --

[Rhonda] Right. Like I don't even know if I can -- what exactly I have to say on that part.

[Frank] I know. I mean, it is a fun parody in a way, I think. I mean, it has humor in it, and certainly, the book does too. But when I first read it, what propelled me through it and made it magical is it sort of has the two things I sort of love the most, which is difficulty and romance. Story of my life, difficult and romance, the Frank Collerius story.

[Rhonda] We're waiting for that book.

[Frank] Oh, my god. Because the narrative itself of the Autobiography of Red is a love story in some ways, maybe, maybe not, but definitely have a teenage love going on in there.

[Rhonda] Right.

[Frank] So the Autobiography of Red is, as I said, is the riffing off of the myth we just discussed of Geryon the red monster and Herakles, the conquering hero. And in Autobiography of Red which is sort of set like in the '70s or '80s. It was written in 1998, the book.

[Rhonda] Right.

[Frank] But it seems to be taking place a little bit before. Geryon is a 14-year-old on an island off in the Atlantic, apparently off of Canada because at one point, he says he's not American but speaks North American -- with a North American accent. And is living his life.

[Rhonda] Yeah, and I had a lot of trouble kind of figuring out where they were, but then I didn't know if that was even really --

[Frank] Yeah. At first, I thought it was -- I mean, I also know Anne Carson is Canadian. But --

[Rhonda] So that makes sense. But I also know -- well, they do talk about definitely real places, but I feel like there was some forms of like mythology in terms of like idea of like mythical places in there. I don't know. Maybe.

[Frank] Yeah. For sure.

[Rhonda] Yeah.

[Frank] I mean, like I said, it seems to be taking place in modern times with modern situations, so-called, but Geryon is red, the 14-year-old. And he does apparently have wings that he conceals.

[Rhonda] Right.

[Frank] And, you know, it starts from the get-go -- it starts interestingly to me because the first chapter I think is called Justice, and it's about him -- at five, it starts basically with him at like five years old, and he's afraid to go to school, Geryon, and his brother -- his mother usually takes him, and then his brother inherited that job, his older brother, and eventually the brother just says like, "You're on your own kid." Like he's not the nicest guy.

[Rhonda] No, he's not.

[Frank] And Geryon just sort of finds a solution basically by waiting outside the school until someone comes and gets him. Like he waits by the windows, and, of course, beautifully written. And I love that idea of what considering what happens later, he was, at first, waiting for anyone, but he was waiting.

[Rhonda] Right.

[Frank] He was waiting for someone but anyone at that point to come get him, and that, in itself is sort of a love trope, like this sort of I'm just going to wait until that someone comes --

[Rhonda] Right if that person [multiple speakers] --

[Frank] But at that point, it could be anyone, but certainly as he grows up and encounters Herakles, that changes. So I don't know.

[Rhonda] Yes. I think we start with his childhood.

[Frank] Right.

[Rhonda] And which I thought was -- I mean I guess there were two things that I thought were really interesting about that which is, one, the kind of beginning of his autobiography, which that was one of the pieces of the book that actually just really fascinated me in terms of how he was trying to document his own life, and, you know, and when he's a young boy it just kind of starts with, and it's never just like he's writing down his life. He's documenting it through all these different forms. And I think when he's a kid, he's just kind of doing like -- I guess you would call it like sculpture, just kind of, you know, putting things together that he feels represents his life. And then the other part is, and I don't know if you were going to get to this, Frank was, again, kind of going back to the relationship with his brother, that his brother was sexually abusive to him.

[Frank] Yeah.

[Rhonda] I mean that's -- we only hear about that just for -- I mean, it's just such a little small mention in the book, but, you know, that was kind of sticking with me through the whole rest of his story.

[Frank] Oh, really? Well, that's important then.

[Rhonda] Yeah, because I was thinking that has to be something that is going to impact him and his relationships, or else you wouldn't have put it in there. Yes, so I kept kind of expecting something about that to return. It does not, but I don't know. So I was -- that I was like, well, how -- what role does that play with his relationship -- in his relationships.

[Frank] Do you think it manifested though, later?

[Rhonda] See, that's what I was trying to figure out.

[Frank] Yeah.

[Rhonda] And I can't -- I don't know, honestly. Maybe I had to read it again. What do you think?

[Frank] I mean, I don't know either. It's -- Geryon has a good relationship with his mother --

[Rhonda] Although she's kind of -- I don't know the word.

[Frank] Ineffective?

