Zona: A Book About a Film About a Journey to a Room

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Zona: A Book About a Film About a Journey to a Room

3.72 of 5 stars 3.72 · rating details · 370 ratings · 98 reviews

From a writer whose mastery encompasses fiction, criticism, and the fertile realm between the two, comes a new book that confirms his reputation for the unexpected.

In Zona, Geoff Dyer attempts to unlock the mysteries of a film that has haunted him ever since he first saw it thirty years ago: Andrei Tarkovsky’s Stalker, widely regarded as one of the greatest films of all ti...more

Hardcover, 240 pages

Published February 21st 2012 by Pantheon (first published February 2nd 2012)

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Mar 25, 2012 brian rated it 3 of 5 stars

about 15 yrs ago, while working at kim's underground in nyc, i met the great russian poet yevgeny yevtushenko. at the time i knew him only as the screenwriter of i am cuba so we dished on cinema (i'm pretty sure my snotty little fauxpunk former self convinced him to rent just one of the guys) and he spoke for a bit about his friendship with andrei tarkovsky -- the highlight, of course, when he referred to tarkovsky as 'the saddest man i have ever met.' to put this statement in perspective, yevtu...more about 15 yrs ago, while working at kim's underground in nyc, i met the great russian poet yevgeny yevtushenko. at the time i knew him only as the screenwriter of i am cuba so we dished on cinema (i'm pretty sure my snotty little fauxpunk former self convinced him to rent just one of the guys) and he spoke for a bit about his friendship with andrei tarkovsky -- the highlight, of course, when he referred to tarkovsky as 'the saddest man i have ever met.' to put this statement in perspective, yevtushenko was running around the USSR when stalin was running the show. yikes.

only in my 20s did i have the stamina to watch stuff like stalker. and i really ate it up. i once sat through all 4 hrs of the mother and the whore at the guggenheim, took in all 14 hrs of berlin alexanderplatz in under 24 hrs, and practically camped out at the MOMA to watch hour after glorious goddamn hour of godard's histoire du cinema. now? shit, man. i'm lucky if i can muster the focus to make it through an hourlong episode of breaking bad. the irony, of course, is that i probably didn't have the life experience back then to fully 'get' those films, to have them truly impact my brain and heart in the way the filmmaker intended. but fuck intent: those films (as with most things we fall for in our 20s) are an integral part of who i am. bresson and bergman inform my outlook on life as much (more?) than the lessons taught by most 'real life' encounters of my 20s. liv ullman's anguished face as she steps on that shard of glass has as strong a hold on my heart as ginger's (a real life girlfriend) as she told me she was leaving me for another guy. the silence of au hasard balthazar as stirring as the muted sounds of the ramones while snorting lines in the bathroom of cherry tavern. that 'youth is wasted on the youth' line sounds nice, but it's a load of cockshit: youth might mean not being able to recognize how great you have it, but the purity with which life -- and art -- can directly and unfilteredly punch your soul more than makes up for it. (less)

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Jan 22, 2013 Jim rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 21st-century-lit, literature, film, essays

What we have here is a triptych: three linked works of art, one based on the other. First there was Boris and Arkady Strugatsky's Roadside Picnic (1972), perhaps the most memorable of their science fiction novels. Then came Andrei Tarkovsky's film Stalker (1979), ostensibly based on it and, in fact, employing the Strugatsky brothers as screenwriters. Now there is Geoff Dyer's long essay entitled Zona: A Book About a Film About a Journey to a Room. This last is in a genre by itself, an extended c...more What we have here is a triptych: three linked works of art, one based on the other. First there was Boris and Arkady Strugatsky's Roadside Picnic (1972), perhaps the most memorable of their science fiction novels. Then came Andrei Tarkovsky's film Stalker (1979), ostensibly based on it and, in fact, employing the Strugatsky brothers as screenwriters. Now there is Geoff Dyer's long essay entitled Zona: A Book About a Film About a Journey to a Room. This last is in a genre by itself, an extended commentary retelling the story of the film with lengthy footnoted riffs about how the film has impacted Dyer's life and imagination.

All three works are masterpieces in their own right. I have now read both books as well as seen the film, and I yearn to reacquaint myself with all three of them.

Is there something perhaps a little perverse about writing a ruminative essay about something that comes from something else. Have we somehow put ourselves too many removes from the original work by the Strugatsky brothers? Or does it matter, inasmuch as both Stalker and Zona are totally absorbing, as was Roadside Picnic.

Perhaps I should draw back a little and give you some idea of the world of the composite work of art I think of as “The Roadside Stalker Zone.” We are some time in the future, in a grimy post-industrial wasteland in a small country near an area once visited by extraterrestrials who just happened, for whatever reason, to leave strange inexplicable things behind -- including a room which, if you enter it, grants all your innermost desires. (Never mind that the only known person to have visited it, named Porcupine, hanged himself shortly thereafter.)

