Anne Carson’s new book Nox, about her brother who died in 2000, is more like an object when you first look at it- it is done in an accordion style printing that unravels out of a box. I can’t lie, normally if something looks like it has a gimmick to me I tend to think less of it at first. I should have known better. This is Anne Carson we are talking about. Not only is this a beautiful book, but the form follows the function in that Nox feels precious, both as an object in your hand and in its subject matter. It also un-packs itself slowly and with a bit of mystery as we unravel fragments of her late brother’s life. At the time of her brother’s death, Carson was working on a translation by the Roman poet Catullus which happened to be an elegy for his own brother. She weaves this poem in throughout the text, along with old letters, photographs and other scrapbook-like material and of course, her own writing. It seems her brother communicated very little, leaving her to translate what little sentences of his she had after he died, searching for meaning. I think what is great about this book is that the end result feels like sifting through actual pieces of a life and the tangibility adds to that. As the electronic book debate rages on, Carson has given us something to literally pore over and read through and lose ourselves in that stretches out across the length of our entire living room.
Also, catch Carson herself at BookCourt in Brooklyn this Wednesday, May 5th at 7pm as she reads from Nox.