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Paris Trance
Luke moves to Paris and, with his new love and the other expatriate couple from whom they become inseparable, wander around the Eleventh Arrondissement where clubs, cafés, banter, and ecstasy now occupy Gertrude Stein's city "which is not real but is really there."
In Paris Trance, Geoff Dyer fixes a dream of happiness--and its aftermath--with photographic precision. Boldly erotic and hauntingly elegiac, comic and romantic, this brilliant reconception of the classic expatriate novels of the Lost Generation confirms Dyer as one of our most original and talented writers.
In Paris Trance, Geoff Dyer fixes a dream of happiness--and its aftermath--with photographic precision. Boldly erotic and hauntingly elegiac, comic and romantic, this brilliant reconception of the classic expatriate novels of the Lost Generation confirms Dyer as one of our most original and talented writers.
272 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
31 people are currently reading
1393 people want to read
About the author
Geoff Dyer
139 books924 followersGeoff Dyer was born in Cheltenham, England, in 1958. He was educated at the local Grammar School and Corpus Christi College, Oxford. 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; five genre-defying titles: But Beautiful (winner of a 1992 Somerset Maugham Prize, short-listed for the Mail on Sunday/John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize), The Missing of the Somme, Out of Sheer Rage (a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award), Yoga For People Who Can’t Be Bothered To Do It (winner of the 2004 W. H. Smith Best Travel Book Award), and The Ongoing Moment (winner of the ICP Infinity Award for Writing on Photography), and Zona (about Andrei Tarkovsky’s film Stalker). His collection of essays, Otherwise Known as the Human Condition, won a National Book Critics Circle Award in 2012. He is also the editor of John Berger: Selected Essays and co-editor, with Margaret Sartor, of What Was True: The Photographs and Notebooks of William Gedney. A new book, Another Great Day at Sea, about life aboard the USS George H W Bush has just been published by Pantheon.
In 2003 he was a recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship; in 2005 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature; in 2006 he received the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; in 2009 he was the recipient of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Best Comic Novel and the GQ Writer of the Year Award (for Jeff in Venice Death in Varanasi). His books have been translated into twenty-four languages. His website is geoffdyer.com
In 2003 he was a recipient of a Lannan Literary Fellowship; in 2005 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature; in 2006 he received the E. M. Forster Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; in 2009 he was the recipient of the Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize for Best Comic Novel and the GQ Writer of the Year Award (for Jeff in Venice Death in Varanasi). His books have been translated into twenty-four languages. His website is geoffdyer.com
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 131 reviews
September 4, 2022
5 "robust, joyous, romantic" stars !!
5th Favorite Read of 2018
This is a novel that made my heart hurt. Hurled me into my twenties where carefree days were the norm and jaded attitudes toward the world and others were still not met on my life journey.
Mr. Dyer has created a work of both of the simplicity of an amorous romance and the complexity of how both romantic relationships and platonic friendships begin, develop and perhaps dissipate. Two Englishmen meet as casual laborers at a Paris depot and form a fast and close bromance where they play soccer, talk movies and drink lots of beers to pick up girls. Before each other, they are desperately lonely for both male bonding and female companionship. They are competitive yet so very kind and loving towards each other. They are Luke and Alex and over time they meet Nicole and Sahra and the twosome become a foursome and inseparable in friendship, love and frolic.
You enter their lives and wish that you could join them, wish they could be your friend, perhaps one or more will appeal to you as a lover. Through their vivid conversations, intimate encounters, loud drug addled partying, weekend jaunts and at times bitter arguments you enter not just their stories but deeper into their heart, their bone, their marrow. More importantly if you are older, they take you back in time to your own youth, your own frolics, your own previous kisses, your own past adventures. Perhaps not in Paris but in a small town in Kentucky or a large Asian metropolis.
There are parts of this that are so immensely sad that you might (like me) actually stifle a bawl in a public coffee shop and yet this makes the joy and laughter in this book sacred and transcendent.
I adored this romance and have Mr. Steven G to thank for his introduction to this mesmerizing and life infused novel.
5th Favorite Read of 2018
This is a novel that made my heart hurt. Hurled me into my twenties where carefree days were the norm and jaded attitudes toward the world and others were still not met on my life journey.
Mr. Dyer has created a work of both of the simplicity of an amorous romance and the complexity of how both romantic relationships and platonic friendships begin, develop and perhaps dissipate. Two Englishmen meet as casual laborers at a Paris depot and form a fast and close bromance where they play soccer, talk movies and drink lots of beers to pick up girls. Before each other, they are desperately lonely for both male bonding and female companionship. They are competitive yet so very kind and loving towards each other. They are Luke and Alex and over time they meet Nicole and Sahra and the twosome become a foursome and inseparable in friendship, love and frolic.
You enter their lives and wish that you could join them, wish they could be your friend, perhaps one or more will appeal to you as a lover. Through their vivid conversations, intimate encounters, loud drug addled partying, weekend jaunts and at times bitter arguments you enter not just their stories but deeper into their heart, their bone, their marrow. More importantly if you are older, they take you back in time to your own youth, your own frolics, your own previous kisses, your own past adventures. Perhaps not in Paris but in a small town in Kentucky or a large Asian metropolis.
There are parts of this that are so immensely sad that you might (like me) actually stifle a bawl in a public coffee shop and yet this makes the joy and laughter in this book sacred and transcendent.
I adored this romance and have Mr. Steven G to thank for his introduction to this mesmerizing and life infused novel.
May 26, 2018
"People talk about love at first sight, about the way that men and women fall for each other immediately, but there is also such a thing as friendship at first sight."
Luke is an Englishman in his mid-20s who decides to move to Paris in order to write a book. But when he arrives, he quickly realizes the city, and his life there, aren't what he imagined.
He's renting a decrepit apartment in the wrong neighborhood, he barely speaks or understands French, and he can't seem to meet anyone, especially a woman, no matter how hard he tries. He's considering moving back to England but knows that would be admitting failure and taking a step backward.
Then he meets Alex when he begins work at the same warehouse. Alex is a fellow English expatriate, and the two quickly find the rhythm of an intense friendship. With Alex in his life, things begin picking up for Luke—he finds a better apartment, and he begins playing soccer with his other colleagues. These victories bring his bravado back, and it's not long before he meets Nicole, a beautiful Serbian woman, with whom he falls completely in love.
"Even when we recall with photographic exactness the way in which someone first presented themselves to us, that likeness is touched by every trace of emotion we have felt up to—and including—the moment when we are recalling the scene."
As Luke and Nicole's relationship intensifies, Alex meets Sahra, a brilliant interpreter, and the two couples become inseparable, sharing meals, drinks, countless films, activities, travel—even the occasional drugs. Nicole and Luke's relationship is the more passionate and mercurial one, buoyed by wild sex, periodic arguments, and Luke's unending desire for fulfillment. Alex and Sahra are more stable—while their relationship might not reach the same levels of passion, their love is a steady one, which seems key to its future.