These zones formerly visited by the extraterrestrials (who have all moved on without getting their visas stamped) have been sealed off by the authorities. But there is an active "black market" of individuals called stalkers who take people to visit the zones and perhaps bring some things back -- things which are inexplicable. The children of these stalkers are themselves strange, like Monkey, the film's Stalker's daughter, who has the power of telekinesis, which we do not learn until the very end of the film.

Stalker takes two individuals, referred to only as the professor and the Writer, into the zone. Their journey is a journey of self-discovery. Do they enter the room? I do not wish to spoil the story for you, so I urge you to consume the entire triptych, in order of publication or release, to come to the same realization that I have arrived at: That Geoff Dyer is a phenomenal writer whose work I am going to enjoy reading in the months and years to come.

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Mar 04, 2012 Pavol rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: own, non-fiction

Here is a book about a movie. No, let me rephrase that. Here is a discursive, personal, digressive, long-winding, breezy, ponderous, chatty, observant, essayistic commentary blog-post of a book about a movie, Tarkovsky's Stalker. It is *about* the movie in the most obvious sense - it is a summary, nay, that's not it, more like - as Dyer would put it - it is an expansion and a commentary of the movie, bit by bit reconstruction of every scene with running comments about the production (footnoted),...more

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Jun 30, 2012 Marc Weidenbaum added it

Quick review. I may write more later.

I recommend this for anyone who's seen the movie Stalker (a science-fiction road trip by director Andrei Tarkovsky that's a modern classic of Russian film) and for anyone who wants a glimpse into the mind of a true cinephile.

By "true cinephile" I mean not an aficionado of film, but a habitué of the cinema as a physical place, someone for whom cinema-going is — and, more to the point, was — an essential part of the movie-consuming process.

The key thing that...more Quick review. I may write more later.

I recommend this for anyone who's seen the movie Stalker (a science-fiction road trip by director Andrei Tarkovsky that's a modern classic of Russian film) and for anyone who wants a glimpse into the mind of a true cinephile.

By "true cinephile" I mean not an aficionado of film, but a habitué of the cinema as a physical place, someone for whom cinema-going is — and, more to the point, was — an essential part of the movie-consuming process.

The key thing that occurred to me as I read Dyer's book about this fairly infrequently viewed movie is that there's a clear and maudlin parallel between his concept of cinema and the facts of the world in which the film was made. Both were systems defined by a culture of significant deficits. The movie was released in 1979, during what we have come to understand as the waning years of Soviet communism, an economic engine that worked, when it did work, in fits and starts covered up by a veneer of bravado saber-rattling.

Dyer's depiction of his core film-going years is one in which his viewing was defined not by what he wanted to see — the case in our Netflix-friendly, Tivo-enriched, BitTorrent-supported era — but by what was available. I think his depiction of how limits shaped cultural consumption is on par with what Jonathan Lethem accomplished in his recent 33 1/3 book on Talking Heads' album Fear of Music. Lethem has a clear view of his past, but doesn't wallow in it. Dyer's evident nostalgia for that period is at times like that of Stalinists who miss standing in line for a loaf of bread — it is, more than anything, an act of willful disregard for modernity.

Dyer's relative distaste — his adoption of the robe and role of the old fogey — for the world in which he finds himself isn't just related to film. He evidences a professor emeritus' generational cluelessness, for example when he riffs about how the index finger has less of a privileged role in our post-rotary-phone age. Clearly this is an individual with limited experience on a touch-screen device. (At the risk of venturing into the sort of first-person aside that is very much Dyer's mode: I had a severe cut on my right index finger while I was reading a hardback copy Dyer's book. I found that using my touchpad on my laptop and the screens of my phone, iPad, and iPod Touch to be an initially painful and, later, at best awkward experience, as bandaids impeded use, as did the wound's scab as it formed.)

Beyond that, Zona is a book about obsessions, both Dyer's for the film and Tarkovsky's for the process of filming. The book is frustrating, because it feels like it was written fairly quickly, and benefited from limited acts of revision. Still, the full range of associations that Dyer draws within the film's working parts and between the film and the world at at large is phenomenal. The personal asides have gotten the book a good amount of negative attention, but I think of them as an expression of how much the movie — how much movie-going — bleeds into Dyer's sense of his own life. A lot of critiques of those personal asides neglect to note that they appear mostly as footnotes, not in the actual main body text of the book. Then again, those footnotes are often so long as to make it unclear on the page which one is reading: the main or the supporting text. At least in the hardcover book, there is no apparent distinction in how both are treated typographically. There is simply a thin line dividing them.

As I read the book, I came to think of that thin line as being not unlike the line in Stalker that divides the world from the Zone that is the initial destination of the title character and his traveling companions.