[Rhonda] Yes, maybe that's it.

[Frank] Loving.

[Rhonda] She's loving, and she's supportive, it seems like when he's just kind of using his food to do his autobiography and things like that, but also she doesn't seem to really kind of protect him and show up for him. I don't know. Yeah, so I think ineffective is a good word.

[Frank] But definitely a loving presence, and definitely Geryon feels the love for her. I mean, there is that cute moment where he's building his sculptural autobiography like he's starting to write in quotes about his life, but he doesn't know how to write yet, so it's basically using objects, and it says he finds crinkly paper in his mother's purse that he uses to make hair on a sculpture, and at the end of that chapter, the mother says, "Well, you know, maybe the next time you can use a $1 bill instead of a $10 bill for the hair."

[Rhonda] Right.

[Frank] Which you realize the crinkly money is -- the crinkly paper is money. So and that's a loving thing. I mean, I can imagine some parents freaking the heck out if you had cut up a $10 bill.

[Rhonda] Right. And --

[Frank] She's sort of like, "Well, honey, you know, maybe you should use a $1 bill the next time," which is sweet. But, yeah, the brother. It is there. I don't know. I don't know what to make of it. It doesn't seem, in quotes, it doesn't seem to impact -- it doesn't come up as an issue, at least articulated by the book. So and it's a -- at -- in one way, well, in a very specific way it is also a barter system, and this might mean something to someone listening who has also read the book that his brother asks him, "Please, please," like he's asking him to engage in an act of sexuality, and eventually he says something like, "I'll give you a cat's eye marble." And so that's a very coveted thing. It becomes a system of economy, right?

[Rhonda] Yeah.

[Frank] So I -- and his father, Geryon's father is, it mentioned once, is going to a soccer practice with the older brother, so he's not even a figure.

[Rhonda] Yeah. You -- and that's -- we don't hear anything else about him. We don't know anything else about his relationship with him [multiple speakers], but we kind of, yeah, as a child, we have these just really -- these two -- well, there's like a babysitter. But we kind of just have these two figures in his life.

[Frank] The babysitter -- I don't know how to organize this, but the babysitter brings up an interesting part because she's babysitting him and the feeling of that chapter is that Geryon just misses his mother and that the babysitter is not doing a good job with reading to him. She's reading in a wrong voice. And she's not giving him what Geryon's mother does. They eventually though, like the brother comes in who is like this big pop, you know, again, the brother like this masculine or -- well, forget masculine, this aggressive, you know, energy, and he brings the question to the babysitter and Geryon of what their favorite weapon is.

[Rhonda] Right.

[Frank] Because he's fiddling around with the rubber band, the older brother, and he's saying a catapult, in his mind, like you can wipe out a whole crew of people with a catapult, and I think he even refers to a mythology -- maybe Alexander the Great or ancient history. And then the babysitter like seems to apparently shift gears and just responds that she prefers the garote, which is like a silk cord that you tighten around someone's neck, and she said it's very silent. Murderers often use it on the train. And like, wait, that shifted the tone here. And then the older brother, who is not named, asked Geryon what his favorite weapon is, and Geryon says a cage.

[Rhonda] Right.

[Frank] And then the brother is like that's not a weapon. And then it drops there, but that comes into play for me as I've thought about this the fact that his favorite weapon is a cage. It's almost like containing something, and I am relating it to romance. I am relating it to love. Like --

[Rhonda] OK. Because that's what I was gonna ask. I was gonna say, where's the cage kind of come back into story. And I guess the romance could be that.

[Frank] Well, I guess -- I don't know. We've had this problem before. Like do we go through the story chronologically in terms of how the book was written or just talk about the issues? I mean --

[Rhonda] Maybe --

[Frank] All right, because in a nutshell then, you know, Geryon meets Herakles, who is a 16-year-old boy.

[Rhonda] Yeah, a little older.

[Frank] At the bus station, Herakles is coming from New Mexico to this apparently, you know, eastern Canadian island. So we sort of like run away or run around or [inaudible] about fly by night guy, and Geryon is at this bus station at 3:00 in the morning, and Herakles comes off the bus, and it said like Geryon and Herakles looked at each other, and like worlds were exchanged between their eyes. Like there was a moment of like electricity and meeting and [multiple speakers].

[Rhonda] Chemistry.