Paris Trance follows the four through more than a year of their relationships, the ups and the downs, and how the differences between the two couples—and the two men—become more evident as time carries on. The book also gives a glimpse into the future, and what happens to each of the couples, how some can change with the curves that life throws at you while some cannot.
This story is a beautifully compelling look at friendship and love, how some can enjoy the present while preparing for the future while others can only focus on what is in front of them. The book conveys the flush of relationships, the bonds of friendship, the insecurity of love so well, and captures both the tumultuous moments and the quiet ones. The banter between Luke and Alex, and at times, the four of them, is really enjoyable.
I really enjoyed this book, although I definitely enjoyed Alex and Sahra's characters more than Luke and Nicole's. The story has a poignancy at times, while other times it moves with a frenzy. The one thing I didn't quite understand is the periodic shifts in narration between first and third person. There is also some graphic, borderline kinky sex in the book which some may find awkward or unnecessary.
While elements of the plot of Paris Trance may seem familiar, in Geoff Dyer's hands the book feels unique. The book may not be perfect, but I'll remember it for a long while as a book that touched my emotions.
See all of my reviews at itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blogspot.com, or check out my list of the best books I read in 2017 at https://itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-best-books-i-read-in-2017.html.
Luke is an Englishman in his mid-20s who decides to move to Paris in order to write a book. But when he arrives, he quickly realizes the city, and his life there, aren't what he imagined.
He's renting a decrepit apartment in the wrong neighborhood, he barely speaks or understands French, and he can't seem to meet anyone, especially a woman, no matter how hard he tries. He's considering moving back to England but knows that would be admitting failure and taking a step backward.
Then he meets Alex when he begins work at the same warehouse. Alex is a fellow English expatriate, and the two quickly find the rhythm of an intense friendship. With Alex in his life, things begin picking up for Luke—he finds a better apartment, and he begins playing soccer with his other colleagues. These victories bring his bravado back, and it's not long before he meets Nicole, a beautiful Serbian woman, with whom he falls completely in love.
"Even when we recall with photographic exactness the way in which someone first presented themselves to us, that likeness is touched by every trace of emotion we have felt up to—and including—the moment when we are recalling the scene."
As Luke and Nicole's relationship intensifies, Alex meets Sahra, a brilliant interpreter, and the two couples become inseparable, sharing meals, drinks, countless films, activities, travel—even the occasional drugs. Nicole and Luke's relationship is the more passionate and mercurial one, buoyed by wild sex, periodic arguments, and Luke's unending desire for fulfillment. Alex and Sahra are more stable—while their relationship might not reach the same levels of passion, their love is a steady one, which seems key to its future.
Paris Trance follows the four through more than a year of their relationships, the ups and the downs, and how the differences between the two couples—and the two men—become more evident as time carries on. The book also gives a glimpse into the future, and what happens to each of the couples, how some can change with the curves that life throws at you while some cannot.
This story is a beautifully compelling look at friendship and love, how some can enjoy the present while preparing for the future while others can only focus on what is in front of them. The book conveys the flush of relationships, the bonds of friendship, the insecurity of love so well, and captures both the tumultuous moments and the quiet ones. The banter between Luke and Alex, and at times, the four of them, is really enjoyable.
I really enjoyed this book, although I definitely enjoyed Alex and Sahra's characters more than Luke and Nicole's. The story has a poignancy at times, while other times it moves with a frenzy. The one thing I didn't quite understand is the periodic shifts in narration between first and third person. There is also some graphic, borderline kinky sex in the book which some may find awkward or unnecessary.
While elements of the plot of Paris Trance may seem familiar, in Geoff Dyer's hands the book feels unique. The book may not be perfect, but I'll remember it for a long while as a book that touched my emotions.
See all of my reviews at itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blogspot.com, or check out my list of the best books I read in 2017 at https://itseithersadnessoreuphoria.blogspot.com/2018/01/the-best-books-i-read-in-2017.html.
February 6, 2023
Meh. I was pretty keen to read this with the promise of Paris and the thrill of something “boldly erotic and hauntingly elegiac, comic and romantic” as promised in the blurb. I’ll agree with erotic, though I’m not sure that it’s very bold these days. But I didn’t shed a tear, laugh (except once) or sigh with pleasure while reading this. Maybe I’m cold-hearted. Or maybe not. It’s probably the writing. I like to blame the writing rather than point a finger at myself! Geoff Dyer and I just didn’t click, I guess. You see, the biggest problem is that I couldn’t help thinking about James Salter’s A Sport and a Pastime the entire time I was reading this one. There’s a vague familiarity with the point of view used in both novels. Salter’s story was written two decades prior to this and both use an omniscient narrator, who happens to be a friend of the main character. Both are set in France. I wouldn’t at all be surprised to learn that Dyer was a huge fan of Salter’s book.
“When Luke came to Paris with the intention of writing a book based on his experience of living – as he grandly and naively conceived it – ‘in exile’, he was twenty-six years old… As far as I know, he made absolutely no progress with this book, abandoning it… in the instant that he began leading the life intended to serve as its research, its first draft. So it’s fallen to me to tell his story, or at least the part of it with which I am familiar.”
This narrator is also somehow privy to the very intimate details of Luke’s sex life. That’s all well and good. It gives the reader an opportunity to peek from behind the curtains as well. But again, Salter’s book intrudes when I’m reading. And the comparisons haunt me still. In Paris Trance, we follow these twenty-something couples, Luke and Nicole, and Alex and Sahra. Their lives are booze and drug-infused and there are plenty of sexual hijinks. Nothing too shocking if you’ve been reading any contemporary books in the 2000s. What I needed in order for it to stand apart for me was a bit more flair in the prose. I needed to feel more interested in the characters. I needed to “feel” Paris. I needed to stop thinking about that damn Salter novel whose evocative writing brought France to life for me. Where the nostalgic vibe worked for me in this one was the opportunity to contemplate those friendships we once had - especially those younger ones we thought might last forever but rarely do. I appreciated when Dyer reflected on the fleeting nature of happiness.
“Nothing in the past has any value. You cannot store up happiness. The past is useless. You can dwell on it but not in it. What good does it do anyone, knowing that they once sat with friends in a car and called out the names of cinemas and films, that they ate lunch in a town whose name they have forgotten?”
There are a couple of times while reading when I thought something significant was going to happen. And then… well, I was wrong. Eventually friends drift apart, apparently for no solid reason, which I’m sure we can all relate to at some time or another. Some relationships end, others carry on. We don’t always know why. That’s just life. Still, this book was just okay. I didn’t run over to Dyer’s page and add all his books, which is fine. I do, however, want to pick up a James Salter novel again very soon!