There are references to sound throughout — especially a certain “clang” that Dyer seems to feel is the movie’s intrinsic soundmark. I was a bit anxious about their potential absence from the narrative in advance of reading the book, because after scouring many reviews before reading Dyer’s actual text — taking a slow approach somewhat aligned with the film’s own vision of a journey: reading various writings about this book about a film about a journey to a room before reading the book itself — I found little mention of sound. The score to Stalker is by Edward Artemiev, one of the most essential electronic musicians in Russian history (I interviewed his son, Artemiy Artemiev, who runs the label Electroshock, back in 2003: "Shock the Bear"), and the music is an essential part of the movie's structure and effect (I highly recommend listening to the track titled "Train"). It’s quite likely that the “clang” that registers with Dyer is the railway noise that Artemiev folded into his richly layered, yet still often threadbare-ambient, score. I read Tatiana Yegorova’s book Edward Artemiev’s Musical Universe when it was first released, and I think I’m going to stalk it now for its Stalker material.(less)

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Apr 22, 2013 David M. rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

If you love Stalker and you're looking for a way to experience it again in a new way because there seem to be diminishing returns from just watching Stalker over and over again, this might be a good book to read. If you haven't seen Stalker or you're indifferent to it, I don't know what this book might do for you.

It bills itself as "a book about a film about a journey to a room," but most of it is "a book about a guy who writes a book about a film about a journey to a room."

I enjoyed it, except...more

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Apr 06, 2013 Cody rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: russia, film

A odd sort of book that makes for a wonderful read. The balance between wit and insight is impressive—I frequently found myself bowled over by how Dyer could start with, say, a humorous and mopey recounting of losing a beloved knapsack only to wind up in a fairly profound discussion of regret, loss, and mortality by the end of the same passage. Even when I might quibble with Dyer’s interpretation or handling of an aspect of Stalker, Zona, which starts as a kind of cheeky reaction to a film but b...more

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Apr 22, 2013 Ben Loory rated it 3 of 5 stars

very strange book, though not as strange as i'd like. it's basically dyer live-blogging the experience of watching andrei tarkovksy's 1979 film stalker (which is one of my favorite movies (or used to be, back when i actually watched movies and didn't just stare at the interworld all day)). as he walks you through the movie, he has lots of thoughts, both about the movie and tarkovsky and the making of the film, and about his (dyer's) own life as a fan of the movie (different times he's seen it, e...more

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Mar 23, 2013 Dan rated it 5 of 5 stars

This is s great rambling, Tristram-Shandyesque but still short book about a writer's experience with a film, "Stalker," one of the strangest films of all time, by director Andrei Tarkovsky. The book is remarkable because the writer had the same experience with the film that I did and considered it one of the greatest ever. I had thought for years I was crazy for liking this bleak film so much, but Dyer analyzes the film's structure and goes through it frame by frame--and then talks at length abo...more

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Oct 28, 2012 Diane Kistner rated it 4 of 5 stars

I had never heard of Andrei Tarovsky or his film "Stalker" before I chose this book to review, so I thought I'd better watch the film first before reading the book. Fortunately, it is available free on YouTube in its full version. It is, shall I say, a strange movie, or a strange allegory, or many strange allegories calling themselves a strange movie. Or, because it is foreign and artsy, a film. Dreamy. Or ordinary.

I can see how the author would feel compelled to watch "Stalker" many times and h...more

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Aug 26, 2012 Gabriel added it

Shelves: vvv, 2012

"I suspect it is rare for anyone to see their—what they consider to be the—greatest film after the age of thirty. After forty, it's extremely unlikely. After fifty, impossible. The films you see as a child and in your early teens . . . have such a special place in your affections that it's all but impossible to consider them objectively (you have, moreover, no desire to do so). To try to disentangle their individual merits or shortcomings, to see them as a disinterested adult, is like trying to...more

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Aug 19, 2012 Claire rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction

Zona is indeed as its subtitle describes "a book about a film about a journey to a room." I would recommend it to film buffs, fans of the film Stalker or its director Andrei Tarkovsky, or fans of Geoff Dyer's. The more of these interests you have, the better.

I hadn't seen Stalker before I started reading, but it didn't matter since much of the book is Dyer's detailed recollection of the film. Not quite a perfect summary though. For me, the heart of the book is in its numerous footnotes (easily a...more

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May 13, 2012 Gaurav Sethi rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

There was a fair amount of buzz surrounding this book when it was released back in February. And I’ve been itching to read this ever since. It definitely lives up to the hype. I’ve read a few essays in various magazines and newspapers by Dyer but nothing of significant length, so reading this was a bit of a delight. One trademark of Dyer is his attention to detail and this book is very much about details.

The premise of the book is straightforward and exactly what you would expect with that titl...more There was a fair amount of buzz surrounding this book when it was released back in February. And I’ve been itching to read this ever since. It definitely lives up to the hype. I’ve read a few essays in various magazines and newspapers by Dyer but nothing of significant length, so reading this was a bit of a delight. One trademark of Dyer is his attention to detail and this book is very much about details.

The premise of the book is straightforward and exactly what you would expect with that title. It is a book about a film about a journey to a room. It is a detailed analysis of Andre Tarkovsky’s Russian SF masterpiece: Stalker.

