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May 02, 2011

Sunil rated it:

Technically, this is my first Dyer and I liked it. That, in itself, would make it unlikable for an average reader.

The book is really two separate novellas: the first is the story of Jeff Atman, an aimless middle rung journalist in London who is assigned to cover the Venice Binneale to a ‘scoop’ interview around a story of prized nude photograph of a singer?

The action moves to very ‘otter’ than ever before Venice. Jeff, portrayed as somewhat of an outsider at the i More...

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Jun 13, 2009

Sazuru rated it:

Oh, another guy book, but so freewheeling and acutely observed that there was no putting it down. Crucial in the Varanasi section was a paragraph admitting that the character lived in a special traveler/tourist/hippie space and had no real access to the intellectual and artistic life of the Indian city. So glad to see someone else citing Mary McCarthy's Venice Observed, and to read the conscious and loving echoes of Thomas Mann, Somerset Maugham, Vedas.

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Feb 06, 2012

Ben rated it:

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Jun 05, 2011

Sophia rated it:

Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi is like a novel with a cleaved spine. Trying to match the two halves takes some reader effort. The first half is a third-person account which follows Jeff Atman, an anxious, unhappy freelance journalist, as he goes to Venice to cover the Biennale art show. However, as for most of the attendees, it's an excuse to party, swill some Bellinis, and see and be seen. Jeff's trip is significantly enhanced by meeting Laura, an American woman, with whom he as a Bienale-lo

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Mar 29, 2011

Claire rated it:

Geoff Dyer is one of my favorite authors, but his work is difficult to characterize. I've read nearly all of his books (own several) except the one that's a study of John Berger's essays and a new one I only recently discovered. There are the quasi travel memoirs, a more critical look at photography, a musing on jazz, as well as some fiction.

Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi is a novel in two parts, just like the title. Having read many stories of the author's own adventures abroad, I More...

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May 27, 2010

pinknantucket rated it:

I didn't enjoy it as much as Dyer's Lawrence book ('Out of Sheer Rage', which I snickered my way through) but still a good read. Dyer doesn't write 'plot' novels (based on the two I've read and also what he said in person himself when I went to see him talk recently so there). You kind of follow him along, seeing what he sees, thinking what he thinks. This books is in two parts - the first set in Venice, the second in Varanasi, India. Surprise! They are narrated by different characters, both are More...

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Mar 04, 2010

Tim rated it:

At first, Dyer’s prose didn't stick to my ribs, it stuck in my throat.
In the end, I find Dyer's style a bit too pleased with its own cuteness (are middle-aged men called twee?). If Martin Amis, or even Hornby, wrote himself into a travel diary (in the vein of 'Under the Tuscan Sun'), this is what it would be.

“Jeff” is a writer who hates writing, a Londoner who hates London, an art aficionado professionally bored with the art world. You would think it’s right up my alley More...

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Sep 07, 2009

Angie rated it:

Geoff Dyer has such an interesting way of seeing the world and expressing it in a clever way. It really is like 2 books. The only thing connecting the two is the main character, Jeff.
Some of my favorite lines include:
"Dying is an art like everything else. We do it exceptionally well. We do it so it looks real." and that is how the author covers his grey-like Sylvia Plath
Also after much waiting for so many things, "At what point would the longing for things to More...

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Aug 13, 2009

Brenna rated it:

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Jul 03, 2009

Rebecca rated it:

I was disappointed by this book. All the reviews I've read have been glowing. I was immediately put off by the imprecision of the language. A small criticism: one of the main characters is an American woman, but she uses subtle Britishisms, like ending sentences with "isn't it?" and saying "straight away" instead of "right away." Maybe it's petty to complain about, but I feel like the author has an obligation to at least have an American friend read it and catch More...