[Frank] And then they're sort of friends/lovers after that, which means an enormous amount to Geryon. And Herakles, at this point, to me, is displayed as one of those kind of guys who is very -- not accepting isn't the word, but very in their own skin, and it's a very physical presence, a very joyful presence. A very sort of like up, you know, up for adventure kind of presence. I mean, maybe like Hercules or Herakles in the ancient Greek myths was not a particularly profound man but was the strongest man in the world -- a physical presence but did not have the gift of reason. That's what prohibited Hercules/Herakles from becoming a king. He was more powerful in every sense of the word by his physical power. And would you agree Herakles, the 16-year-old in this telling of it, is a physical presence more than anything else?

[Rhonda] That's what I'm trying to think about.

[Frank] OK.

[Rhonda] Because I'm not sure. I mean, you know what? Maybe I did realize that more and, again, kind of not going through the story chronologically -- well, you know, there's a separation between them, and then years later, Geryon ends up in Argentina. I'm drawing a blank, but, yeah, [multiple speakers].

[Frank] Yes, but you're alighting the moment that kills me every time.

[Rhonda] Yeah. And I just think -- and so then I can kind of see that more as the physical presence when he just -- when he shows up after this separate and [multiple speakers] that he has.

[Frank] OK. Actually, yeah, that [multiple speakers] that's fair because after -- all right. They don't separate. Let's just get that clear. Herakles drop him badly.

[Rhonda] That's true. Badly, yes, he does.

[Frank] You know, Geryon is very much in love with him or just very much in love with him, and that sad/monstrous teenager who has found this golden presence of love from Herakles, and, you know, even Herakles says at times like, you know, you're so sad to Geryon. He said at one point he said something like, "Yeah, another Saturday morning with me laughing and you crying."

[Rhonda] Yeah.

[Frank] So you can sense what that relationship is about. But Herakles invites him -- well, here's the myth coming into it, Herakles invites him to his grandmother's house, which happens to be on that island. I guess that's why he was going to the island in a first place in a town called Hades, which has a volcano.

[Rhonda] Right.

[Frank] So he invites him to meet his family and see this volcano, and after that trip, which is very interesting, he basically says, OK, I guess you should -- Herakles says to Geryon, "I guess it's time for you to, you know, hit the road kid. I got some work to do around the house. Grandma wants me to paint the house, and I can get some guys in the town to help me do it." And that -- just that statement hurt me because it just meant other people coming into my life. I don't really want you anymore. And because Geryon even says like, "I'm a good painter." And Carson even writes it where he said his voice broke on the word good.

[Rhonda] Right.

[Frank] I'm a good painter. Like just -- and like that moment where you don't know what to say because you know something terrible has happened, that this break has occurred, that he's -- that beloved object is telling you in a not explicit way but clear way that it's done. And not unkind in some ways, but the full force of it hits Geryon, and it's one of those things when you look back, how stupid of me to say that, what do you mean I'm a good painter, you know? And so he gets back on the bus and goes home, and that's the end of their romance, their love, until like you said --

[Rhonda] For a long time.

[Frank] Flash forward, and you do flash forward. You don't get the intervening eight years because it's then Geryon is 22, so eight years later, and Herakles is 24. They meet again in Argentina, where Geryon goes to take pictures [multiple speakers]. He has become in the intervening years, a kid, a young person interested in photography and runs into Herakles who is with apparently a new boyfriend or --

[Rhonda] That's what I see because here I believe, you know, we're -- there's this kind of like love triangle that's happening. So I took it as Herakles has a new person, a new love in his life or --

[Frank] Yeah.

[Rhonda] He is someone who is filling the time.

[Frank] Right. And that's [multiple speakers] go-ahead --

[Rhonda] Yeah. I was just saying also, you know, I follow like he's documenting his life, and so I feel like the photography is now kind of his new form of his autobiography.

[Frank] Oh, yes. And that's also what reminded me, like I said before, about when they were talking about their weapons of preference, and Geryon said cage. This also, for me, came into place with his choice of photography as a chosen artistic outlet of expression that photography can almost seem as a cage like you capture an image.

[Rhonda] Right. Yeah.

[Frank] You don't kill it [multiple speakers]. You capture it. But maybe the capturing of an image is something to Geryon that is an almost final action that --

[Rhonda] Right.

