Customer Reviews

Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi: A Novel

5 star:		(20)
4 star:		(22)
3 star:		(13)
2 star:		(10)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

The unwieldy title of this book is indicative of its troubles. JEFF IN VENICE, DEATH IN VARANASI offers two novellas, two continents, and two somewhat listless narratives in search of some grounding. The first novella, written in the 3rd person limited, chronicles the tale of a self-absorbed, hedonist Brit in the Italian city as a freelance writer covering an art festival (the Biennale). Though in his 40's, our protagonist (Jeff Atman) dyes his hair and acts in general like an untethered frat boy as he chases down party invites, quaffs as many free drinks as possible, and hunts up skirts. The writing itself is crisp (thus 3 stars), but you'll be offering your kingdom for a plot after awhile, unless you're perfectly content to read vast stretches of self-satisfied witticisms in the form of cocktail chat. Certain readers may pass on the cocktails and go straight for the tail in the form of some rather randy scenes where Jeff scores repeatedly with the fair -- and oh, so game -- Laura (it must be all that art putting them in the mood for something graphic).

Reaching the end of the first piece and shrugging, we move on to India with a nameless 1st-person protagonist as our new host. This novella, less "modern" in feel, comes off like a travel book, rich in details about the squalid Indian city, the filthy Ganges, and the constant funeral pyres -- metaphoric, perhaps, for a tandem of books that don't quite mesh and don't quite grab the reader by the lapels?

Fans of parties, booze, and sex (Round One) and fans of Hindu rituals, travel writing, and kangaroos (if you get that far in Round Two, you'll see) may be confused as to why these odd bedfellows share a dust jacket, but the writing isn't bad and Dyer's a gamer -- too bad he just can't get it off the ground.

Geoff Dyer's fourth work of fiction is a brilliantly bifurcated exploration of the emotional poles of sensual pleasure and spiritual quest. It's a smart, funny, eyes-wide-open take on our search for meaning, one of those rare novels that begs to be read again the moment you have turned to the final page.

In the novel's first half, "Jeff in Venice," Dyer introduces Jeff Atman (in a sly nod to the second part of the book, the word means "soul" or "true self" in Hinduism), a cynical 45-year-old British journalist who has just dyed his hair for the first time and taken off for Venice. He is headed there on assignment to cover the Biennale and write a piece on the ex-girlfriend of a prominent artist (the latter a task he bungles spectacularly). Jeff seems more intent on sampling the pleasures of the Italian city (a torrent of bellinis and never-ending helpings of risotto the most prominent). There, he meets Laura Freeman, a ravishing young woman who works for a Los Angeles art gallery. The two zip around the city's waterways on its fleet of vaporettos and quickly tumble into a relationship that features copious bouts of sex (described in NC-17 detail) and cocaine, interspersed with a mind-numbing swirl of parties and gallery visits.

Astonished by the ample, unanticipated pleasures of his encounter with Laura, Jeff strides the streets, dumbly celebrating his good fortune: "He swaggered through Venice as if he owned the place, as if it had been created entirely for his benefit. Life! So full of inconvenience, irritation, boredom and annoyance and yet, at the same time, so utterly fantastic." Though it seems the two have made a connection that transcends the purely carnal, Laura departs for Los Angeles after three magical, if inexplicable, days. They enact the obligatory exchange of email addresses and phone numbers, and we're left with a feeling that seems both inevitable and somehow fitting that they'll never see each other again.

The second section of the book, recounted in the first person by an unnamed narrator with enough similarities to Jeff to let us conclude it's the same protagonist, is set in India's holy city of Varanasi, on the banks of the Ganges River. After polishing off the magazine piece that has brought him there, the narrator abandons any plan to return home, slowly adapting to the rituals and rhythms of the ancient city ("I'd come to Varanasi because there was nothing to keep me in London, and I stayed on for the same reason: because there was nothing to go home for."). But as he does so, he undergoes an emotional transformation that becomes more profound as time glides past like the spiritually pure, dreadfully polluted Ganges. "All I'm saying," he concludes, "is that in Varanasi I no longer felt like I was waiting. The waiting was over. I was over. I had taken myself out of the equation." He shaves his head, dons a dhoti and in one of the most striking demonstrations of Dyer's art, we ponder whether "Jeff" is evolving toward some higher plane of spiritual ecstasy or descending into the depths of madness.