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Jun 12, 2009

Alex rated it:

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4 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 01, 2010

Mark rated it:

This came,as so many books do come, from a recommendation but whereas there is sometimes a need to politely skirt around the issue of how you enjoyed it or not because you don't wish to offend the 'recommender' I can say that I did enjoy this book. Its not the type I would normally have picked up to read but then that is the value of this website after all. Its a book in two parts in which firstly a cynical and lazy art journalist in Venice for the Biennale art festival who ironically appears to More...

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Jun 01, 2009

Bookmarks Magazine rated it:

A play on Thomas Mann's novella Death in Venice (1912), about a middle-aged male writer who seeks spiritual enlightenment in Venice but instead finds carnal doom in a young boy, Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi is many things at once: a detailed, entertaining, travelogue; a philosophical treatise on mortality, materialism, and spirituality; and an inquiry into the nature of self. Dyer's "deceptively straightforward tale" (Oregonian)óinfluenced by Nietzsche, Roland Barthes, John Berger

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Feb 02, 2010

Andie rated it:

I enjoyed this book, though found it uneven in a way that didn't quite work for me. It's a novel in two parts: the first half features freelance journalist Jeff Atman heading to the 2003 Venice Biennale. The omniscient narrator follows his experiences, conquests, and bellini fueled coke binges over the frantic four day festival. Oh yeah, and he sees some art. The second half, we presume, follows the same character, though this time he's telling his story in first person. He has traveled to More...

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Jul 26, 2009

Megan rated it:

I did not understand this book. And based on some preemptively defensive reviews of others, I would not get this book if I had not read Mann's Death in Venice, Mary McCarthy's book on Venice, or all of Vedic scripture. Well, I haven't read any of those, and I did not get this book. I read the whole thing, but I think I was just waiting for something to happen.

The structure was very strange: the first half of the book follows the protagonist, a British journalist, to Venice, where More...

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Apr 25, 2011

Joyce rated it:

You know how a lot of book reviewers equivocate and say respectful things in a not particularly enthusiastic way, as if they think they should like a worthy book, but don't really? Well, it wasn't like that with Jeff in Venice. They gushed, they exclaimed, they fulminated.

And I found the book captivating all the way through to the end. Jeff has a fairly decadent life (single, aimless, likes women and drugs) as an art critic. Covering the Venice Beinnale, he meets a beautiful fema More...

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May 30, 2010

Alana rated it:

To be perfectly honest, I'm still not sure what to make of Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi, but I know that I liked it. It seems to be a novel that illuminates how opposites not only are able to coexist but absolutely must exist to define the other. This book feels like a journey, for more reasons than the exotic locations, and what's more, it's a journey where it's perfectly fine to lose one's way a bit, to not always completely follow where it goes, or to suddenly be perfectly in tune with t More...

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Feb 19, 2010

Jay rated it:

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Apr 10, 2009

John rated it:

this book is a marvel. it goes down like the finest of wines, and leaves you giddy, giggly, and drunk on words, travel, place, self, desire, meaning, and meaninglessness. it leaves you full of questions that only lead to more questions. if you get frustrated by the lack of answers, plot, or clear themes, prepare to be frustrated. on the other hand, if you want to treat yourself to a sublime literary treat, i recommend this book most highly. it is astoundingly well written, accessibly so. i also More...

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Aug 05, 2011

Colin N. rated it:

A wonderful, witty, and interesting book. "Jeff in Venice" tells two stories. In the first Jeff Atman is a London art and society writer sent on assignment yo Venice for the Biennale. His life is rather empty, he hates his writing, and he lives for the alcohol and drug-filled parties he writes about. That is until he meets a woman in Venice who may offer the possibility for redemption, or perhaps some meaning to his life. This half of the book is riveting as you ponder Jeff's fa More...

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Dec 02, 2011

Nicole rated it:

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 mysteriou More...