“When Luke came to Paris with the intention of writing a book based on his experience of living – as he grandly and naively conceived it – ‘in exile’, he was twenty-six years old… As far as I know, he made absolutely no progress with this book, abandoning it… in the instant that he began leading the life intended to serve as its research, its first draft. So it’s fallen to me to tell his story, or at least the part of it with which I am familiar.”
This narrator is also somehow privy to the very intimate details of Luke’s sex life. That’s all well and good. It gives the reader an opportunity to peek from behind the curtains as well. But again, Salter’s book intrudes when I’m reading. And the comparisons haunt me still. In Paris Trance, we follow these twenty-something couples, Luke and Nicole, and Alex and Sahra. Their lives are booze and drug-infused and there are plenty of sexual hijinks. Nothing too shocking if you’ve been reading any contemporary books in the 2000s. What I needed in order for it to stand apart for me was a bit more flair in the prose. I needed to feel more interested in the characters. I needed to “feel” Paris. I needed to stop thinking about that damn Salter novel whose evocative writing brought France to life for me. Where the nostalgic vibe worked for me in this one was the opportunity to contemplate those friendships we once had - especially those younger ones we thought might last forever but rarely do. I appreciated when Dyer reflected on the fleeting nature of happiness.
“Nothing in the past has any value. You cannot store up happiness. The past is useless. You can dwell on it but not in it. What good does it do anyone, knowing that they once sat with friends in a car and called out the names of cinemas and films, that they ate lunch in a town whose name they have forgotten?”
There are a couple of times while reading when I thought something significant was going to happen. And then… well, I was wrong. Eventually friends drift apart, apparently for no solid reason, which I’m sure we can all relate to at some time or another. Some relationships end, others carry on. We don’t always know why. That’s just life. Still, this book was just okay. I didn’t run over to Dyer’s page and add all his books, which is fine. I do, however, want to pick up a James Salter novel again very soon!
December 30, 2020
Dyer's novel is set in a vibrant modern Paris which is dripping with erotism, British twenty something slacker Luke wastes his time daydreaming and generally just loafing about, who then meets Alex through a job and the two of them strike up a friendship that will lead them into the Parisian night scene where they met Nicole and Sahra. Between the four they become really close, and it doesn't take long for their hormones to go into overdrive with an excess of sex, drugs, clubbing, trendy cafes and bars. It's a life of decadence for a while, but Luke's nihilistic nature starts to become a problem and the feelings for each other slowly starts to change, spiraling on a downward course.
The Parisian setting was great, and I am sure the 20-30 age group will find most pleasure here. What I liked most is that its told with deep undertones of melancholy and a realist approach to the whole boy meets girl scenario. Very intimate and sexually graphic, it's a classic depiction of modern young love blossoming, but with an end of summer feel to it where your clinging to a euphoric moment in your life, but sadly knowing that everything is starting to gradually slip away, and all that's left are the memories of that once pleasurable time. Probably my favourite modern novel set in Paris.
October 10, 2022
ah the pretensions of youth! ah the pretensions of this book. who includes entire sections of dialogue in French, assuming the reader will be able to translate it? this book does. who sets up a gormless youth as the epitome of Finding Your Bliss, strenuously trying to pretend he's admirable while also sneakily saying that he's a born loser? this book does. who creates a physically passionate romance that is supposed to be the central relationship of the story and then has it abruptly end without even bothering to give any kind of reason for that ending, other than the implied Lost Cause Loser Can't Find His Bliss Even When It's Right In Front Of Him? this book does. well, it is nicely written; Dyer is talented. and it is very evocative of a certain time in one's life that could best be described as a liminal space. extra star awarded for the fine prose and the ability to portray the aimless 20s of people who are trying to find themselves. otherwise the book was rather a pretentious waste of time.
REVIEW POST-SCRIPT 10/9/22
I'm reading Albert Murray right now and a point he makes about certain writers is apt:
"Indeed, what most American fiction seems to represent these days is not so much the writer's actual sense of life as some theory of life to which he is giving functional allegiance, not so much his complex individual sensitivity to the actual texture of human experience as his intellectual reaction to ideas about experience."
Dyer is British and Murray was writing about American writers, but his comment is still a perfect fit for this book.
REVIEW POST-SCRIPT 10/9/22
I'm reading Albert Murray right now and a point he makes about certain writers is apt:
"Indeed, what most American fiction seems to represent these days is not so much the writer's actual sense of life as some theory of life to which he is giving functional allegiance, not so much his complex individual sensitivity to the actual texture of human experience as his intellectual reaction to ideas about experience."
Dyer is British and Murray was writing about American writers, but his comment is still a perfect fit for this book.
May 12, 2021
Zaljubljeni par, nadobudni Englez i senzualna Beograđanka, borave u Parizu. Englez je pisac koji, naravno, ne piše ništa, već se zavitlava u francuskoj prestonici, a ona je talentovana studentkinja. Njemu se omakne pokoja duhovitost, iako je uglavnom mediokritetska mačoistička jedinka, a ona je uglavnom prefinjena, zanimljiva i čak pomalo egzotična.
U nekom momentu, koji je došao možda čak i pre njihovog prvog kontakta, kreću da se razmimoilaze. Razmimoilaženje se nastavlja i postaje mrcvarenje, a ljubavnici pokušavaju da skupljaju trunčice onoga što su mogli da budu. I to, iako deluje da je tako, nije sladunjavo. Čak da je sladunjavo, bilo bi lakše; ovako je ogoljeno i uglasto i kao takvo ne predstavlja ništa drugo od hronike životnog tonjenja. Ko u tome vidi lepotu, dobrodošao je.
U nekom momentu, koji je došao možda čak i pre njihovog prvog kontakta, kreću da se razmimoilaze. Razmimoilaženje se nastavlja i postaje mrcvarenje, a ljubavnici pokušavaju da skupljaju trunčice onoga što su mogli da budu. I to, iako deluje da je tako, nije sladunjavo. Čak da je sladunjavo, bilo bi lakše; ovako je ogoljeno i uglasto i kao takvo ne predstavlja ništa drugo od hronike životnog tonjenja. Ko u tome vidi lepotu, dobrodošao je.
June 6, 2011
Read in one afternoon and become sick with love.
July 18, 2019
A romantic novel of nineties carefreeness, inspired by halcyon French films of sixties carefreeness and Hemingway’s novel of thirties carefreeness, reminiscent of those overlong anecdotal accounts from friends eager to share tales from their amazing holidays, accompanied by slideshows, that amuse for the first twelve minutes, then become a source of thigh-chafing irritation and lead you to question the concept of friends. Otherwise, a summer-strength frolic in the throbbing realm of love and lust that makes you wish you’d had more sex in your twenties.
April 10, 2013
I underestimated this book, and it suckerpunched me. Given its vague premise (two couples in Paris, sex, drugs, copious movie dialogue, little plot), I'd expected something prettily written and forgettable. And for the first hundred pages, this was more or less my experience. Luke - the man whose mantra is "yes, always yes" - struck me as feckless and very shallow, despite his apparent charisma. I wasn't convinced by his love for Nicole, who didn't feel fully realised as a character, but seemed to me more a collection of traits (captivating beauty, cutely wonky English, bicycle fan...).
