Nox- A New Kind of Art

Nox, by Anne Carson, is an artistic display combining different visual and literary art to create a new kind of poetic experience for her readers. The format of the book in and of itself is a large factor that contributes to the unique experience of reading her book. It is not a book bound to a straight spine, it is a box, which one has to open and go inside of in order to get to the actual book, which is one large, accordion shaped stream of paper with different pictures and words written in different ways on each fold. There are pictures of torn pieces of letters from her deceased brother, whom she was estranged from, and, on some pages, there are words highlighted from the letters and used in her own accounts of his life.

One of the things about this book that I found to be so impressive, was that the story of the relationship between the brother, who had run away and never come back, and the author and her mother, and between the authors brother and his deceased love, then between the author and her brother’s widow, was conveyed to the reader through actual pictures and clippings from letters and reiterations of specific thoughts and feelings that had larger impact than others. The placement of these letters, thoughts, words, pictures, and drawings, allowed the reader to be surprised and filled with a small kind of suspense with the turning of each page. There was something new and meaningful, conveyed in different manners, on every page. This book did not simply hand the story, poetry, and art to the reader, it placed emotional triggers in places the reader had to pay attention to and look for.

            Carson turned her pain and confusion into a kind of scrapbook, which she shared with the world by having it published. While reading it, it feels as though you are peaking into someone’s deepest thoughts and desires. To me, it almost felt as if I was reading her diary. Nox was so personalized in everyway, it felt as though I was being intrusive in reading through it. There were staple marks where there had been no staples, family photos (with or without descriptions of their significance), drawings, and excerpts of text following the chronological story of Carson’s experience, or lack there of, with her brother.

            This is a story about loss, but not the way that we usually think of loss. Usually we think of the loss of a sibling in a similar way as losing a best friend, but that is not always the case. This is a story about the loss of someone who was connected to the author by blood, whom she saw grow up and lived with for many years, and whom, culturally and societally, she was expected to have a relationship with; but she had no real relationship with him. She had no great connection with him, and yet she felt this loss strongly and painfully enough to make a beautiful work of art as a tribute to him and their lives and relationships together as she understood them.