The novel is suffused with a sharp, picturesque description of its disparate yet strikingly similar settings. "Every day, for hundreds of years," Dyer writes, "Venice had woken up and put on this guise of being a real place even though everyone knew it existed only for tourists." Varanasi, with its ubiquitous ghats and their cremation pyres, is drenched in an almost hallucinatory swirl of colors, sights and smells: "The colours made the rainbow look muted. Lolly-pink, a temple pointed skywards like a rocket whose launch, delayed by centuries, was still believed possible, even imminent, by the Brahmins lounging in the warm shade of mushroom umbrellas."

Given the superficially unconnected stories, it's fair to ask whether the work really is a "novel," or, more correctly, two novellas with interwoven themes. Regardless, the effort of teasing out the links between the two sections is one of the book's numerous pleasures. To start, both are set in watery cities steeped in history. And with a deft touch, the stories' language and images echo each other, illustrated by this handful of many such examples: begging bowls, real and metaphorical appear in both cities; the term "otter" does double duty as the way Jeff hears Venetians describe the heat and how "Jeff" imagines his "sleek" appearance at the end of the novel; there's an image of a kangaroo that surfaces at the climax of both stories; and Jeff's Venice dream of having his arm devoured by a dog becomes frighteningly real when that fate befalls a corpse in Varanasi.

Strikingly contemporary and utterly timeless, JEFF IN VENICE, DEATH IN VARANASI is an intense, vivid trip to a pair of exotic cities and an equally provocative journey into the twisted passageways of the human soul.

I've read the first half of this book many, many times. Dyer has re-written about the 40 something; unhappy free-lance writer; first wife left him; guy searching for his youth. An expense-account paid trip to Venice lets him join up with others of the same ilk. This predictably leading to the parties with drinking, drugs, lots more drinking, girl chasing, oh I hate this life why am I forced to live it, wait - that lovely thing across the room (surprise) existence. Meanwhile he just thinks he can't do the job that he has promised to do so he can go to Venice. With the obligatory very descriptive sex scenes and big boy and girl language, Dyer has created half a book of little import.

The first half, condensed easily to a three page introduction, could have been the start of an amusing second childhood boy meets girl beach read.

The second half is Dyer's attempt to be mystical without resorting to mysticism. Dyer wants us readers to guess whether the protagonist of the first half is the same one here. It really doesn't matter. The same or another mid-forties guy on a writing assignment, yadda, yadda, yadda. While I liked this half better, it too is a retread of the lost middle aged guy.

The really disappointing thing about this book is that Dyer can write. There is ability that should have been used to actually write a better book. I like many types of books, but I don't like books that take 300 pages to go nowhere. It seemed as if he was the main character dashing off something because he had committed to a publisher to do so.

In the first story, a writer experiences the excitement of Venice in a few brief days. Jeffrey Atman drinks, parties, tours, does his job (more or less) and has an affair with a beautiful woman. As our hero keeps reminding the reader, almost everything is going right for him.

Jeff's tastes have remained remarkably constant as he has aged whereas "other people's ideas of a good time underwent well-established changes as they got older." Jeff approaches life as if it were an extended frat party; other people "ended up raising children, buying sheds or playing golf." With his adolescent value system intact, Altman is on top of the world for 48 hours.

Dyer writes visually and feverishly about the Venice Art Festival. He creates tension around Altman's pursuit of Laura and beautifully about their time together. Laura's flight out of Venice, however, and the end of the festival happen rapidly for both Altman and the reader. In a few pages, the reader moves from envy for the hero to pity even though these changes are foreshadowed and inevitable.