[Frank] Because -- like we -- the book is called the Autobiography of Red, A Novel in Verse, but once you get past the initial couple of chapters into the meat of the book, it's called the Autobiography of Red, A Romance. So the word romance means something to me, and it's in my mind during the reading of this. So Geryon's interest in photography, which could be considered capturing an image, which evokes a cage, and then the thought of romance, which is always sort of floating over my head in this book, is that true romance has to end -- can only come to fruition when one of the other die or both die or something conclusive happens because love -- that kind of intense love cannot live forever -- cannot be immortal by -- only by the end of one of the [inaudible] or both can the love live forever. So capturing an image, that image then lives forever, but it's caught. I don't know. Am I talking too philosophically [multiple speakers]?

[Rhonda] And I feel like it's -- I mean, I feel like romance also on both sides are involved, and I don't know if Herakles ever is really in love with Geryon. I think it's unrequited. I mean, I think there's definitely a relationship. There's feelings. But I don't know.

[Frank] I mean, it's a physical thing. Again, like I said before [multiple speakers], Herakles is -- huh?

[Rhonda] No, yes, for Herakles, for sure.

[Frank] Right. I mean, he's definitely into the physical aspect of it, but he's not unkind.

[Rhonda] No. No.

[Frank] You know, when he's basically telling Geryon to go and that it's over, he says, "We'll always be friends," and I believed him, but then, of course, they don't see each other ever again until they run into each other, but he's not horrible. He's not a satanic figure of love.

[Rhonda] No.

[Frank] So -- can you hear that noise? If not, it's mine.

[Rhonda] Very, very, very vaguely.

[Frank] it's the construction, of course. It's like dead silent here for weeks and then this. So they do run into each other in Argentina, and Herakles has another guy with him, a lover apparently, named Ancash. Now, this is where it gets interesting for me because then they leave Argentina and go to Peru --

[Rhonda] Right.

[Frank] -- to Ancash's family's town, Juarez [phonetic], I think it's called, Juarez, where there's also a volcano, and I discovered that Ancash is the name of a province, of the province in Peru where Juarez is the capital, and there is a volcano.

[Rhonda] Oh, interesting.

[Frank] So, in a way, you have this triangle like you said. I was thinking this morning about maybe Ancash is really a symbol of place. He's not a real person, and that it is still just Herakles and Geryon. But with this pull of a person. Like that the triangulation is between two lovers or ex-lovers at this point and a place that's pulling them to this place because basically, they are in this place where there is this volcano, which then the book does conclude very much so in that volcano or -- and around that volcano, right?

[Rhonda] It does. I just --

[Frank] Thoughts, feelings?

[Rhonda] So --

[Frank] [Multiple speakers] let's have a [multiple speakers].

[Rhonda] I don't know. I don't know.

[Frank] Let's have a [inaudible] because what made me realize that the book took place in the '70s or '80s that Geryon and Herakles sing their favorite song, which is Joy to the World, and I realized it probably wasn't the Christmas carol but the Three Dog Night song which was, "Joy to the world, all the boys and girls now, joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea, joy to you and me." OK, "Jeremiah was a bullfrog, da, da, da."

[Rhonda] Well, I -- that was nice [multiple speakers].

[Frank] To give you a little moment.

[Rhonda] Interlude [multiple speakers].

[Frank] Hello, interlude. [Multiple speakers] Jeremiah was a bullfrog.

[Rhonda] [Multiple speakers] your theory.

[Frank] "Who was a good friend of mind and never understood a single word he said, but he sure had some mighty fine wine." We could say that about Anne Carson. Never understood a single word she said, but it's heady like wine. It just suffuses you with sensual, heightened [inaudible]. OK.

[Rhonda] Yeah. I mean, I think what you said about Ancash being a place. I think that's pretty deep. I mean, I missed that if that's what it is.

[Frank] It just occurred -- all right, so they move on and Ancash and --

[Rhonda] But what about the whole fight?

[Frank] Well, yeah [multiple speakers], well, Ancash and Herakles are working on this documentary on volcanoes in Emily Dickenson because volcanoes figure in Emily Dickenson's poetry. I do want to get to that at -- before we stop, but let me keep thinking. And Geryon goes along with them, with his camera. So they do go to Peru in this province, which is not said. I mean, it's not said that the province is Ancash. I just -- I looked that up actually because I was curious about that name. And Herakles and Geryon end up sleeping together again. And you don't really know what's gonna happen. But Ancash finds out and basically gives Geryon like a double slap. I sort of love that moment in a way because he slaps him or -- it looks like a big pop to the side of the face, and then he just comes with his other hand and pops him on this other side of the face with that other hand, and the first thing that Geryon thinks is, wow, he's ambidextrous.