Many reviewers have commented on the fact that a familiarity with the film is not a prerequisite for his book but I decided to go ahead and watch the film prior to my read. I’ve read detailed accounts of media that I am not familiar with and while one can still absorb the information that is being analysed, without viewing the original work the finer nuances are lost. Missing out on those finer points just nags at the back of my brain. But, I digress. The point is that one need not be familiar with the film in order to read this work, it’s just that like all media - familiarity breeds deeper comprehension.

I watched the film in one sitting and I finished the book in another. I’m not certain if this was simply a result of the type of mood I was in or if Tarkovsky and Dyer tap into some deep-seated obsessions from within.

It’s difficult to describe the film but if I must: SF Wizard of Oz set in a Russian post-industrial landscape. The film is about three men who attempt to venture into “The Zone” a barren and desolate landscape that may or may not contain fantastical remnants from a supposed meteorite that crashed into the area. A government authority now controls access in and out of “The Zone”.

Three men: Stalker (our tour guide and the only one who has previously visited the Zone) offers to sneak in Writer and Professor into the mysterious and unknown.

The film is slow, plodding, and much of it philosophical. It’s definitely not for everyone. The first 9 minutes are without dialogue and consist entirely of drips, creaks, groans. It’s an art-house film, the type of movie that film-study graduates argue about in coffee-houses. And bored hotel-owners.

So you’re thinking, why would you want to read a book about this film. Well, that’s exactly why I wanted to read it. I love books that are so narrowly focused on such a specific piece of media. There’s something beautiful about this type of obsession and attention to detail. And Geoff Dyer is obsessional about the details of this film. The book is largely an essay-length film critique, and the first half consists of a scene by scene break down of the entire film. As I mentioned earlier, one need not have watched the film in order to enjoy this book (Dyer anticipates this and does half the work for you).

What follows is a wonderful account of Russian film history, media studies, literary analysis, and a semi-biographical account of why we obsess over the things we obsess about. Dyer delves deep into the making of this film as well as his first experience with film as a medium and what it does to us to confront these types of images.

‘If the regular length of a shot is increased, one becomes bored, but if you keep on making it longer, a new quality emerges, a special intensity of attention.’ At first there can be a friction between our expectations of time and Tarkovsky-time and this friction is increasing in the twenty-first century as we move further and further away from Tarkovsky-time towards moron-time in which nothing can last—and no one can concentrate on anything—for longer than about two seconds. Soon people will not be able to watch films like Theo Angelopoulos’s Ulysses’ Gaze or to read Henry James because they wil not have the concentration to get from one interminable scene or sentence to the next. The time when I might have been able to read late-period Henry James has passed and because I have not read late-period Henry James I am in no position to say what harm has been done to my sensibility by not having done so.

As you can see there is a certain amount of tongue-in-cheek humor involved with his criticism/re-telling.

The book is in a weird place, not pure criticism nor a proper film review (too short for the former, too long for the latter). It’s one man’s passion, detailed and thorough. This is an odd way to frame it but it’s the perfect bathroom read. It’s a short novella length essay and I think it’s worth picking up. Even if you’ve not watched the film, you’ll walk away with your eyes open. An open love letter to a film. (less)

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Apr 03, 2012 Frank O'connor rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: People who have watched 'Stalker'

This is a book about the experience of watching Andrei Tarkovsky's 'Stalker'. It is a fine example of form meeting function. The author recognises that some aspects of filmic experience will be subjective while others will be more universal and the structure and content of the book reflects that. In some areas he discusses the more generally recognised themes of time and space and he does so with diligence and poise. In others he documents his own specific reaction, for example, to a character s...more

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Mar 21, 2012 Richard Kramer rated it 5 of 5 stars

Before I die, which I hope is never, I plan to read every word Geoff Dyer has put down on paper, a goal I set when I read his book about DH Lawrence about the impossibility of writing a book on DH Lawrence, OUT OF SHEEER RAGE, which if you haven't read you should get it NOW digitally or at your library or God forbid even your bookstore. ZONA is about his decades long obsession with the "difficult" Tarkovsky film STALKER. Oi, is it difficult, but somehow knowing I would have Dyer to talk to me ab...more

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Mar 15, 2012 Robert Beveridge rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: film buffs

Shelves: amazon-vine, finished, owned-and-still-own

Geoff Dyer, Zona: A Book About a Film About a Journey to a Room (Pantheon, 2012)

Full disclosure: this book was provided to me free of charge by Amazon Vine.

Ask eight random Andrei Tarkovsky-loving media critics (and really, are there any other kind?) what their favorite Tarkovsky movie is and you're liable to get eight different answers, one for each feature Tarkovsky made. (Though you'll probably have to find at least one over fifty these days in order to have found one who's seen The Steamroll...more Geoff Dyer, Zona: A Book About a Film About a Journey to a Room (Pantheon, 2012)

Full disclosure: this book was provided to me free of charge by Amazon Vine.

