De schoonheid van de echtgenoot. Door: Anne Carson.

De eerste druk van De schoonheid van de echtgenoot verscheen in 2001 bij uitgeverij Meulenhoff, 23 jaar later brengt uitgeverij Koppernik een nieuwe versie uit.

Maggie Nelson is een grote fan van Carson, ze leest alles van haar las ik in een interview. Daarom lees ik Carson, grote fan van Maggie Nelson als ik ben. Ik begrijp (denk ik) wat Maggie zo aantrekt in het werk van Anne Carson: beiden hebben iets grensoverstijgends in hun denken en schrijven.

De schoonheid van de echtgenoot beschrijven is moeilijk. Op de cover staat: ‘een fictie-essay in 29 tango’s’. Ik zou daar aan toe willen voegen: tango’s volgend op een citaat van Keats. Een in elkaar stortend huwelijk wordt in woorden gevat. Woorden die poëtisch, filosofisch, fabelachtig, sprookjesgewijs aan elkaar worden geregen door een rode draad die schoonheid heet. Of waarheid. Echtheid.

Je leest dit best met mondjesmaat; om alles goed te laten doordringen en inwerken. Je leest het tot het einde en begint dan weer opnieuw. Omdat niet alles van de eerste keer duidelijk is maar dat hoeft ook niet. Dat is het echte leven, het huwelijk, ook niet. Je moet je er aan overgeven. Een spannend boek in feite. Geen ideaal geschenk voor Valentijn, of net weer wel. ( )

"Less than a year after our marriage / my husband / began receiving calls from a woman late at night. / If I answered she / hung up. My ears grew hoarse."

I think sad poetry is my favorite kind. Ann Carson is a bit heady - this one has a fascination with Keats that went way over my head, having never read anything of his - but it had some powerful moments in it that made me put the book down and take a deep breath. ( )

4/5

Wow!!

Need to sit on this a bit. Anne Carson's writing is soo beautiful and thought provoking, and her references are all so strong. Now I have to go read all of her translations and everything else she ever breathed on. And I've never wanted to reread Paradise Lost until I saw all of Keats' notes in the pages between.



"I thought changes were holy. I spilled them like grain. How could I know. How could I know she would lose."


"But words / are a strange docile wheat are they not, they bend / to the ground." ( )

"Smell
I will never forget.
Out behind the vineyard.
Stone place maybe a shed or an icehouse no longer in use. October, a little cold. Hay on the floor. We had gone to his grandfather’s farm to help
crush the grapes for wine.
You cannot imagine the feeling if you have never done it—
like hard bulbs of wet red satin exploding under your feet, between your toes and up your legs arms face splashing everywhere—
It goes right through your clothes you know he said as we slogged up and down
in the vat.
When you take them off
you’ll have juice all over.
His eyes moved onto me then he said Let’s check. Naked in the stone place it was true, sticky stains, skin, I lay on the hay
and he licked.
Licked it off.
Ran out and got more dregs in his hands and smeared
it on my knees neck belly licking. Plucking. Diving.
Tongue is the smell of October to me. I remember it as
swimming in a fast river for I kept moving and it was hard to move
while all around me
was moving too, that smell
of turned earth and cold plants and night coming on and
the old vat steaming slightly in the dusk out there and him,
raw juice on him." ( )

All myth is an enriched pattern,
a two-faced proposition,
allowing its operator to say one thing and mean another, to lead a double life.
Hence the notion found early in ancient thought that all poets are liars.
And from the true lies of poetry
trickled out a question.

What really connects words and things?

In spite of some great passages, The Beauty of the Husband left me feeling a little underwhelmed. Many readers described this book as Anne Carson's most accessible work, and that well may be true, but what was gained in accessibility was lost in complexity. Much of what was so compelling in Autobiography of Red and Eros the Bittersweet was lacking, or at least seemingly diminished, in Husband. Had this been the first book I read by Carson, I suspect I would have rated it higher, but much of the ground covered here feels more thoroughly worked through in Plainwater and Men in the Off Hours. In spite of these criticisms, I would still say it's worth reading, especially for fans of Carson. ( )