Conversely, colors that are not red point away from Geryon’s assumed sense of self. When Geryon thinks about redness, he consciously or unconsciously meditates on who he is. Redness extends beyond Geryon’s self, too: he lives on an island called “The Red Place,” which is covered in “red dirt.” Volcanoes, one of his core interests, also evoke the color red. For example, one of Geryon’s first attempts at autobiography involves constructing a sculpture from a cigarette glued to a red tomato. Geryon feels that his redness is his defining feature, so the color red becomes synonymous with his identity and personal quest for self-affirmation. The bare scraps of detail from an ancient text flourish into wondrous, thoughtful episodes. Carson translates, posits, re-translates, and pushes off from there. In the introductory essay that precedes the main story, Carson (the author) writes that adjectives “are the latches of being,” meaning an adjective provide insight into the characteristics of the noun that it describes. Autobiography of Red starts with translations of basic fragments of ancient Greek, all that remain of Stesichoros’s story of Geryon. The color red symbolizes Geryon’s identity and the role creativity plays in constructing identity.
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