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A review by lesbianaunt
Norma Jeane Baker of Troy by Anne Carson
anne carson moment..
"Compare and contrast catching a spear in the spleen with utter mental darkness. Consider ancient vs modern experience. Consider whether any of these is what is meant in poetry by 'a beautiful death.'" "Sometimes I think language should cover its own eyes when it speaks." "But Hermione! Hermoine is my own soul walking around in another body." "Exit NORMA JEANE on wind phone, hand to ear, Hermoine it's me, hello hello hello hello hello." "We have already reflected on Helen's first appearance in Homer's Illiad (Book III, verses 126-129) where she sits in her room livestreaming the war at Troy onto a tapestry. Her thread weaves in and out of living skulls." "He is using his inside voice, his most inside voice. The distance between that voice and the fight voice measures your whole world. How can a voice change so. You are saved. He has saved you. He sees you saved. An easement occurs, as night dew on leaves. And yet (you think suddenly) you yourself do not possess this sort of inside voice—no wonder he's lonely. You cannot offer this refuge, cannot save him, not ever, and, although physiological in origin, or genetic, or who knows, you understand the lack is felt by him as a turning away. No one can heal this. You both decide without words to just—skip it. You grip one another." "Inside me now I am empty of everything and every thought except Hermoine. Hermoine will meet us in New York at the pier, I say to myself. Hermoine is not lying under a sheet in a beeping overlit emergency room. Hermoine will run towards us, laughing and skeptical, with her coat undone. I keep trying to focus on her running with her coat undone, as she always did, and me reaching to close it, as I always did, me doing up a button and her pulling away exasperated, undoing it."
"Compare and contrast catching a spear in the spleen with utter mental darkness. Consider ancient vs modern experience. Consider whether any of these is what is meant in poetry by 'a beautiful death.'" "Sometimes I think language should cover its own eyes when it speaks." "But Hermione! Hermoine is my own soul walking around in another body." "Exit NORMA JEANE on wind phone, hand to ear, Hermoine it's me, hello hello hello hello hello." "We have already reflected on Helen's first appearance in Homer's Illiad (Book III, verses 126-129) where she sits in her room livestreaming the war at Troy onto a tapestry. Her thread weaves in and out of living skulls." "He is using his inside voice, his most inside voice. The distance between that voice and the fight voice measures your whole world. How can a voice change so. You are saved. He has saved you. He sees you saved. An easement occurs, as night dew on leaves. And yet (you think suddenly) you yourself do not possess this sort of inside voice—no wonder he's lonely. You cannot offer this refuge, cannot save him, not ever, and, although physiological in origin, or genetic, or who knows, you understand the lack is felt by him as a turning away. No one can heal this. You both decide without words to just—skip it. You grip one another." "Inside me now I am empty of everything and every thought except Hermoine. Hermoine will meet us in New York at the pier, I say to myself. Hermoine is not lying under a sheet in a beeping overlit emergency room. Hermoine will run towards us, laughing and skeptical, with her coat undone. I keep trying to focus on her running with her coat undone, as she always did, and me reaching to close it, as I always did, me doing up a button and her pulling away exasperated, undoing it."