Ask eight random Andrei Tarkovsky-loving media critics (and really, are there any other kind?) what their favorite Tarkovsky movie is and you're liable to get eight different answers, one for each feature Tarkovsky made. (Though you'll probably have to find at least one over fifty these days in order to have found one who's seen The Steamroller and the Violin.) In my case, there's no comparison: while I like all of Tarkovsky's films I've seen, which is everything from Andrei Rublev through Nostalghia, since I first saw it in the early nineties my favorite has been Stalker. It's one of the thirty or so movies that rotates in my head when I think about the desert island question (“if you were to be stranded on a desert island that somehow had a working DVD player, and you only had one DVD...”). I lost count some time early in the last decade of how many times I've seen it. It's one of those movies that manages to both get under your skin and manage to show you something new, some detail you missed every other time you've seen it, with every new viewing. It is, in the parlance, crazy good. And so when I heard about Zona, Geoff Dyer's summary of the film/survey of the world of media in general through Stalker-colored glasses, how could I not pick it up with all haste and dive right into it? And is there any possibility for surprise that it satisfies on every level?

Well, yes, in answer to that last question, because, while I am somewhat embarrassed to admit this, Zona is my first brush with Dyer. Based on it, he's a bit smarter than the average bear, well-read beyond any reasonable measure, and has a knack for coming up with just the right anecdote to make an otherwise [x] passage become [x+1]. (Substitute your favorite terms for “above average” and “superlative” for the two unknowns.) As such, I will submit, and forcefully, that while this may seem to be a rather vertical-market little piece of film criticism that will only appeal to fans of the film that is the book's putative subject, this is not at all the case. Dyer has created a little jewel here that should appeal to film buffs of all stripes, and one that you should read immediately, if not sooner.

Given all that, you may ask, why am I not giving this book five stars and clamoring for Amazon to add a sixth so that I can award it? My reasons are as personal as Dyer's reflections. This is not normally how we do things here at Goat Central, but sometimes the rules need bent, and this book is one of those times. Dyer's thoughts not only on Stalker but on film, literature, and culture are so personal that it's impossible to have a completely objective reaction to them. This is, I assume, by design. You can't mention within five pages of the beginning of your book that you loathe L'Avventura, one of the sacred cows of European filmmaking in the sixties, and not invite some gleefully scandalous shock among filmgoing literati. I may have even tittered aloud a bit (I have never made any secret of my hatred for the only Antonioni film I've ever seen, Blow-Up). But as you as you see Dyer going round making shish kebab out of sacred cows, you should realize there are probably going to be a handful of other asides where your views and his are going to clash, and if you are at all passionate about these things, they're the kinds of clashes that would turn into heated discussions, hors d'oeuvre-throwing and all, if you were at an art opening. (Was “witless” the word he used to describe the Coen brothers? I think it was “witless”. While I'm not one to defend everything the boys have ever done by any means, I thought that was a tad harsh. And he's one of those people who just didn't quite get von Trier's Antichrist, obviously....) None of this means the book isn't guaranteed a place on my 25 Best Reads of the Year list when we make it to December. I can't imagine reading enough books better than this to unseat it. This is good stuff indeed, and if you are not yet a Tarkovsky fan (I believe there are two kinds of people in the world: Tarkovsky fans and people who haven't yet learned to watch movies in such a way as to become Tarkovsky fans), Zona may convince you to give the movie a go anyway. Very highly recommended. **** ½
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Feb 11, 2012 Cynthia rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: books-read-in-2012

Over the Rainbow

The premise of “Zona” is that there exists a Zone which houses a mystical room; a room where your deepest desire will manifest. That’s the pared down version of Dyer’s short book but “Zona” is the antithesis of pared. It’s lush with references to movies and books. It also has philosophic and art and music highlights though not as numerous. No one has a real name. They have titles that refer to their functions. Stalker, Writer and Professor are the main protagonists. Ostensibly th...more Over the Rainbow

The premise of “Zona” is that there exists a Zone which houses a mystical room; a room where your deepest desire will manifest. That’s the pared down version of Dyer’s short book but “Zona” is the antithesis of pared. It’s lush with references to movies and books. It also has philosophic and art and music highlights though not as numerous. No one has a real name. They have titles that refer to their functions. Stalker, Writer and Professor are the main protagonists. Ostensibly the book is an analysis of Tarkovsky’s movie “Stalker” made in 1979. Many people feel it’s the best movie ever. I haven’t seen it so I can’t say. My feeling is that Dyer only used the movie to hang his vast knowledge of the arts and his thoughts on life and the human condition in general. The movie is also a symbol, an understudy for whatever work of art has been a high point for individuals. That book or movie, often read or seen early in life, that slaps us awake. He talks of watching “stalker” over and over, obsessing on the bits and pieces in the background and foreground pondering their importance and finally deciding they mean nothing yet he can’t help continuing to seek some meaning. Similarly all his cultural references could be seen as red herrings. That’s not to say that the works don’t have value. They do. In the end, however, each person has to decide for themselves what they value, who they choose to be and more importantly whether they let themselves have their heart’s desire. Dyer’s humor kept splashing out when I least expected it. I found myself chuckling quite often.