And then, I don't remember exactly when, something changed. I hadn't felt it happening, as I tore through the pages, the conversations between the characters whizzing past me, each sparky scene coming and going. With less than half the novel to go, I didn't want it to end. The thought of leaving Luke and Nicole, Alex and Sahra, particularly after the beautiful, bittersweet scenes in the French countryside, was miserable. I slowed my pace to a crawl. I reread sentences two, three times. Sometimes I reread pages. I smiled to myself. I sighed wistfully. How the hell did it happen? It was supposed to be a quick read, a bit of fun, and I went and caught feelings.
Dyer's writing has often been described as vivid - and Paris, Trance is certainly that. The style is quick and witty, the novel brims with life.
And then, I don't remember exactly when, something changed. I hadn't felt it happening, as I tore through the pages, the conversations between the characters whizzing past me, each sparky scene coming and going. With less than half the novel to go, I didn't want it to end. The thought of leaving Luke and Nicole, Alex and Sahra, particularly after the beautiful, bittersweet scenes in the French countryside, was miserable. I slowed my pace to a crawl. I reread sentences two, three times. Sometimes I reread pages. I smiled to myself. I sighed wistfully. How the hell did it happen? It was supposed to be a quick read, a bit of fun, and I went and caught feelings.
Dyer's writing has often been described as vivid - and Paris, Trance is certainly that. The style is quick and witty, the novel brims with life.
May 30, 2024
Only my second novel from Dyer, an annoyingly talented author who writes whatever he wants, in any genre, inimitably. This reminded me of Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi for its hedonistic travels. Luke and Alex, twentysomething Englishmen, meet as factory workers in Paris and quickly become best mates. With their girlfriends, Nicole and Sahra, they form what seems an unbreakable quartet. The couples carouse, dance in nightclubs high on ecstasy, and have a lot of sex. A bit more memorable are their forays outside the city for Christmas and the summer. The first-person plural perspective resolves into a narrator who must have fantasized the other couple’s explicit sex scenes; occasional flash-forwards reveal that only one pair is destined to last. This is nostalgic for the heady days of youth in the same way as Sweetbitter. I was intrigued to learn that random lines were sampled from Fiesta; though it is lad lit, I wouldn’t have expected a Hemingway homage from the style.
November 15, 2024
Dyer Şakası
Zevkli çevirileriyle her zamanki standardını koruyan Seda Ersavcı'ya saygıyla eğiliyorum.
Paris Esrimesi örtük bir roman. "Örtük?" Evet, kendisini göstermiyor. "Üstü örtülü mü yani?" Mecazi anlamda evet üstü örtülü. "Romanın ayıbı mı var? Malum seks anlatımları cömertçe, hatta sapıkça da denebilir." Yok canım daha neler! "Peki o zaman Geoff Dyer niye sakladı romanı?" Hayal gücün fazlasıyla kuvvetli! Hahaha. Kimsenin bir şey sakladığı yok. Rahat ol. Paris Esrimesi'nin üstünü örten, okuma alışkanlığımızdan ötürü algı körlüğüdür. Farklı anlayışta yazılmış romanların aynı alışkanlıklarla okunması durumunda sıradışı yazılan romanlar algılanamayacaktır. "Seminerin bittiyse sorum var." Sor. "Sıkı dur geliyor: Romandan örtüyü kaldırmanın imkanı yok mu?" Var. "Nasıl?" Sıkı dur. Hatta masaya bağla kendini:)
Geoff Dyer'ın 'tarzını' bileceksin... (Arka kapak tiyo verse uyarsa Dyer'ı bilmeye gerek kalmazdı.)
Mesela bir kitabını okumak için Trevanian'ı bilmek zorunda değilsin. Maalouf'u bilmek zorunda değilsin. Başka başka başka... Bernhard Schilink bilmen gerekmez. Kosinski, hiç gerek yok. Fakat beni bilmek zorundasın:)) Afedersin karıştırdım, Dyer'ı bilmelisin.
Kalıpların dışında yazan Geoff Dyer gibi yazarların sayfalarda 'aslında' neler yaptıklarını bilmek zorundasın. Roman okumak gibi derdin varsa tabii. Geoff Dyer romanlarının tür açısından tanımlanamadığını; anı mı yazıyor, felsefe mi yapıyor, roman mı deneme mi mizah mı günlük mü hangisi, hepsi veya hiçbiri mi, bilinmediğini bilmek zorundasın. Ve emin ol, hangi kategoride yazdığını Dyer'ın kendisi de bilmiyordur. Bu yazarın eğlenceli yazdığını, bilinen klişelerle dalga geçtiğini bileceksin. Gözünün içine baka baka ti'ye almayı çok sevdiğini bileceksin. Dyer aklen (kitabi) değil ruhen muhalif bir yazardır. Akla hayale gelebilecek bütün sistemsel değerler ve yaşantı biçimleri ruhi muhalifler için saçmadır, komiktir. Dolayısıyla Dyer nereye baksa komiklik görecektir. Ve komikliği yazarken soğukkanlı davranır, son derece ciddidir. Dalga frekanslarını algılayacak ayarlar yapılmalıdır. Bunları bileceksin.
Paris Esrimesi düz roman, adeta fotoroman. İlişkiler romanı. Romantik mi diyorlar, doğrudur. Paris yaşantısında dört göçmen arkadaşın ilişkilerini okuyoruz... İnsan tarafını devre dışı bırakmak, beynin de sadece yüzde on kısmını çalıştırmak suretiyle sadece cahillerin cirit attığı dünyanın çivisi çıkmış distopik şehirlerinden en gözdesi Paris'i mesken tutmuş Geoff Dyer. Bu şehirde üç şeye mahkumsunuz: Çalışmak ve Sevişmek ve oyunda yıkılmamak için de Genç kalmak. Tercih hakkınız yok. Direnirseniz ya depresyona girip öylece ömür boyu mıy mıy yaşıyorsunuz ya da pencereden atlıyorsuruz. Luke gibi pencereden atlamak işinize gelmiyorsa anında oyun dışı kalıp kendinizi Paris dışında buluyorsunuz. Geoff Dyer Paris ortamını aşağı yukarı böyle kuruyor. Bu ortam başka türlü de anlatılabilir. Şimdilik bununla idare edelim. Asıl adres başka, oraya doğru koşuyoruz şu an. Devam edelim. Dyer romanın ortamını kurduktan sonra Paris'in sineması, müzesi, parkı gibi dekorlarını bir bir yerleştiriyor ve en son Alex, Sahra, Luke ve Nicole'dan kurulu baş oyuncular bu dekorlarda sahne alıyor. Sonrasında asırlar boyu milyonlarca kombinasyonu yazılmış bildik 'ilişkiler' hikayesi şırıl şırıl akmaya başlıyor: Oyuncular aşıklaşıyorlar, sevişiyorlar, kavgalaşıyorlar, dargınlaşıyorlar, barışıyorlar... Hepsi bu!
