Nox, A Review

I just finished Anne Carson's Nox, which was a Christmas gift from one of our oldest family friends and his wonderful girlfriend who is a famous novelist. On the back of the "book," Carson describes her work thus: "When my brother died, I made an epitaph for him in the form of a book. This is a replica of it, as close as we could get." I put the word "book" in quotations marks because this work is not, strictly speaking, a book. It is, rather, a box with a fold out visual-and-prose poem and at the same time, an associative reading of Catullus 101.

The Catullus poem is beautiful, as is Anne Carson's work. While being a poem and a journey in grief, it is also a character study and a postmodern novel; the readers must flesh out the complicated lives of the characters through (often literal) fragments. It is an engaging read which develops a sort of ethos of sadness as well as a desire for inquiry.

I don't want to spoil it; I suggest you read it. Her work is wonderful.