He details how the movie switches from black and white and back, the same technique used in “The Wizard of Oz”; to me, this reflects how our lives alternately go from high points to boredom and sometimes to woe. Dyer uses the cultural high points he’s digested to mirror the emotional impact of life events. His best bits and some of the funniest were when his reflections on writing and writers. He has the ability and humility to laugh at himself. He’s at his best in those passages. “Zona” takes a lot of concentration to read but it’s well worth it.
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Jan 20, 2012 Kasa Cotugno rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: location-europe-britain-scotland, vine, genre-biography-memoir, location-asia-russia, subject-show-biz

It is hard to quantify this book as it doesn't fall into any established category. It is a dissection of a favorite film that digresses into personal detail so that the reader finds himself learning more about Geoff Dyer than about Tarkovsky or The Stalker. It wasn't love at first sighting, but Dyer found the film remained in his head, causing him to seek it out whenever it was showing and looking it up when visiting New York or London in this hopes it was on a screen somewhere. A purist, Dyer i...more

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Feb 15, 2013 Jorge rated it 5 of 5 stars

As a fan of Tarkovsky’s ‘Stalker’ (‘La Zona’ in its Spanish release) I was attracted to a whole book devoted to what I consider between the most extraordinary films ever made.

‘Stalker’ is the sort of film that Stephen King, Salvador Dali, and Shakespeare would have made together—one that still haunts me after thirty years. Dyer points this out very well by saying “the first time I saw ‘Stalker’ I was slightly bored and unmoved. I wasn’t overwhelmed… but it was an experience I couldn’t shake off....more As a fan of Tarkovsky’s ‘Stalker’ (‘La Zona’ in its Spanish release) I was attracted to a whole book devoted to what I consider between the most extraordinary films ever made.

‘Stalker’ is the sort of film that Stephen King, Salvador Dali, and Shakespeare would have made together—one that still haunts me after thirty years. Dyer points this out very well by saying “the first time I saw ‘Stalker’ I was slightly bored and unmoved. I wasn’t overwhelmed… but it was an experience I couldn’t shake off. Something about it stayed with me.” That’s the kind of odd disappointment and later obsession this movie prompts —after all, Dyer ended up watching this film a zillion more times.

The book, one of the most talked-about book releases of last year, doesn’t disappoint and is an absorbing read. Dyer is a master of the coherent digression and seems to be always moving in two directions at once (in the text proper and in footnotes that run for pages on end) as he keeps analyzing the film scene-by-scene (a smokescreen for a wide ranging discussion about filmography, art appreciation in general, and the history of how the film was made… with some spoilers that might ruin the magic of his incoherent mysteries.) He also delves into the source of our (and his) deepest—and at times, ridiculous—wishes.

Even after all these years, after Lars von Trier and others who try too hard to be mysterious, the magic of a truly difficult film like ‘Stalker’ can affect us in unpredictable ways. It has obviously obsessed Dyer into writing his ‘tour of force’ book. We now have more computers to substitute for imagination, but there’s something so deeply human on art nothing will replace it.

This movie—and this rambling book about the movie and its seemingly pointless journey to a supernatural room—are that kind of intellectual objects.

Even after watching thousands of movies in the decades after seeing ‘Stalker’, it remains in my eternal top-10 list. Thank God someone had the grit to write such worthy book tribute to the film.
(less)

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Jun 26, 2012 Nicholas rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: cinema, memoir, criticism

Geoff Dyer asserts that the age at which a young man begins to truly discover literature and film is between the late teens and early twenties. In Zona, his excursion through his personal tastes and education as constellated around Tarkovsky's Stalker, he describes a journey and life that is rich, rewarding, and completely foreign to me.

My late teens and early-to-mid twenties were a confused, mess of broke, uncultured desperation. In many ways, that is how my life still is even though I am almos...more

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Mar 18, 2013 John rated it 3 of 5 stars

I read pretty much every thing Geoff Dyer writes, and a book about a film I've never seen wasn't going to stop me. Not only that, the film is by the late Russian Director, Tarkovsky, whose works are legendary as a cure for insomnia. From the moment I saw (in the old Gate cinema in London in 1979) the way the opening credits of his masterwork, Andrei Rubelev, appeared, each letter calved in gravestone, serif letters on grey granite , each change accompanied by a single drum boom, I knew I was in...more I read pretty much every thing Geoff Dyer writes, and a book about a film I've never seen wasn't going to stop me. Not only that, the film is by the late Russian Director, Tarkovsky, whose works are legendary as a cure for insomnia. From the moment I saw (in the old Gate cinema in London in 1979) the way the opening credits of his masterwork, Andrei Rubelev, appeared, each letter calved in gravestone, serif letters on grey granite , each change accompanied by a single drum boom, I knew I was in for chloriform aplenty.