[Rhonda] Yeah, I know. I loved that part. That was [multiple speakers].

[Frank] What?

[Rhonda] Yeah, no, like he was expecting this, you know? So he's just impressed.

[Frank] He was impressed with this skill. It's like a boom, boom like he gave him a double boom. So [multiple speakers].

[Rhonda] And then he hits back.

[Frank] What?

[Rhonda] Which I was like, oh, but then he hits him back. Doesn't he?

[Frank] Does he?

[Rhonda] I thought so, or he tries.

[Frank] Geryon hits him back?

[Rhonda] I thought so.

[Frank] I don't remember that.

[Rhonda] I feel like he did. I feel like there was a little bit of a legit fight there, which I was impressed with. And, I don't know because --

[Frank] Let me see.

[Rhonda] -- that's the only thing that makes me think about the theory of him. Doesn't he hit him back?

[Frank] I'm looking. Let's see. I don't remember. I was so bedazzled by that one-two punch. I don't know. But so they -- Ancash is the one that has the reaction. And, I mean, like I said before, Herakles is just this physical presence who just sort of gives love, you know, can get it on wherever, whenever, with whoever in some ways, and Geryon and Ancash maybe apparently are the ones that just love more specifically to the person whereas Herakles is this sort of like beneficent god of giving it out and moving it on and rambling through, you know? You know, that's sort of a pretty standard trope of the highly intellectual, thoughtful person, falling in love with a very physical person and believing it's very, very, very deep and important because their feelings are so vested, and love is very deep and important when it happens. It's like nothing else, but the other -- like in this case, Herakles is sort of just a jovial-like sensory sevorite [phonetic] of passions and moving on to new excitements. Herakles even does say at one point, "I don't think I could ever be satisfied," you know?

[Rhonda] Yeah.

[Frank] And maybe that's why Geryon likes the cage and wants to contain that forever. I'm just gonna jump to the point to where it climaxes because -- which is where I thought of all this stuff. Ancash sees Geryon's wings and tells Geryon about a Peruvian myth of people being thrown into the volcano and not to punish them but to test them in some ways that they -- because if they survive the volcano, they come out wiser and burned of all their weaknesses. Their weaknesses are all burned away.

[Rhonda] Right.

[Frank] And so Ancash says, "You have wings." And they're wise and have wings to fly, and Ancash says, "You have these wings. You can go to the volcano." And in a way, he does, Geryon does fly to the volcano and into it, which is a very evocative image. And then the last chapter, which is a page long, as most of them are, is the three of them standing in front of like, which is mentioned before, a makeshift bakery where people -- there's holes in the side of the volcano which they bake things from the fires of the volcano, and the three of them, Ancash, Herakles, and Geryon are staring into it, and that's how it ends.

[Rhonda] Yeah.

[Frank] This is driving me nuts. Can you hear that?

[Rhonda] I can hear it.

[Frank] Oh, it's one of those days [multiple speakers].

[Rhonda] Yeah. It's probably louder to you than [multiple speakers].

[Frank] Yeah, all right. Well, that's good. So what I was thinking before about Ancash being a place is that this final moment between Herakles and Geryon takes place literally in Ancash even though you're not told that, but if you looked it up, you do, which you could argue may or may not -- shouldn't have to do with a book you're reading, but I found that out. So it could be really just Herakles and Geryon they're alone with being in the place that is Ancash because Ancash is representative of the place, you know, the place that they've been drawn to, this volcano, and I had this sensations -- it doesn't say it literally, but it had this sensation of Herakles going into the volcano that that was his cage, that was the end of the romance, that it was going to end with Herakles death really in that volcano.

[Rhonda] But it's not.

[Frank] But it's not. I mean literally, it ends with the phrase, "Geryon, we are amazing beings. Geryon is thinking we are neighbors of fire, and now time is rushing towards them where they stand side-by-side with arms touching. Immortality on their faces, night at their back." Now, that's the thing. Immortality on their faces. The book opens with a poem of Emily Dickenson's, and it basically says that nature knows everything but doesn't tell its secrets. I mean, God talks to nature, and nature talks to God but neither tell their secrets. But humans tend to babble everything about themselves. They just talk and talk and talk about their stories and themselves. And the end of the poem says, "Humans should take their example from nature and not talk about their secrets so much because ultimately the only secret that humans can ever keep is the secret of immortality," which you can assume means death. Once you die, you can't tell about it because you're there. So that's the only secret that a human can keep. So when it ends with that line about their faces to -- immortality on their faces, night at their back, it almost seems as if someone is going down. I don't know. Because also, the previous chapter, which is also a page, ends with the line, "The only secret people keep," which is Geryon flying around the volcano. And the Emily Dickenson poem basically has that as her last line of that poem that the only secret people keep is the secret of immortality. So it's almost saying something is going to give. Someone is going to discover immortality. Someone is going there. Someone is going to that secret.

