Photo: Hannah Whitaker/New York Magazine
There are few motivations strong enough to compel me to tidy my desk, but Anne Carson’s latest book, “Nox,” achieved just that. The moment I encountered its presence, I felt an overwhelming desire to declutter my workspace, clearing away an assortment of notes, receipts, magazines, and other detritus. This reaction was, undoubtedly, due to the nature of “Nox.” It is intentionally cumbersome and designed to be a tangible literary artifact—far removed from the sleek, handheld e-readers that disappear into one’s palm. The volume comes housed in a box roughly the size of my external hard drive, and its pages extend in an accordion manner, transforming any surface into its domain. More than its physicality, the book conveys a sacred aura that seems to require a ritual of cleanliness before engaging with its contents. It serves as a public representation of an intensely personal work: a scrapbook that Carson meticulously assembled to honor her brother, Michael, who passed away unexpectedly in 2000. The reproduction by New Directions is executed with exquisite care, showcasing vibrant colors, even going so far as to feature pages that display the backside of staples. Engaging with this work feels as if it demands substantial mental, physical, and emotional space—each inch filled with Carson’s uniquely intricate chaos.
“Nox” is a masterfully assembled collection of remnants. It serves not only as a tribute but also as a meta-elegy, offering a poignant glimpse into the life of a deceased brother while simultaneously confronting the challenge of capturing such a life within words. The opening introduces a conundrum: a crinkled piece of yellow paper adorned with a ten-line Latin poem— untranslated, unattributed, and simply marked with the Roman numeral CI. For those not well-versed in classical studies, this may pose quite the challenge. However, “Nox” quickly aids its reader. The subsequent page provides a dictionary definition of the poem’s initial term, “multas” (“numerous, many …”), and this model continues throughout the text, with most of the left-hand pages guiding us through the poem’s vocabulary. The experience unfolds like an archaic linguistic mystery or an introductory Latin class.
Meanwhile, the right-hand pages continuously accumulate an array of fragments: photographs, artwork, letters, excerpts from Herodotus, and international postage stamps. Carson interweaves her writing within these elements, gradually sketching a portrait of her elusive brother.
Carson grew up in a constantly shifting family in Canada, moving regularly due to her father’s occupation as a banker, which mandated periodic relocations. While Anne diligently immersed herself in literature, her older brother Michael, who humorously dubbed her “Professor” and “Pinhead,” pursued a more turbulent lifestyle. Often found in the company of older boys, he frequently faced injury or exclusion. The pages of “Nox” feature an especially heart-wrenching image of young Michael, isolated beneath a tree house filled with boys who have abandoned him. His journey took a darker turn as he resorted to drug dealing, left home, and traveled across Europe and India under assumed identities and counterfeit travel documents, sending only brief postcards and lacking a permanent address. In two decades, Carson recounts, he reached out just a handful of times, becoming an enigma to her. His death came as a shock, with Carson learning of it only two weeks later.
One of the joys of engaging with Carson’s writing lies in her application of scholarly techniques—linguistic precision, a relentless quest for understanding, and piecing together a puzzle—to the trivial yet significant episodes of personal life. In “Nox,” she examines her brother as if he were an ancient figure, belonging to the same household as her but separated by time and circumstance. “There is no chance I can penetrate his silence,” Carson reveals. “I scrutinize his words, those I recall, as if tasked with their translation.” Michael embodies both specificity and universality as an archetype of brotherhood. “I aimed to illuminate my elegy with all forms of light,” she states. Yet, Michael’s essence primarily casts shadows, and “Nox” is peppered with these. Many photographs feature the silhouette of an unseen photographer, an echoing figure penetrating the daylight. “Exploring the meanings of a word, unearthing the history of a life,” Carson remarks, “one cannot expect an abundance of light.”
As the accordion format of “Nox” unfolds, its components begin to resonate in multifaceted ways. It is a layered elegy comprising additional elegies; for instance, Michael’s own heartfelt letter to his mother mourning a girlfriend lost overseas, alongside a succinct eulogy delivered at his own funeral by his widow: “I do not wish to expand much on Michael.” As Carson gathers new knowledge, it invariably prompts recollections of the past. While visiting the Copenhagen church where his funeral occurred, memories of her deceased parents surface: “both my parents were laid out in their coffins (years apart, unintentionally) in bright yellow sweaters. They resembled exquisite, serene yolk.”
As one continues through the elegy, anticipation builds around seemingly inconsequential queries. Will there be an adult photograph of Michael? Will the circumstances of his demise ever be uncovered? Will a translation of that Latin poem ever be revealed? Over time, even the more sterile dictionary entries begin to resonate with deeper implications: Carson subtly integrates her own poetic sensibilities amid these definitions, often employing variations of the word “nox,” Latin for “night,” in her illustrative sentences—“still doubting consciousness vanishes at night?”, or “he invites night into both his eyes and heart.” These definitions encapsulate the book’s overarching themes: existence, absence, violence, mortality, and homage.
As the narrative progresses, Carson finally unveils the mystery behind the enigmatic Latin poem that started the journey: Catullus 101, an elegy composed by the Roman poet in remembrance of his own brother, who similarly passed abroad. “My affection for this poem dates back to my high-school Latin class,” Carson reflects, “and I have endeavored to translate it several times. No English rendition can ever fully capture the slow, fervent essence of a Roman elegy. No one (even in the original Latin) can truly mirror the emotional depth found in Catullus’s diction, which, at its most sorrowful, carries an air of profound festivity.”
This, I believe, captures the underlying aspiration of “Nox,” striving to present a worthy interpretation of Catullus 101—not merely through a line-by-line translation (though Carson does offer her own moving rendition) but on a broader level. She aims to recreate the untranslatable qualities she cherishes within Catullus’s work: the fervent, deliberate texture; the hidden joy intertwined with melancholy. She yearns to breathe life into aspects of the past articulated in a language that has faded. “A brother never truly leaves,” she muses. “I pursue his essence relentlessly. He never fades away.”
Nox
By Anne Carson
New Directions.