Şu soruyu sormanın tam yeri ve zamanıdır, bakalım cevabı (varsa) bizi nereye götürecek: Kategorize edilemeyecek karmaşıklıkta ve muziplikte yazan Geoff Dyer çerçevesi belli planda yazdığı romantizmle ne yapmaya çalışmış?
Paris'de başta kitaplar, filmler, sergiler olmak üzere akla gelebilecek bütün entelektüel etkinlikler kafe-barlarda konuşulmak içindir. Başka ifadeyle, entelektüel sektörlerde yerinizi alıp iyice yerleşmeniz kafe-barlarda konuşulmanızın seviyesine ve yoğunluğuna bağlı. Kurallar böyle konunca yazarlar kitaplarında işte böyle tavuklara yem atar gibi okurlara kafa karıştırıcı konuşuk malzemeleri verirler: Mesela atıyorum, karakter ekmek almaya giderken mavi fuları boynundan çıkarıp saçına turuncu bant yerleştirir. Romanda bunun bir anlamı vardır. Okurlar harıl harıl bu sahnenin yapıçözümünü:)) konuşurlar. Karakter işe giderken vaz geçer ve arabayı boya mağazasına sürer, renk renk boya kovalarıyla eve gelir, duvarları boyar. Evi neden boyuyor? Al sana aylarca sürecek konuşma konusu... Nerden baksan komik, sağdan soldan yandan komik ve saçmalık. Fakat entelektüel sektörlerde işler oldum olası bu komedinin etrafında döner.
Geoff Dyer planlarını işte bu 'hazır' komedinin üzerine kurar. Paris Esrimesi bildiğin şakadır. Konuşulmak için yazılmış entelektüel romanları ti'ye alır. Dyer bolca absurd malzeme verir...
Paris Esrimesi'nin iki anlatıcısı vardır mesela. Spoiler nedeniyle adını veremeyeceğim biri ilk sayfada Luke'dan bahsediyor. Yirmi yedi yaşında olduğunu, Paris'e kitap yazmak için geldiğini falan anlatıyor. Sayfayı çevirdiğinizde o anlatıcı tüyüyor, yerine üçüncü tekil anlatıcı geciyor ve roman boyunca ne vakit mevzu iş yerinden anlatıma gelse birinci tekil mikrofonu kapıp yayına başlıyor. Anlatıcıların değişmesi edebi bir şov tabii ki. İngiltere'den farklı zamanlarda gelmiş Luke ve Alex bir depoda paketleme işinde tanışıyorlar. Barda laflaşıyorlar. Nerede kalıyorsun diyor Alex. Luke'un çöplükte yaşadığını anlayınca "Paris'e gelen herkes önce bi çöplükte başlar" diyor, lağım çukurunda cezanı çekersin. Kendini öldürme noktasına gelirsin.Bır de bakarsın ki işler yoluna girmiş. Kaç gündür karamsar yaşayıp da köyüne dönmeyi düşünen Luke telaşla sorar, "ya işler yoluna girmezse." Alex'in cevabı hazır: O vakit kendini hemen öldürürsün.... Yazar burada Paris çaylaklığı klişesiyle makara geçmektedir. Dyer kitabın son altmış sayfasına girilirken romanı apar topar bitirir. Sonra hiçbir şey olmamış gibi romana kaldığı yerden devam eder. Okur konuşuklarının aylarca sürmesine neden olacak enfes malzemelerden sadece biri. Luke'la Nicole'un porno filmi çevirir gibi sevişmeleri bomba malzeme! Mutfak duvarında kol uzunluğunda domuz jambonunun asılı durması. Nicole'un aletleri kaybetme/bozma takıntısı. Freudyen çözümlemelerle hayat felsefeleri cirit atıyor romanda. Saymakla bitmiyor. Entelektüel romanlar anlaşılmaz paragraflarıyla meşhurdur. Geoff Dyer malzeme niyetine bol bol anlaşılmaz sayfalar yazar. Karakterlerin kafelerdeki sohbetlerde bıraktıkları okurlara konuşuk malzemelerini yazmakla bitiremeyeceğimden öylece bırakıyorum yazmayı.
Zevkli çevirileriyle her zamanki standardını koruyan Seda Ersavcı'ya saygıyla eğiliyorum.
Paris Esrimesi örtük bir roman. "Örtük?" Evet, kendisini göstermiyor. "Üstü örtülü mü yani?" Mecazi anlamda evet üstü örtülü. "Romanın ayıbı mı var? Malum seks anlatımları cömertçe, hatta sapıkça da denebilir." Yok canım daha neler! "Peki o zaman Geoff Dyer niye sakladı romanı?" Hayal gücün fazlasıyla kuvvetli! Hahaha. Kimsenin bir şey sakladığı yok. Rahat ol. Paris Esrimesi'nin üstünü örten, okuma alışkanlığımızdan ötürü algı körlüğüdür. Farklı anlayışta yazılmış romanların aynı alışkanlıklarla okunması durumunda sıradışı yazılan romanlar algılanamayacaktır. "Seminerin bittiyse sorum var." Sor. "Sıkı dur geliyor: Romandan örtüyü kaldırmanın imkanı yok mu?" Var. "Nasıl?" Sıkı dur. Hatta masaya bağla kendini:)
Geoff Dyer'ın 'tarzını' bileceksin... (Arka kapak tiyo verse uyarsa Dyer'ı bilmeye gerek kalmazdı.)
Mesela bir kitabını okumak için Trevanian'ı bilmek zorunda değilsin. Maalouf'u bilmek zorunda değilsin. Başka başka başka... Bernhard Schilink bilmen gerekmez. Kosinski, hiç gerek yok. Fakat beni bilmek zorundasın:)) Afedersin karıştırdım, Dyer'ı bilmelisin.
Kalıpların dışında yazan Geoff Dyer gibi yazarların sayfalarda 'aslında' neler yaptıklarını bilmek zorundasın. Roman okumak gibi derdin varsa tabii. Geoff Dyer romanlarının tür açısından tanımlanamadığını; anı mı yazıyor, felsefe mi yapıyor, roman mı deneme mi mizah mı günlük mü hangisi, hepsi veya hiçbiri mi, bilinmediğini bilmek zorundasın. Ve emin ol, hangi kategoride yazdığını Dyer'ın kendisi de bilmiyordur. Bu yazarın eğlenceli yazdığını, bilinen klişelerle dalga geçtiğini bileceksin. Gözünün içine baka baka ti'ye almayı çok sevdiğini bileceksin. Dyer aklen (kitabi) değil ruhen muhalif bir yazardır. Akla hayale gelebilecek bütün sistemsel değerler ve yaşantı biçimleri ruhi muhalifler için saçmadır, komiktir. Dolayısıyla Dyer nereye baksa komiklik görecektir. Ve komikliği yazarken soğukkanlı davranır, son derece ciddidir. Dalga frekanslarını algılayacak ayarlar yapılmalıdır. Bunları bileceksin.
