Name: Carol
Reading: Cassandra Float Can, Anne Carson
Why did you want to read this? I chose Float by Anne Carson, a collection of individual chapbooks that can be read in any order and from these I picked Cassandra Float Can. Three increasingly short cuts of the same story. Cuts, holes, silences, absence and veils flying up; she takes the reader on a sharp meander through the prophecies of Cassandra in Aeschylus’ Agamemnon, the short-hand left behind by Edmund Husserl, and the anarchitecture of Gordon Matta-Clark. I love this writing and the exquisite connections within it. I’ve read it again and again, savouring the words and finding ever new resonances.
How did you record yourself? I went into the bedroom and drew the curtains to soak up any echo. I sat on the bed, propped up by pillows and placed my recorder in front of me, on an ironing board as it happens, set up across the bed to form a table. The room was dark and I had to peer fiercely to make out the words in front of me. I imagined Anne Carson would have laughed if she'd seen me.
