terrible book

Jeff is a London-based freelance reporter sent, in the first novella, to cover the art extravaganza Biennale in Venice. He's 45 and full of self-loathing--for all his snarky and very funny commentary on everyone else, there's no one he holds in lower esteem than himself. He falls in love in Venice, but the whole episode is really a wild ("raucous"--Ondaatje's perfect word on the jacket) ride into the depths of ego, sensation and gluttony during an impossible heat wave in this mysterious, louche, crumbling, maze-like city of the imagination. Party after party (enviously comparing quality of invitations), two-fisted drinking, snorting, shallow people hobnobbing shallowly, and one art exhibit after another displaying more naked ambition than anything else. This is the no-holds-barred setup for the extraordinary novella that follows.

Jeff (never named this time) goes on assignment to write a travel piece about Varanasi. Hilariously commuting--via rickshaw, tuk-tuk, taxi--from his remote hotel into town, he conceives a videogame called "Varanasi Death Trip" involving simply staying alive on the crazy streets--a Westerner's take on this mess of a place, but also the "trip" he's on. He writes his piece somewhere in here, though doesn't bother to mention it till much later (one of the wonderful ways Dyer characterizes Jeff's state of mind and the transformation that's taking place). He blows off his departure date and moves to a hotel in town. ("Oh, WHY?!" I thought, so thoroughly has he conveyed the Westerner's view of the horrors of the place--the toxic "sacred" river Ganges, the human excrement in the streets, the disease and stench and general filth, the incessant begging and genuine danger, the ashes of burning bodies in the water and air, the sight of dogs eating a body. But Jeff's not feeling it in quite the same way....) He ends up staying indefinitely, hanging out at the hotel as tourists come and go, befriending some, becoming a fixture like a potted plant. He stops checking his email, thereby blowing off jobs, inevitably incurs chronic intestinal distress and gets skinnier and skinnier, lets his beard and hair (so self-consciously dyed before his trip to Venice) grow unkempt, and generally goes native. He, too, will shit in the street in an emergency, "bathe" daily in the disgusting Ganges he once pissed in for spite, and discover the essence of meditation in a deafening cacophony of temple bells. He will shave head, beard and eyebrows except for a pigtail in back that the locals wear in mourning. Mourning the death of Jeff, without regret.

Wonderfully, this novella is written in first-person, while the Venice piece is in third. He has lost himself to becoming fully himself--the "I" in the moment. Jeff never lived in the moment, was always wanting. Before his beer glass emptied, he was worrying about getting it filled again; high on coke, he was monitoring the high, looking to restoke it as it tapered off. While with the woman of his dreams in Venice, he was already worrying about when he'd see her again. Simultaneously a shiftless and directionless man and one of great extremes, he's the perfect candidate for the plunge into Being (into godhood) in Varanasi.

Just to note some other things I loved... His Westerner's assessment of the great practices of yoga and meditation to come out of India is that it makes perfect sense: the only way to escape the impossible racket and stink and general assault of the place was to retreat inside. When a pair of musicians are staying at the hotel, he envies their love for their art--when not jamming together, they're in their rooms playing (he hates to write, dreads sitting down to the blank screen...), and music becomes one of the great forces of altered consciousness--brilliantly written--in the novella. This ultimately leading to the om of the bells.

And I'd hate to forget his stoned encounter with a familiar goat who suddenly starts chatting with him.... ( )

Very funny, lots of art goss, inside knowledge of Venice Biennale, sex, drink, drugs, having a good time, ;
contrast with Varanasi - pilgrimage atmosphere - more serious. Great writer. See also his books on art and "Yoga for people who can't be bothered to do it." Laugh out loud stuff. ( )

This is Geoff Dyer's fourth novel and is told in two parts. In the first, we meet Jeff, a freelance hack who is covering the Biennale in Venice. He meets and falls in lust with American Laura. The second part is narrated by a british journalist (Jeff pehaps?) who goes to Varanasi in India to write a travel piece and decides to stay.

We never know for certain that our two protagonists are the same, although similarities exist. It is only towards the end of the second part that we realise that they are in sequence, but it still doesn't confirm the reader's desire to know if they are one and the same. This feeling of similarity is compounded by the use of two like settings: Venice and Varanasi. Although worlds apart, both are old crumbling cities surrounded by water. It is in one city that one hero lives an exhuberent, carnal life, while in the other city, our second hero lives a quiet life surrounded by death. References to Ginsberg pepper the second novella while Thomas Mann's novella Death in Venice heavily influences the first part.

Despite the love interest of the first part and the travel-guide quality of the second half, as well as the rich and sometimes funny writing, I just couldn't warm a whole lot to this novel. There is ultimately a lack of conclusion. Perhaps it is a book of the zeitgeist? ( )

This one is giving me mixed emotions... Which I think is a good thing.

The story follows Jeff, a freelance art writer from London. Jeff travels to Venice to cover a festival, where he meets a woman. They have a whirl-wind romance fueled by booze and drugs. The second part of the story is kind of a mystery. The narrator ends up in Varanasi and ends up staying, presumably forever (but we don't ever really know). In Varanasi he undergoes changes, life altering "spiritual" changes. But again, the fruition to which these changes lead the narrator is unknown.

I really liked the story, and although I felt the writing was a bit embellished I liked the writing also. My biggest complaint has nothing to do with the story whatsoever, rather it's the use of one very offensive word - the c word. I'm by no means a prude, quite frankly I could make a sailor blush, but there are a few words that even I won't mutter and the c word is one of them. I don't know why this bothered me so bad, but I actually had to put the book down for a while to let myself cool off. As I was reading the more I kept thinking about that word and the more upset I got. I know it's crazy, but it just bothered me.... Once I cooled off a bit I was able to read it without seething, I guess I was having a moment.

I liked the wit that was apparent throughout the book. I think without the added wit the story would have been somewhat lacking. But the humor made me want to keep reading (after I got over the c word thing). Something that was a little odd, but was part of the mystery of the second part, was that the first part of the book is written in third person whereas the second part is written in first person. But again, there is so much mystery as to who the narrator is (presumably Jeff from the first part, but I'll let you make your own decision). Then the mystery as to if he ever returns home...

I can't say I loved this book, but I think that it was good. I have never read anything that reminds me of this so I can't make any comparison. I liked it, but at times it kind of teetered on a thin line between brilliant and completely absurd. ( )