Paris Esrimesi düz roman, adeta fotoroman. İlişkiler romanı. Romantik mi diyorlar, doğrudur. Paris yaşantısında dört göçmen arkadaşın ilişkilerini okuyoruz... İnsan tarafını devre dışı bırakmak, beynin de sadece yüzde on kısmını çalıştırmak suretiyle sadece cahillerin cirit attığı dünyanın çivisi çıkmış distopik şehirlerinden en gözdesi Paris'i mesken tutmuş Geoff Dyer. Bu şehirde üç şeye mahkumsunuz: Çalışmak ve Sevişmek ve oyunda yıkılmamak için de Genç kalmak. Tercih hakkınız yok. Direnirseniz ya depresyona girip öylece ömür boyu mıy mıy yaşıyorsunuz ya da pencereden atlıyorsuruz. Luke gibi pencereden atlamak işinize gelmiyorsa anında oyun dışı kalıp kendinizi Paris dışında buluyorsunuz. Geoff Dyer Paris ortamını aşağı yukarı böyle kuruyor. Bu ortam başka türlü de anlatılabilir. Şimdilik bununla idare edelim. Asıl adres başka, oraya doğru koşuyoruz şu an. Devam edelim. Dyer romanın ortamını kurduktan sonra Paris'in sineması, müzesi, parkı gibi dekorlarını bir bir yerleştiriyor ve en son Alex, Sahra, Luke ve Nicole'dan kurulu baş oyuncular bu dekorlarda sahne alıyor. Sonrasında asırlar boyu milyonlarca kombinasyonu yazılmış bildik 'ilişkiler' hikayesi şırıl şırıl akmaya başlıyor: Oyuncular aşıklaşıyorlar, sevişiyorlar, kavgalaşıyorlar, dargınlaşıyorlar, barışıyorlar... Hepsi bu!
Şu soruyu sormanın tam yeri ve zamanıdır, bakalım cevabı (varsa) bizi nereye götürecek: Kategorize edilemeyecek karmaşıklıkta ve muziplikte yazan Geoff Dyer çerçevesi belli planda yazdığı romantizmle ne yapmaya çalışmış?
Paris'de başta kitaplar, filmler, sergiler olmak üzere akla gelebilecek bütün entelektüel etkinlikler kafe-barlarda konuşulmak içindir. Başka ifadeyle, entelektüel sektörlerde yerinizi alıp iyice yerleşmeniz kafe-barlarda konuşulmanızın seviyesine ve yoğunluğuna bağlı. Kurallar böyle konunca yazarlar kitaplarında işte böyle tavuklara yem atar gibi okurlara kafa karıştırıcı konuşuk malzemeleri verirler: Mesela atıyorum, karakter ekmek almaya giderken mavi fuları boynundan çıkarıp saçına turuncu bant yerleştirir. Romanda bunun bir anlamı vardır. Okurlar harıl harıl bu sahnenin yapıçözümünü:)) konuşurlar. Karakter işe giderken vaz geçer ve arabayı boya mağazasına sürer, renk renk boya kovalarıyla eve gelir, duvarları boyar. Evi neden boyuyor? Al sana aylarca sürecek konuşma konusu... Nerden baksan komik, sağdan soldan yandan komik ve saçmalık. Fakat entelektüel sektörlerde işler oldum olası bu komedinin etrafında döner.
Geoff Dyer planlarını işte bu 'hazır' komedinin üzerine kurar. Paris Esrimesi bildiğin şakadır. Konuşulmak için yazılmış entelektüel romanları ti'ye alır. Dyer bolca absurd malzeme verir...
Paris Esrimesi'nin iki anlatıcısı vardır mesela. Spoiler nedeniyle adını veremeyeceğim biri ilk sayfada Luke'dan bahsediyor. Yirmi yedi yaşında olduğunu, Paris'e kitap yazmak için geldiğini falan anlatıyor. Sayfayı çevirdiğinizde o anlatıcı tüyüyor, yerine üçüncü tekil anlatıcı geciyor ve roman boyunca ne vakit mevzu iş yerinden anlatıma gelse birinci tekil mikrofonu kapıp yayına başlıyor. Anlatıcıların değişmesi edebi bir şov tabii ki. İngiltere'den farklı zamanlarda gelmiş Luke ve Alex bir depoda paketleme işinde tanışıyorlar. Barda laflaşıyorlar. Nerede kalıyorsun diyor Alex. Luke'un çöplükte yaşadığını anlayınca "Paris'e gelen herkes önce bi çöplükte başlar" diyor, lağım çukurunda cezanı çekersin. Kendini öldürme noktasına gelirsin.Bır de bakarsın ki işler yoluna girmiş. Kaç gündür karamsar yaşayıp da köyüne dönmeyi düşünen Luke telaşla sorar, "ya işler yoluna girmezse." Alex'in cevabı hazır: O vakit kendini hemen öldürürsün.... Yazar burada Paris çaylaklığı klişesiyle makara geçmektedir. Dyer kitabın son altmış sayfasına girilirken romanı apar topar bitirir. Sonra hiçbir şey olmamış gibi romana kaldığı yerden devam eder. Okur konuşuklarının aylarca sürmesine neden olacak enfes malzemelerden sadece biri. Luke'la Nicole'un porno filmi çevirir gibi sevişmeleri bomba malzeme! Mutfak duvarında kol uzunluğunda domuz jambonunun asılı durması. Nicole'un aletleri kaybetme/bozma takıntısı. Freudyen çözümlemelerle hayat felsefeleri cirit atıyor romanda. Saymakla bitmiyor. Entelektüel romanlar anlaşılmaz paragraflarıyla meşhurdur. Geoff Dyer malzeme niyetine bol bol anlaşılmaz sayfalar yazar. Karakterlerin kafelerdeki sohbetlerde bıraktıkları okurlara konuşuk malzemelerini yazmakla bitiremeyeceğimden öylece bırakıyorum yazmayı.
August 11, 2010
Dyer is a tease with his style. Narrator tempts you to guess who he is by sidetracking your attention every time it becomes obvious who he is. It might even be a she.
I am a Dyer loyalist or at least am becoming one and I find that all his books, despite their varied interests all deal with the same core theme, that of seeking. His protagonists are all seekers and in his books they are mostly seeking.
Paris Trance is worth reading as well as rereading. Recommended.
I am a Dyer loyalist or at least am becoming one and I find that all his books, despite their varied interests all deal with the same core theme, that of seeking. His protagonists are all seekers and in his books they are mostly seeking.
Paris Trance is worth reading as well as rereading. Recommended.