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Jan 24, 2011

Kirby rated it:

This novel has some really creative and provocative themes, my favorite of which was that people, places, and things can be very different on the surface, while essentially they are surprisingly similar. The book presents two contrasting types of modern travel literature: the first half focuses on the hip art-party scene in Venice, and the second half takes place in the impoverished ghats of Varansi in India. The narrators are both early 40's British journalists (perhaps the same person), but More...

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Dec 29, 2010

Joanne rated it:

Good, fast read that honors ones' intelligence. Geoff Dyer's Venice and Varanasi and their respective sights, smells, sounds and emotional impact are created through solid, descriptive writing. Great intro to the art world surrounding The Biennale in Venice and I trust a great intro to the conflicting chaos and peacefulness of Varanasi. Dyer pays homage to Thomas Mann and John Fowles. He tips his hat a little too courteously to Fowles and in so doing, gives the reader a foreshadowing of the s More...

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Jul 26, 2011

Ian added it

A novel in two parts, with two sections which mirror eachother. The first half is set during the opening of the biennale in Venice, and features a jaded and cynical journalist on a short assignment who has a passionate affair against a background of copious amounts of drugs and alcohol. The second story is set in Varanasi, and features (probably) the same jaded and cynical journalist on another short assignment which takes a very different course. The two halves of the novel mirror eachother More...

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Jun 17, 2009

Eoghan rated it:

Half a star deducted for the crap pun in the title, and another for claiming this is a novel, when it is in fact two novellas. It's hard to know exactly why Dyer chose to return to fiction for these - certainly he could as easily have written Death In Varanasi as one of his travel pieces in Yoga for People Who Can't Be Bothered to Do It and there is a two-page afterword giving some detail on the actual trips that provided the basis for these stories. Otherwise it's standard Dyer territory - po More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Jan 08, 2010

Dylanyaeger rated it:

I like the idea Dyer borrows from Dostoevsky that man is defined as a creature "who gets used to things", and the idea(not borrowed from Dostoevsky)that the only thing contemporary man loves more than eating pussy is licking ass(a metaphor?). I like thinking about man's malleability but I'm also a little scared of it, a fear Jeff in Venice tries to lighten. We have two roads to choose from: While Venice Jeff is completely genuine and even likable, he is actually much more wacked than More...

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Jan 03, 2010

Leon rated it:

After all the hype about this book, what with its winning some awards in Britain, and being touted as a very funny novel, I must say it rather disappoints me – but just a little.

If I compare this funny novel to, say, the one I’m reading right now, Marina Lewycka’s We Are All Made of Glue, I can’t say I was laughing as loudly.

The book is divided into two sections, and they can be so disparate that you can take them as two novellas. The first has the main character Jeff More...

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May 06, 2010

Sunil rated it:

Exquisite meditation on what it means to be alive (or dead) that is hilarious, contemporary and thought-provoking all at once. The first half is a piss-take of the contemporary art scene (fans of Kiki Smith, Tracy Emin, Damien Hirst et al, will find it particularly amusing), enlivened with some kinky sex. The second half is a much more serious (and to me, much better) contemplation on the contrast between east and west, belonging and meaning, and yes, life and death a la Thomas Mann's "Dea More...

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Jul 08, 2009

Nathan rated it:

Three quarters of the way through this book I stopped to ask myself the question writers work hard to keep far from their readers' minds: why am I reading this book? Unlike most conventional novels, which aim merely to get the reader through to the end (a difficult task), Dyer's book provokes, even encourages this question. The "novel" is in fact two short novels that may, or may not, involve the same not-quite young freelance journalist, first during a trip to Venice, and second the More...

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Feb 27, 2011

Marc rated it:

What a strange book. The first half feels like David Lodge or Kingsley Amis--dry British wit, sharp social satire, and no patience for pretensions--and the second is like no other book I can think of. On the level of plot and character, Dyer does not even make clear whether the two halves are connected (although he hints that they are), but certain broader themes carry over, and his voice is always engaging. There's a tremendous emotional range here, but it's never overstated; even when the book More...

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