[Rhonda] And you think it -- so you think Geryon or Herakles at that moment [multiple speakers] --

[Frank] It could be Herakles --

[Rhonda] -- volcano is that their end.

[Frank] I mean, it also came into that the three of them are standing side-by-side with their arms touching, and we said at the beginning that Geryon has sometimes been described in mythology as a three-bodied, literally the term three-bodied monster. So it's like they've become one. Maybe they both go into the fire. I don't know. It is called Autobiography of Red, not Autobiography of Geryon, and red figures as fire as the volcano, as blood, as love. It's passion. And maybe like Ancash, as I said is more of a place than an actual person that is an attractor to both of them, but when they're standing there as a body, three body you could say, monster in front of the fire, maybe it's the end for all of them because immorality is in their faces and night is at their back, night maybe meaning lack of knowledge, the end of truth, the end of something, and that it is sort of a culmination point.

[Rhonda] Well, I don't know because maybe it's also more transformative. The fire -- because I know -- because I feel like earlier in the book there are -- she kind of hints as parts of his later life, doesn't she? Because doesn't she say things like he wrote this until he was 40-something or --

[Frank] Yeah.

[Rhonda] You know, I feel like we hear those allusions, so I'm wondering if like this fire is kind of like maybe the death of a certain part of his life? I don't know.

[Frank] Yes. I mean actually -- yes. That's what I was thinking, especially at the beginning when I was writing notes. I ended up breaking off from the text just writing my own thing, and this is sort of -- it's one of those things that when you reread it in a more sober light, you realize how trite and like, yeah, that's familiar, but when you're feeling it when your emotions are suffusing the words you're writing, I mean most truths can sound trite in some light because they are most profound when they are suffused with your own emotions. So I was writing we don't know what is happening to us as human beings. We just don't know what is happening to us. When you really, really think about it -- this is when I had that profound middle of the night feeling. We don't know what's happening to us. We tell narratives and stories about ourselves to try describe them. I mean, that's what myths are, describing the natural world that scares us and what's happening to us in it. So I was like, we don't know what is happening to us. Artists give words and images to feelings we just don't or can't comprehend. And so what you just said, maybe staring at the fire with immortality in their faces and night at their back is a transformative moment rather than a literal death, that's a great point because that's what I was meaning by like we don't understand what's happening to us, and artists write words or create images that try to get to the core of those feelings that we can't explain. And so, yes, the end could be a way of explaining a very serious emotion without being literal about like, "Oh, it's someone's death or that kind of thing."

[Rhonda] Right.

[Frank] You're absolutely right. I mean, that's really what the whole book is about is Anne Carson's attempt to give language to all these emotions that involve people and their relationships that we just -- I mean if you really, excuse me, if you really thought about it, like what I wrote, we just don't know what's happening to us is that moment of reading the book and thinking if you really thought about yourself like you realize the depths of how you don't understand what your feelings are or what you've done.

[Rhonda] Right.

[Frank] And it's just a constant effort to put words to it. I mean self-help books and things like that are so popular, it gives language to problems that are serious, you know?

[Rhonda] Yeah. I think Geryon spends his whole -- or our entire experience with Geryon is him kind of trying to figure that out in different ways, right, with his autobiography, and his photography, and his using these different forms, I think to try to kind of understand himself.

[Frank] Absolutely.

[Rhonda] Yeah.

[Frank] Absolutely. I mean -- yeah. So I was just -- I just -- I think it was that realization that Ancash was a place as well that, I mean, Anne Carson named this third participant in this love triangle Ancash, which is the name of a place which happens to be the place where this town is that's mentioned in the book that they go to. So I was like, that has to mean something. And I just thought, well, maybe think of Ancash as a place, so there isn't a third actual person. But then why create him as a person? But why not? You know, because it is the place that seems to culminate something. Like you said, a transformative moment where it does end, and it doesn't indicate that anyone in quotes dies.

[Rhonda] No.

[Frank] I was just thinking -- oh, you know why also? Because from my beloved Edith Hamilton who wrote the mythology book I love, guess what?