The second story is also about a writer's journey to an alien environment. In this case, the unnamed scribe begins to work in Varanasi, deteriorates physically, renounces material life and, finally, embraces the spiritual much as Altman had elevated the carnal.

The relationship between the two stories is left for the reader to ponder. At one point, a character describes Venice and Varanasi as "incredibly similar. Versions of each other. Twinned." The readers' challenge is to sort and compare the lessons learned in each locale. In the first, the hero adopts, after his loss, a Victorian view of life: "I can't have this forever, therefore I'm miserable." The narrator of the second story has few positive experiences and, as a result, little disappointment. His life lesson is a different one: "there are only a limited number of moments that count for anything, that make up and define a life...The only real crime or mistake was not to make the most of it." The first attitude leads to resignation and the second to renunciation.

I loved the Venice story (5 stars), liked the story set in India (3 stars) and am still working on what the two of them say when they are "twinned." The strength of the main characters, depth of the imagery in both versions of the story and light-handed author's touch are all reasons to read this book. In the light of full disclosure, as someone who has experienced children, sheds and golf, I greatly enjoyed the vicarious pleasures of Altman's time in Venice regardless of its brevity. As limited moments that define a life, they are superficial but seem to be a lot of fun.

Readers tend to regard Geoff Dyer as a better-travelled Nick Hornby or a softer Paul Theroux. Dubious phrases such as 'genre-defying' and 'zany' are used to describe his work. Nevertheless, I prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt. From reading his praise for, say, Tobias Wolff, Joshua Ferris and Denis Johnson, and his graceful contributions to otherwise duff anthologies (such as the All Hail the New Puritans flop), I felt I was in good hands.

I think I was half right. 'Novel' doesn't really describe this book. (Granted, 'novella with a piece of travelogue tacked on at the end' wouldn't have made good copy.) Eight pages in and the narrator already has you grimacing--another callow London media type who thinks the lives of callow London media types are inherently interesting. He doesn't like his job, but doesn't have the stones to quit it; the people his work requires him to meet are shallow and stupid, but the glamour that rubs of them onto their hangers-on, like garlic on stale bread, keeps him attentive.

In fairness, this insular, bratty world is described with some redemptive disgust. One character lances through all the fine prattle about the life-changing qualities of art with his more modest claim: "Nine times out of ten, in fact, it's precisely the life-changing experience that enables you to come to terms with the unchangingness of your own life." Dyer's quick-fire dialogue, if not always realistic, has its moments, and just about salvages at least one of the book's many ludicrous sex scenes.

It's said that Dyer's works of non-fiction are his strongest. Although this book was a misfire, the thought that I have his others yet to read makes me eager to watch him aim again.

I don't read many novels anymore. Most read like programmatic screenplays bootlicking for an airplane audience.

This gem is an exception and I am so glad that I picked it up for an evening's break from my own work. Geoff Dyer creates an amazing blend of travelogue and fiction in his tale of a journalist adrift in mid-life. The protagonist begins his journey of dissolution in grey England, then accepts a writing assignment in Venice at the Bienale art circus during severe heat, where he meets a portentous figure in the form of a woman from California nearer his age at a jet-set party (a woman named Laura, who is a sly, quiet homage to DuMaurier and Roeg's Laura Baxter of "Don't Look Now") who is giving up journalism for hedge-funding in Varanasi, India. Synchronicity lands him in this other Venice where he penetrates the fiction of self and the Disneyworld "ridiculousness" and beauty of existence, itself, in his examination of Hinduism and life in the amazingly detailed Varanasi. Yes, yes: echoes of The Razor's Edge, maybe, and themes that echo Steppenwolf and other novels of self-discovery, but unique in its blend of travelogue, comedy, self-effacement and insight.

Dyer's hand at description is impeccable and arresting. It is such a lovely, vivid and humorous work. While I know Venice well, I have never visited India, and his tale left me more than curious about what "me" I might find if I went "there".

I came away infatuated with this writer, and his wonderful book.

