Definition within Desire: Anne Carson’s Autobiography of Red

“’How does distance look?’ is a simple direct question. It extends from a spaceless
within to the edge
of what can be loved. It depends on light.”

Anne Carson’s “novel in verse,” Autobiography of Red, tells the love-story of Geryon and Herakles. Semi-mythological elements are woven into the text: Geryon is red, winged creature, and Herakles clearly hearkens back to Zeus’ son, although this is never discussed explicitly in the work. Geryon is also a photographer, and it is through this medium that Geryon becomes close to Herakles. The quoted passage is a thought Geryon has as he leaves his mother to see Herakles, just at the start of their relationship. His mother has asked him what he likes about Herakles. Geryon cannot tell her about their relationship, and so he says, “Herakles knows a lot about art. We have good discussions.” The section quoted above follows immediately afterwards.
Autobiography of Red is a story of desire. Throughout the story Geryon is wrestling with the question of how far desire can take him. He understands desire through photography, as the quote suggests. Both desire and photography are a matter of space. “How does distance look?” demands an understanding of relationships between objects (including people) that transcends the simple question of quantity. The question is not, “how far?” but “how does distance look?” It asks how the space between things is to be understood. This is a question of photography, and also of desire. Anne Carson asserts that the question of space plagues us because within ourselves we are spaceless. The existence of space is foreign to us. Once we extend towards another person, or thing, we encounter space as a limitation. Distance creates the “edge of what can be loved,” a division between objects, and people, that cannot be transgressed. Our existence within space places a limit on our love for another. Within space, we can only get so close. Then, as if the limitations of space were not enough, we discover that “it depends on light.” Light creates the situation, altering the appearance of distance so that even once we understand ourselves within space we are unfixed. Light means that we may not be where we think we are. We cannot determine the precise location of objects in photography, or ourselves in relation to others. Throughout Autobiography of Red Geryon attempts to understand his position according to these laws of space and light, understanding desire in the same way that he understands photography.