[Rhonda] What?

[Frank] Rhonda, Herakles, or Hercules -- guess how Herakles dies in the myth?

[Rhonda] In a volcano. He falls in --

[Frank] No, he dies in a funeral -- he dies in a fire.

[Rhonda] Oh, in a fire. OK.

[Frank] He basically chooses -- he's so strong and so incredibly powerful that towards the end of life for various reasons, Hercules or Herakles in the myth, as told by Edith Hamilton and others, classic scholars, creates a [inaudible] on which he burns himself. He basically goes to death rather than death coming for him because death never seems to come for him.

[Rhonda] So what if Geryon is burning that part of his life? I don't know because you said Herakles.

[Frank] Yeah.

[Rhonda] So maybe that part -- this is the death of the Herakles [multiple speakers].

[Frank] Well, it just occurs, that's also an Emily Dickenson poem, "Death did not come for me, so I chose to wait for death."

[Rhonda] Yes, that's true.

[Frank] That's exactly what Hercules does. Herakles. So at the end, I love Emily Dickenson too [multiple speakers], at the end, so if that's what Herakles in the ancient myth did, why not do it here too? Does he just walk into the fire at the --

[Rhonda] We don't know.

[Frank] I know. And I usually will say, which I realize is very presumptuous of me, don't really pontificate on what happens after a book ends because the author gave you all you need to know, and then it occurred to me that all we need to know could be there. I mean, it could -- because of good writing or serious writing will indicate something else is happening when it -- because when she does say, "There they stand, side-by-side with arms touching, immortality on their faces, night at their back." I mean, to say something like immortality on their faces is not just a casual throwaway.

[Rhonda] Right.

[Frank] You know, it's like the word immortality is huge. So immortality on their faces, so that does indicate -- that does indicate someone or something is then moving on to something eternal, right?

[Rhonda] Yes.

[Frank] Or if it's in their face, it's not actually --

[Rhonda] Immortality in their faces --

[Frank] I guess fire could be immortality. But then, you know, Hercules in the myth did die by fire. So I think Herakles got pushed into the volcano.

[Rhonda] By Geryon or Ancash? Or maybe -- I don't know. That's something to think about.

[Frank] And then Geryon is free because basically, Herakles is in a cage --

[Rhonda] And Geryon is free -- OK.

[Frank] Captured forever in the volcano, all eternity, and Geryon can move on. That's the romance because Geryon can't come to full fruition without Herakles jumping into the fire. That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

[Rhonda] I feel like that could work. I think that works. I think that [multiple speakers].

[Frank] [Inaudible] working on a movie treatment.

[Rhonda] There you go.

[Frank] Like I think that could work. We're gonna write that up.

[Rhonda] Sure.

[Frank] Jennifer Aniston [multiple speakers] is Ancash, and Angelina Jolie is Geryon. I don't know.

[Rhonda] OK.

[Frank] What are we talking about.

[Rhonda] All right. Wow.

[Frank] I don't know. Did I make any sense whatsoever? See, the focusing.

[Rhonda] Well, here's the thing. I think we were -- this is a difficult book to talk about, and I think we did the best that we could.

[Frank] We also didn't really -- yeah. We didn't give any kind of -- we didn't reveal any of the writing, which is really what makes the book the book --

[Rhonda] Yeah, exactly.

[Frank] But I think people can discover it, and I hope technically everyone listening read it, but that's not true always [multiple speakers] inspired to read it.

[Rhonda] Well, maybe this will encourage people to pick it up.

[Frank] Yeah. I mean, there are some great lines. I mean even things small as like "Geryon is looking out the back door of his house, and only the screen doors close. The doors open but the screens close," and Carson describes it as the almost medieval smelling metal of the screen door pressed against Geryon's face. I mean medieval smelling. I mean, just a word like that just changes everything, right?

[Rhonda] Right. And it's not --

[Frank] It's provocative.

[Rhonda] -- a very long work.

[Frank] Yeah.

[Rhonda] Which is good because it allows you to kind of, I guess, spend more time, focus more on the language.

[Frank] Yeah. I mean, just to cap it off, that Emily Dickenson proem that just to start it off does begin with "The reticent volcano keeps his never slumbering plan." So the reticent volcano keeps his never slumbering, never sleeping. So he's alive. So the reticent volcano keeps his always alive plan confided or his projects pink to know precarious man. So the volcano who is always active, doesn't tell its secrets to any sort of wishy-washy human. If nature will not tell the tale Jehovah told to her, nature will not tell us what God told her. Can human nature not survive without a listener? So can we survive without someone hearing our story? Admonished by her nature -- admonished by her buckled lips, let every babbler be. So we should all be admonished by this silence of nature. The only secret people keep is immortality. Oh, boy. The Autobiography of Red by Anne Carson.

