Carson’s Nox is
the first thing we’ve read for this class that was more than just literature—it
is truly art. While it definitely wasn’t my favorite text of the semester (to
be honest, it’s my least favorite), there were qualities that I both enjoyed
and respected.
Despite Carson including such little, fragmented pieces of
her communication with her brother, I was honestly moved by the piece
regardless. What Carson does so effectively is let the artifacts speak for
themselves, and rather than telling
us how to feel, or showing us how to feel, she allows us to fill in the blanks
ourselves. The effectiveness of this style was very surprising to me. I was at
first really frustrated by the utter lack
and the way this was more visually appealing than it was literarily appealing,
but the few words provided by the letters, the fragmentedness of it, and all of
the things I disliked about the beginning of it had me feeling empathetic and
overwhelmed with grief for Carson concerning the death of her brother. It seemed
like a book filled with so much contemplation and regret; I got a sense that Carson was showing us how little she
communicated with her brother because she wished she had spoken to him more, or
tried harder for him, or hadn’t been so angry with him, or hadn’t been so
uncomfortable around him. The fact that she knows so little about her brother
gives him this flighty, ghost-like feeling, which is so appropriate for this
piece. I really did enjoy the way the emptiness and lack of memories spoke so
strongly rather than left me disappointed by the end of the piece.
However, I tend to look at things from strictly a
literature-focused lens (I’m an English major, not an art major, after all),
and I felt like withholding its qualities as a visual art piece, it wasn’t
really a quality work. I understand that it was a scrapbook—its personal,
enclosed aspects were very clear and as mentioned, emotionally moving—but
contextually it wasn’t doing much for me. I would have loved to see more of
Carson’s mind, maybe more poetry, intermingling with the bits of letters he
reveals to us. Yes, there was a bit of that strewn throughout the work, but I
guess I would have loved to see more of a literary presence in this book. For a
book assigned to a creative writing class, this lacked creative writing.
I think that what I would take from Anne Carson’s Nox and apply to my own writing would be
the skill of evoking strong emotion out of emptiness. I have the tendency of
creating tension and feeling with an overabundance of information, words, etc.,
via complicated syntax and description. While of course that’s just my style
and preference, I’d really like to explore the idea of omitting—of telling less rather than more—and allowing the
void to speak for itself. Carson does this so well, that I think it would be an
effective strategy for any writer wanting to evoke emotions from inside of the
reader rather than clearly directing them in their work.
You say "rather than telling us how to feel, or showing us how to feel, she allows us to fill in the blanks ourselves."
ReplyDeleteI really agree with the first part of this. Carson definitely does not tell us how she feels, but I think she definitely shows it. She shows in a different way. Like you say, the piece leans towards a visual work of art. Though I agree that the literature may not be the best quality contextually, it does possess an added dimension of expression.
O'Rourke in her review of this book, "The Unfolding," in the New Yorker states that by making this book a bit like a scrapbook, Carson is also 'showing' us that "this person existed" with "bits of handwriting, stamps, stains."
Carson shows by giving us excerpts of Catullus, letters, definitions, drawings, etc. By combining different media, her work becomes a creative, innovative work. I believe that the future of cultural products will use similar processes-- borrowing from different genres to become a collaborative work, rather than just solely a book. We see this in Carson's other works. She sometimes introduces music and dancers to accompany her writing.
I'm glad you found a reason for Anne Carson's "emptiness" rather than attacking Carson for it, and I love that you elaborated so much about this "lack" of words in your response. I absolutely agree that Carson is here trying to turn our emotional gears through what she doesn't show us than through what she does. I see the value of space in a piece, especially "empty" space, as we find in Nox. I guess that as writers we're so caught up with what we feel is the only vehicle for communication to our audience -- the written word -- that we forget that a piece can be defined not only by what it says but, more poignantly, by what it doesn't. In fact, as creative writers, we should all be more emotionally impacted by the absence of writing than its presence, in my opinion. I feel that not only does Carson's work reflect the emptiness she felt herself in regards to her deceased brother, but that it holds us captive of the paradoxical experience of grieving the loss of an aspect of our lives that is often absent.
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