
A New Statesman Observer Book of the Year‘ She pinpoints the collision of oracle & anachronism’
- Teju Cole Observer Anne Carson dazzles us book after book with her inventiveness her ranging imagination & the way her work utterly changes our perspectives With Float she goes further still exploring myth & memory beauty & loss all the while playing with – & pushing – the limits of language & 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 & structures to explore what makes people memories & 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’ & an investigation of monogamy & 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 & emotionally engaging book to date