I loved Dyer's Out Of Sheer Rage, so I went out and bought this book with real optimism and anticipation. He can be a wonderful writer, and for that reason I don't like having to say what a complete disappointment this one is. It's so bad I'm almost stumped. The first part of the book, which takes place in Venice, is incredibly dull, the characters are lifeless, the dialogue is worse than amateurish, the humor (what little of it there is) is lame, and the sex scenes, which seem to have scandalized some reviewers here, are downright boring. The endless commentary about the heat and the bellinis and the means of getting from one place to another nearly made me lose my patience. But I kept reading, sighing with tedium every fifteen minutes, hoping some of Dyer's spark and energy would show up. It didn't. I was completely relieved when it was over.

The second part of the book, which takes place in Varanasi, improves just slightly. Varanasi is a strange enough city that it would be hard to make it boring. But again, I found myself bored, found myself reading on with impatience and dismay, wondering what happened to Dyer's clever insights, his heart, his humor, his sharp imagery. The whole thing is just really slack. In the last thirty pages of the book the pace picks up a little bit, but mainly because things become a bit surreal and a tiny bit imaginative. A lot has been made of the fact that the two cities in this book are based on the water that flows through them. Big deal. For this reason the book is described as a "diptych". Who cares? With what Dyer has made of it, it's completely meaningless.

I almost had the feeling Dyer just dashed this book off and hoped he could get away with it. He didn't get away with it, believe me. If you want to know what Dyer can do as a writer, avoid this one and read Out of Sheer Rage.

First time I started reading this book, I had to put it down because it seemed so shallow. A couple months later I pick it up again, desperate for a read. Well, I read it all the way through but honestly regret the effort. Dryer's a good writer and has some interesting ideas, but 1. There's really no plot; 2. I'm not into a lot of scenic descriptions and they go on and on in both Venice and Varanasi; 3. There's a bit of bait and switch with the romantic interest. You expect it to reappear but doesn't. And the sex scenes are a little much. Is that supposed to add something besides a cringe?

Anyways, I think the media jumped on the bandwagon again on this one. Got a great review in the NY Times, and just goes to show that a lot of reviewers seem to be in on the whole "scene" more than truely reviewing the book at hand.

After reading just 10 pages I thought it was going to be a terrific book: witty, fast-paced, insightful. But after that, the writing simply hit the wall. Dialogue was trite and predictable; cliches were barely reworked before being plopped in all around; characters became tedious instead of intriguing and the feel of the book devolved to "Lees-Milne name dropping" (fictional or not) and one-liners that seemed snatched from a college kegger. Thinking I was missing something I read on another 50 pages, but nothing improved. At one point the protagonist claims that his boss felt he was "good for tittle-tattle but unsuited for anything serious." Here, the line between character and author blurred. Knowing Venice and Varanasi well, I could only shake my head at the many missed opportunities in this ms. A book that handles some similar themes with greater success and better use of locale (albeit a different one) is All the Sad, Young Literary Men. I'd give SYL Men a B and this book a C-. In all fairness to the author, this book was listed in NY Times as 100 Notables for 09 so somebody thinks it's hot. Try to read a sample before you commit. I'm also 41 so maybe it's a generational thing.

This was labeled a novel (in two parts), but is more truly two long essays or novellas with no obvious connection to each other. For me, "Jeff in Venice" read much like a blog or a long twitter from a world-weary, aging writer who is totally absorbed in feeding the senses--where's the promised free buffet? when will the next round of bellinis be served? who's got the cocaine? which women are available as bed partners? He runs with an equally jaundiced and boring crowd of art scene writers. Though they are in Venice, one of the beauty spots of the world, they are hardly impressed and not in the least excited by the place or the art biennale which they have come to cover. And on it goes. Every detail of the protagonist's (Jeff Atman's) day is reported, including his steamy affair with Laura, an American colleague, but toward what end?

"Death in Varanesi" is equally self-indulgent and opaque. Three stars for Geoff Dyer's indisputably professional writing style. Otherwise, I just couldn't connect with the stories or their characters.