Description

A New Statesman / Observer Book of the Year

‘She pinpoints the collision of oracle and anachronism.’ – Teju Cole, Observer

Anne Carson dazzles us, book after book, with her inventiveness, her ranging imagination, and the way her work utterly changes our perspectives. With Float, she goes further still: exploring myth and memory, beauty and loss, all the while playing with – and pushing – the limits of language and form. Within this beautifully designed box, there are twelve individual booklets that can be read in any order: conjuring a mix of voices, time periods and structures to explore what makes people, memories, and stories ‘maddeningly attractive’ when observed in liminal space. One can begin with Carson puzzling through Proust on a frozen Icelandic plain, in the art-saturated enclaves of downtown New York City, or atop Mount Olympus as Zeus ponders his afterlife. There is a three-woman chorus of Gertrude Steins embodying an essay about ‘falling’, and an investigation of monogamy and marriage as Carson anticipates the perfect egg her husband is cooking for breakfast. Exquisite, heartbreaking, disarmingly funny, Float illuminates the uncanny magic that comes with letting go of boundaries. It is Carson’s most intellectually electrifying and emotionally engaging book to date.

Publisher Review

"[A] captivating new work, Float, might be the most stunning example to date... Carson is an innovator... Carson is a strange and immersive poet. It's only after reading Float in its entirety - which I keep finding myself doing - that you realise its full effect." -- Charlotte Runcie * Daily Telegraph * "These books...attempt to unleash the fragment's liberating force. The effect can be exhilarating." -- Chris Power * Guardian * "A brilliant and provocative take on domestic life." -- Fiona Sampson * New Statesman, Book of the Year * "It's this beautiful lyricism, communicated through a form that is, at times, maddeningly vague that Carson has remained true to her sensibilities and artistry." -- Taylor Kang * Culture Trip * "She pinpoints the collision of oracle and anachronism." -- Teju Cole * Observer, Book of the Year * "[Float contains] achingly arty mini books." * Standard Issue Magazine * "To describe her work as innovative, or groundbreaking, seems reductive, so we'll simply leave you to consider her latest publication: Float, out this year, is a collection presented in 23 `chapbooks' and offering works of both poetry and prose, to be enjoyed in no particular order." -- Luke Abrahams * Culture Trip * "Float is the best new "book" I've read this year, funny, bleak and urgent." -- John McAuliffe * Irish Times, Book of the Year * "Anyone who spends time with Anne Carson begins to feel cleverer. You read her work with the prevailing sense that you're getting something, and getting it fast." -- Joanna O'Leary * Times Literary Supplement *