"Stalker" is the the chosen film for Geoff, or "The Zone" as it was titled originally. Even he admits it's a hard watch. Many have come to it's cinematic foothills, few summit. Those that do can claim a special toughness for the thin air of high art. But fear not. Where Stalker plods heavily, Geoff treads lightly. As always, here he's great read, not only for his intellectual insights but also for the footnoted, very personal, very funny asides he tempers them with.

For example: there's a long funny digression on how his wife looks exactly like the actress playing George Clooney's wife in the Soderburg adaption of Lem's Solaris (not a remake of Tarkovsky's version). Also, a rather charming passage conveying his hope and insecurities about the likely success of this actual book. One part I partucularly liked was apassage expalining how the films you saw at a certain (youngish) stage in your life, can never be surpassed by anything new, no matter how receptive you try to be. He saw Stalker at such a moment, and the impression it made has never left him, even on repeated viewings.

Geoff and I are the same age, and have something of the same tastes. I think. I just wish he hadn't resisted tempatation (he mentions he had) and done a book on "Where Eagles Dare", one of his (and my) favourites of childhood. He does mention how that film is singularly amazing in the amount of bullets fired harmlessly, particularly at Clint Eastwood, who jogs here an there through barrages of ordnance as if they were snowflakes.(less)

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Apr 22, 2012 Bill Fenton rated it 3 of 5 stars

Every adult understands that a book has the potential to outshine a film on the same subject matter. For emotional and intellectual stimulation, my experience is that a book is almost invariably far superior to a film. What then about about a book about a film; written scene by scene? Such a book is "Zona", a slim tome (more on that later) about the great Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky's "Stalker", itself a film adaption of a book (undermentioned in Zona) "Roadside Picnic" by Arkady and Boris...more Every adult understands that a book has the potential to outshine a film on the same subject matter. For emotional and intellectual stimulation, my experience is that a book is almost invariably far superior to a film. What then about about a book about a film; written scene by scene? Such a book is "Zona", a slim tome (more on that later) about the great Russian director Andrei Tarkovsky's "Stalker", itself a film adaption of a book (undermentioned in Zona) "Roadside Picnic" by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky.

Stalker is in my top five films of all time, pipped only slightly for the top position by Tarkovsky's "Andrei Rublev" and stands acknowledged, virtually universally, as an exceptionally fine film. In Zona the author Geoff Dyer expresses an affection for Stalker that verges on (likeable) monomania. Using the convenient construct of taking us in detail through each scene in screen order, Dyer unfolds his love in a strangely non-linear manner. Strange, given that the book so slavishly follows the film. His admiring gushes early on for example clearly shade that which follow, making the film to seem somehow anticlimatically lesser as it unfolds. Strangely interruptive of this scene-by-scene explanation then are hugely distracting footnotes that on occasion extend to three pages in length. ("That's not a footnote, son, this, is a footnote!") His voice, otherwise attractively comradely in style, is at odds with footnote convention. With Dyer's collegiate and relaxed writing surely it would have been a simple matter to incorporate the comments contained in these footnotes into asides in the main text, separated only by paragraphs? Footnotes ideally are for attribution or expansion of individual discursive facts or points, and given the chatty tone of this book, amount here to an affectation.

Dyer's casual approach to the 'big question(s)' raised in Stalker leads him to some undergraduate moments. His regret, the regrets that he believes a "Room" of his own may conjure with, is that he has never had a sexual threesome. Further he details that such a threesome aught to have been he and two women and he laments two such opportunities he missed. I am all for irreverence, but the banality of this regret more than smacks of irrelevance.

Also irritating to a point of intruding into the reading process is the typographical conceit of ultra large leading. The gutters of white space between lines of type may pad out this slim book into something less substantial in the hand, but they constantly intrude into the comprehension processes. Deceitful production that helps drive readers to electronic books? Or away from reading altogether? Contrast this with the brilliant production values of the "Library of America" books, fighting to preserve printed literature in an electronic world.

So, is the book better than the film, or even equal to the film? No. Stalker, like the destination 'room' itself, has meanings and ideas that seem almost boundless, depending upon one's mental state at the time of viewing. Quantum movie-making; film altered by your personal observation. Zona attempts to pin down a singular explanation, for narrative purposes, if for no other, better, reason. Ultimately this creates interesting, but hardly essential reading. Rather one is left with a mildly favorable impression of the writerly cleverness of a fellow Tarkovsky admirer. And what a cracking film Stalker is.(less)

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Jun 28, 2012 Mark Johnson rated it 1 of 5 stars

Stalker is astounding to me, as are most of Tarkovsky's films. But reading this book is nearly the opposite experience of watching the film.

Stalker is a suspenseful, hypnotic experience. Tarkovsky sustains a rich feeling of beauty and simple profundity, inspiring confidence in the viewer that he will not let you fall or waste your time by negating the trust built up between you.