January 1, 2013
My favorite type of novel is one that is about mood and has very little narration or story. "Paris Trance (A Romance)" fits that category perfectly. Two couples who are best friends and then eventually they separate, especially one of the male characters - who ends up drifting off to London to ...do nothing. The one consistent aspect of this book is characters who do nothing except exist. Paris is the perfect background to this type of world where one travels from sex to love to eating to eventually nothing.
In many ways "Paris Trance" is very much like a French new wave film. Charming, but a sadness takes over the (non)narrative. Also it deals with the nature of change, and when and if changes happen. This is my second Geoff Dyer book. The first one I read was his essays on jazz figures "But Beautiful." Both books reflect on a time that is perfect, but there is a mood shifter around the corner...
In many ways "Paris Trance" is very much like a French new wave film. Charming, but a sadness takes over the (non)narrative. Also it deals with the nature of change, and when and if changes happen. This is my second Geoff Dyer book. The first one I read was his essays on jazz figures "But Beautiful." Both books reflect on a time that is perfect, but there is a mood shifter around the corner...
December 21, 2007
I read this a few years ago, but it's stayed in my mind. Goeff Dyer is a wonderful writer, I recommend anything he's written. Paris, Trance reminds me of a modern The Sun Also Rises. A great, great book.
January 14, 2016
This book is achingly, hauntingly romantic. A British expatriate, Luke, attempts to make his way in Paris, looking for life, and though he is a cunning and sympathetic character, he lacks ambition, the will to learn French, or even, a reason to be in Paris. He is young, and in the beginning passes time loitering in parks watching girls, nursing a vague sexual longing before returning to his apartment to jack off. But, as with nearly the entirety of the book, the states of characters are set-ups in which to maximize romance -- and Dyer contemplates how Luke's original despair is coupled with a kind of reckless ecstasy; a type of ecstasy which would be unattainable if not for the all-encompassing extent of his despair. Luke is ripe to fall headlong in love and he does.
Often, Dyer offers meditations on how certain romantic sensations can be achieved, or balanced to maximize effect while maintaining longevity, or on what kinds of romantic goals can still be rational. The best friends, Luke and Alex, may be designed as foils in order to illustrate these concepts -- Alex is able to experience contentment but cannot experience pure, unlimited happiness as can Luke, and vice versa -- Luke cannot restrain happiness in any form so as to enjoy a sustainable contentment. Their relationships with their girlfriends, and their ambitions -- or Luke's lack thereof -- also reflect this dynamic.
Looking back, I'm amazed at how this book managed the precarious balance of feeling very real -- in that I was transported into the world of these characters and felt them and their particularities as real -- while also creating, for me, the sense that I was in touch with Dyer's intentions, his romantic aesthetic, and the fact that the whole (contrived) plot in a sense was a set up for his meditations on happiness vs. contentment, rationality vs. romanticism, etc. How could it manage to feel contrived by Dyer as the right platform for his insights and dissections while also feeling uncontrived and real? Dyer is adept at sensing and maximizing opportunities for drama, as well as planting the apt, timely meditation on its nature and meaning as he exits scene…
Another haunting, lasting thing about the book (and reason to seek this one out) is the masterful way in which Dyer layers his romantic prose with an elegiac sense of loss. Always, the ends to things are being felt within the prose, even if the sensations are qualified in an almost sublime, exalted way (as if the pureness of a feeling might defy time and live on forever in some way). Dyer tends this balance so well its eerie. It makes the book feel all the more immersive because drama isn't accomplished on the cheap merit of a shocking twist, but rather on the startling, multi-layered nature of human emotion.
Often, Dyer offers meditations on how certain romantic sensations can be achieved, or balanced to maximize effect while maintaining longevity, or on what kinds of romantic goals can still be rational. The best friends, Luke and Alex, may be designed as foils in order to illustrate these concepts -- Alex is able to experience contentment but cannot experience pure, unlimited happiness as can Luke, and vice versa -- Luke cannot restrain happiness in any form so as to enjoy a sustainable contentment. Their relationships with their girlfriends, and their ambitions -- or Luke's lack thereof -- also reflect this dynamic.
Looking back, I'm amazed at how this book managed the precarious balance of feeling very real -- in that I was transported into the world of these characters and felt them and their particularities as real -- while also creating, for me, the sense that I was in touch with Dyer's intentions, his romantic aesthetic, and the fact that the whole (contrived) plot in a sense was a set up for his meditations on happiness vs. contentment, rationality vs. romanticism, etc. How could it manage to feel contrived by Dyer as the right platform for his insights and dissections while also feeling uncontrived and real? Dyer is adept at sensing and maximizing opportunities for drama, as well as planting the apt, timely meditation on its nature and meaning as he exits scene…
Another haunting, lasting thing about the book (and reason to seek this one out) is the masterful way in which Dyer layers his romantic prose with an elegiac sense of loss. Always, the ends to things are being felt within the prose, even if the sensations are qualified in an almost sublime, exalted way (as if the pureness of a feeling might defy time and live on forever in some way). Dyer tends this balance so well its eerie. It makes the book feel all the more immersive because drama isn't accomplished on the cheap merit of a shocking twist, but rather on the startling, multi-layered nature of human emotion.
December 15, 2014
I bought this book on the recommendation of a friend, a fan of Dyer's, particularly of a book entitled "The Colour of Memory", which is about artists and punks hanging around in Brixton, London. Apparently Dyer grew up there - a kid from a tough neighborhood who became a literary success. I wanted to like this book and was anticipating that I would, and even went out and bought another one of his books before finishing this one. This story concerns two young couples, in love, in their twenties, and in Paris - all experiences I can relate to. I was all prepared to like it --but I didn't.
This dull parade of insignificant scenes tries to show the ordinariness of love, the way that it just happens as a part of everyday occurrences - but instead it comes across like somebody describing their weekend to you. If a writer tries to hide the extraordinary within the ordinary, hoping for some sort of subtle lifelike experience, he risks presenting the reader with only the ordinary. And if a story is going to march along in that fashion, than it should have interesting characters. Alas this one does not. The two girlfriends in the story, Sahra and Nicole, are so similar, and similarly uninteresting, that I frequently got them mixed up before realizing that it did not matter anyway. The story is told by one of the two English guys, Alex, although you don't realize that he is the narrator until the end. There is no real reason for this, other than just to be clever.
The main focus of the story is Luke, and he is presented as some sort of tragically romantic figure, a man so committed to living and loving in the moment that life eventually passes him by, and he ends up barely living at all. He comes to Paris to write a novel, but writes nothing. Instead he works in a warehouse and develops a social life and a love life with Nicole. This "romantic readiness" (to borrow a phrase that described Gatsby) is ultimately his weakness. The two couples party together, go to clubs, eat, take ecstasy, spend weekends in the country. There is a fistfight with a French right-winger. There is a fight between the two lovers. And none of it is very interesting.