[Rhonda] Red, yes. That was a lot.

[Frank] I think I got my points across [multiple speakers], and I also got to sing joy to the world, all the boys and girls now, joy to the fishes in the deep blue sea, yeah, joy to you and me, Rhonda.

[Rhonda] Oh, Frank. I will miss this. I will miss your singing. So I --

[Frank] Well, you just said something very revealing.

[Rhonda] I did.

[Frank] You said you'll miss my singing because?

[Rhonda] So, yes, the next episode after this one that our listeners will be hearing will sadly be my last episode, but, you know, it has just been a wonderful ride. There's a lot of exciting new things happening for me on the horizon. So I thought it might be best to let someone else have an opportunity to step in, but I will miss these moments. I will miss Frank singing.

[Frank] Finally, I get to take center stage all by myself.

[Rhonda] Frank and Friends. That's the new show.

[Frank] Frank and Friends. It sounds like Frankenstein.

[Rhonda] It'll be like a variety show. You could do a little singing, a little standup.

[Frank] That's right. No more cohosts. It's just -- it's not Frank and Rhonda. It's Frank and Friends.

[Rhonda] Frank and Friends.

[Frank] So you're leaving not because your illustrious life is so busy it's just you want to get away from me.

[Rhonda] Absolutely not.

[Frank] Awe. I'm going to miss you.

[Rhonda] I will miss you. And I hope I can [multiple speakers].

[Frank] It's like a revolving door around here. First Gwen, now you, geez.

[Rhonda] Well, oh, gosh, you know, it's been over a year for us.

[Frank] Yeah.

[Rhonda] And it just doesn't seem that way because this year has been very different, you know?

[Frank] Look, I tell you it's interesting, and I, of course, wish you the best, and I'm glad we're still working in the same institution because our paths shall cross --

[Rhonda] Absolutely.

[Frank] -- that most -- when I thought about it, almost every episode except two or three we did remotely for you and I.

[Rhonda] Yeah.

[Frank] Like we started in January, and we were shut down in March, so we really even haven't -- you've been a voice coming over the airwaves for me because we don't see each other. We just hear each other, and that's why it's been so interesting.

[Rhonda] Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah, because I think we only did like I want to say two episodes.

[Frank] Yeah.

[Rhonda] In person.

[Frank] Yeah.

[Rhonda] And then there was like a hiatus, and then we started online.

[Frank] Yeah. So we shall see what the future shall bring.

[Rhonda] Yes, [multiple speakers].

[Frank] To The Librarian Is In. We'll see what happens, how we move on from there.

[Rhonda] Yeah.

[Frank] But --

[Rhonda] It'll be exciting to see.

[Frank] -- I never --

[Rhonda] But Frank will be there.

[Frank] Well, we don't know.

[Rhonda] Frank will be the anchor.

[Frank] Maybe I'll be staring into the fireplace with immortality in my face and night at my back --

[Rhonda] OK.

[Frank] Before I push someone into the fire. But whatever it is, thanks to everybody out there who has been so lovely with comments and [multiple speakers].

[Rhonda] Yes, wonderful comments and listeners.

[Frank] Yeah, and I hope everyone joins us whatever the next iteration yet again of The Librarian Is In is going to be. But you know what? It's about people. So thank you, everybody. And, Rhonda, thank you. But we will talk one more time.

[Rhonda] Yes. Yes.

[Frank] With a free for all book discussion on whatever we want to read.

[Rhonda] Yeah.

[Frank] So you can go out on a choice of your own, baby.

[Rhonda] All right. Wonderful.

[Frank] You don't have to be forced to read books that I suggest to you. All right. Well, thanks, everybody. And we will see you next time.

[Rhonda] See you next time.

[Narrator] Thanks for listening to The Librarian Is In, a podcast by the New York Public Library. Don't forget to subscribe and leave a review on Apple Podcasts or Google Play, or send us an email at podcasts@NYPL.org. For more information about the New York Public Library and our 125th anniversary, please visit NYPL.org/125. We are produced by Christine Ferrell. Your hosts are Frank Collerius and Rhonda Evans.