The suspense of this book, on the other hand, lies in dreading the next inane observation or mundane association from...more

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Mar 21, 2013 Bryan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Who cares what anyone else thinks about Stalker, one the most subjective and solipsistic examples of narrative cinema ever put to film? Well, I needed to think about Stalker for a project so I read this book and I wanted to read Geoff Dyer for a long time.

stalker

What happens in the Zone stays in the Zone. I’m getting ahead of myself. Stalker is kind of like Van Morrison’s voice and that horrible Greil Marcus book about Van Morrison was still leaving a bad taste in my mouth. Zona was very reada...more

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Mar 24, 2013 hirtho rated it 1 of 5 stars Recommends it for: No one

I had to give up on the footnotes cuz of the author(whose first book this is for me)'s smug self-satisfied sense of humor making his dumb jokes all that much worse (there are funnier rightwing radio personalities who have the same delivery; he should be ashamed). All that remains is his nonsensical plot regurgitation (itself fraught with more Rush/Beck-ish self-gratifying yukyuks) which any real fan of the movie(/director) shouldn't need, especially when the shallow interpretations and reaching...more

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Mar 19, 2012 Mary rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: contemporary-20th-cent

I caved in and read it mostly because I finally got around to watching Stalker, which, inspiring immediate and total adulation, left me bereft, as Tarkovsky neophyte, that it was so soon over (when have 2 and half hours felt so short?), and like any mourner needed to immediately replay it over in my mind's eye, or chew the cud of it as it were. So I picked this up. Dyer's ok as a film companion, sometimes managing to be genuinely witty and enlightening about the film and other tidbits, but his c...more

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May 31, 2012 Stas rated it 1 of 5 stars

Once upon a time Geoff Dyer had some humility. In Out of Sheer Rage the autobiographical bits were very amusing and even touching at times, but the book was, in the end, about D. H. Lawrence, and only secondarily about Dyer. Or at least, it was about a true search for D. H. Lawrence.
It seems that since he'd tasted real success, Dyer fell in love with himself a little, and now, without shame, is just looking for his own shadow in everything he writes about. Alas, Dyer is clever but not at all pr...more

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Jun 03, 2012 Chris Schaeffer rated it 4 of 5 stars

While reading Susan Howe's 'My Emily Dickinson,' I found myself thinking, 'this is secretly the best book about Stalker ever written.' Well, it turned out that Geoff Dyer, whose 'But Beautiful' I admired in college, had just written a book that was actually about 'Stalker.' It isn't as good as 'My Emily Dickinson,' but it has a lot of his digressive charm-- maybe a bit too much, as the ratio of analysis and anecdote sometimes tilts towards summarization on the one pole and self-indulgence on the...more

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May 23, 2012 James Tierney rated it 4 of 5 stars

The journey or the destination? Well, both.

Geoff Dyer here works usefully against Milan Kundera's contention that a route 'has no meaning in itself; its meaning derives entirely from the two points that it connects.'

Dyer's route between his initial viewings of Andrei Tarkovsky's film Stalker in his 20's and the temporal one described to us in the pages of Zona is footnoted with diversions which are -by turns- delightful, insightful & boneheaded.

The overwhelming reverberation here is the con...more

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Feb 16, 2013 Natania rated it 5 of 5 stars

I'm always a tiny bit ambivalent about Geoff Dyer: he is so arrogant, so male, so white! Then again, the latter two are accidents of birth, and the former is, in its way, enviable (as are the latter two). Why shouldn't a critic be opinionated, know exactly what he likes and doesn't? He also makes himself vulnerable to condemnation time and again in his writing--condemnation by prudes or simplistic egalitarians. This is a fun, rambling, clever, smart, deep, and in its way very humble book about a...more

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Mar 04, 2012 Roy Kenagy marked it as to-read

Review by Dana Stevens in Slate http://slate.me/AgqUVX:

"Dyer guides readers through the Zone that Tarkovsky’s movie itself is: a whacked-out spatial and experiential terrain where ominous moss-hung tunnels suddenly give way to airplane-hangar-sized halls full of dust, and where the laws of physics and simple logic seem no longer to apply. Dyer may not always be able to tell us what the hell is going on—he confesses that with each successive viewing, he loses more of his youthful drive to underst...more

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About Geoff Dyer

Geoff Dyer was born in Cheltenham, England, in 1958. He was educated at the local grammar school and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. For more information visit Geoff Dyer's official website: www.geoffdyer.com

He is the author of four novels: Paris Trance, The Search, The Colour of Memory, and, most recently, Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi; a critical study of John Berger, Ways of Telling; two c...more

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Books by Geoff Dyer

Yoga for People Who Can't Be Bothered to Do It

Out of Sheer Rage: Wrestling With D.H. Lawrence

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“If the regular length of a shot is increased, one becomes bored, but if you keep on making it longer, a new quality emerges, a special intensity of attention.' At first there can be a friction between our expectations of time and Tarkovsky-time and this friction is increasing in the twenty-first century as we move further and further away from Tarkovsky-time towards moron-time in which nothing can last—and no one can concentrate on anything—for longer than about two seconds.” — 4 people liked it

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