This has moments of fine writing, of interesting thoughts and lively descriptions. It has the taco chip quality that many other writers today (such as Murakami) have; the scenes flow by smoothly and one wants to keep reading. But as much as I wanted to, I could not really get into it, and I only read to the end because I wanted to know how Dyer would close up the story.
This dull parade of insignificant scenes tries to show the ordinariness of love, the way that it just happens as a part of everyday occurrences - but instead it comes across like somebody describing their weekend to you. If a writer tries to hide the extraordinary within the ordinary, hoping for some sort of subtle lifelike experience, he risks presenting the reader with only the ordinary. And if a story is going to march along in that fashion, than it should have interesting characters. Alas this one does not. The two girlfriends in the story, Sahra and Nicole, are so similar, and similarly uninteresting, that I frequently got them mixed up before realizing that it did not matter anyway. The story is told by one of the two English guys, Alex, although you don't realize that he is the narrator until the end. There is no real reason for this, other than just to be clever.
The main focus of the story is Luke, and he is presented as some sort of tragically romantic figure, a man so committed to living and loving in the moment that life eventually passes him by, and he ends up barely living at all. He comes to Paris to write a novel, but writes nothing. Instead he works in a warehouse and develops a social life and a love life with Nicole. This "romantic readiness" (to borrow a phrase that described Gatsby) is ultimately his weakness. The two couples party together, go to clubs, eat, take ecstasy, spend weekends in the country. There is a fistfight with a French right-winger. There is a fight between the two lovers. And none of it is very interesting.
This has moments of fine writing, of interesting thoughts and lively descriptions. It has the taco chip quality that many other writers today (such as Murakami) have; the scenes flow by smoothly and one wants to keep reading. But as much as I wanted to, I could not really get into it, and I only read to the end because I wanted to know how Dyer would close up the story.
February 17, 2013
At first I thought Paris Trance would never be able to compete with Jeff in Venice…, but once you hand yourself over to this wonderfully elegant and strong prose you gradually get mesmerized and discover the many layers of this deceptively simple, at times almost boring looking story…
Dyer’s language is sensuous and erotic, his narrative skills create a strong tension between present and future, between first- and third-person narrator and none of the events or objects (however trivial they may look at first) are meaningless: from a ‘ghosting’ mirror to a wounded deer in the snow (‘’Nothing but coke,’ said Luke, ‘as far as the eye can see.’’) to the same melancholy movie (Brief Encounter) that Luke watches every year on his birthday (‘Nothing lasts really, neither happiness nor despair. Not even life lasts long.…").
Paris Trance is darkly romantic, ‘aching with melancholy’, yet at the same time incredibly witty and funny end deeply, deeply moving.
‘And then they were there. There was no more land. It stopped. They had come to the edge, could go no further. Sea and sky were lost in a luminous haze. There was no distance or direction, only the weightless flow of light. All the sense of substance – of earth, weight, mass – was lost, as if they were suddenly back at the first moment of creation when this was all there was, a mingling of light and air: blue draining through gold, light dissolving into itself.’
Dyer’s language is sensuous and erotic, his narrative skills create a strong tension between present and future, between first- and third-person narrator and none of the events or objects (however trivial they may look at first) are meaningless: from a ‘ghosting’ mirror to a wounded deer in the snow (‘’Nothing but coke,’ said Luke, ‘as far as the eye can see.’’) to the same melancholy movie (Brief Encounter) that Luke watches every year on his birthday (‘Nothing lasts really, neither happiness nor despair. Not even life lasts long.…").
Paris Trance is darkly romantic, ‘aching with melancholy’, yet at the same time incredibly witty and funny end deeply, deeply moving.
‘And then they were there. There was no more land. It stopped. They had come to the edge, could go no further. Sea and sky were lost in a luminous haze. There was no distance or direction, only the weightless flow of light. All the sense of substance – of earth, weight, mass – was lost, as if they were suddenly back at the first moment of creation when this was all there was, a mingling of light and air: blue draining through gold, light dissolving into itself.’
July 16, 2007
"Nothing in the past has any value. You cannot store up happiness. That past is useless. You can dwell on it but not in it. What good does it do anyone, knowing that they once sat with friends in a car and called out the names of cinemas and films, that they ate lunch in a town whose name the have forgotten?" (quoted from the book)
It is a melancholic story about a gang of friends enjoying their time in the "so-called" romantic city of Paris. But that carefreeness of youth must end to some extend. One can respond to it by being a mature adult and continue living. Or as the tragic character in novel one can choose to deny it and continue living in the past.
Do you ever feel a slight sadness the moment after you have a very good time with your friends and loved-ones? You just don't want it to end. Keep replaying the highlights of those moments in your head. This is what the novel is about to me.
Quoting some more:
"I'm wondering if it's possible that happiness could become unbearable"
It is a melancholic story about a gang of friends enjoying their time in the "so-called" romantic city of Paris. But that carefreeness of youth must end to some extend. One can respond to it by being a mature adult and continue living. Or as the tragic character in novel one can choose to deny it and continue living in the past.
Do you ever feel a slight sadness the moment after you have a very good time with your friends and loved-ones? You just don't want it to end. Keep replaying the highlights of those moments in your head. This is what the novel is about to me.
Quoting some more:
"I'm wondering if it's possible that happiness could become unbearable"
February 15, 2009
I've heard such wonderful things about Geoff Dyer and heard him be so charmingly interviewed, always about his nonfiction writing. However this was the only one of his books I could get a hold of here in Japan. It's a novel and it's a disaster. But I'm still going to try to get my hands on his nonfiction. I still expect great things from him in that genre.
February 21, 2022
Easy to read, lurid, vivid, sexy, and thoughtful, Dyer's Gen X romance novel is beautiful and moving but also oddly cold, his four main characters often feeling distant and removed, as if being viewed through a microscope. Of course, ultimately, this turns out to be somewhat the case, as it is slowly revealed (while not much else is) that main character Luke's best friend Alex is the true narrator of the story, trying to hold onto his happy memories of the year that he, Luke, Sarah and Nicole were all friends, before Luke mysteriously turns sour and resigns himself to a life of being a loser while Alex and Sarah get married and Nicole becomes a real grown up. Though Alex hints at there being a catalyst event, there isn't one (or if it is, it's never played out for the reader), just a number of low-key shared traumas and missed moments like most people have scattered throughout their lives, and the implication Luke may have always been hard-wired to fail, that some people are, and that living in disappointment is for them, the true triumph. It's an interesting idea, especially when the generation in question is subject, but the book's failure is to make you see why losing Luke is such a loss for Alex, who frequently tells us how much he cares about Luke while not always making it apparent why, unless the point is that Luke represents the kind of idle, in-the-moment vivacity really only possible in your twenties in which case... who doesn't miss that sometimes? And the bittersweetness of that Dyer catches well, and in the moment of structural brilliance, leaves you at an indeterminant point in the timeline to linger on where your own youth went.
February 10, 2017
Bastante insoportable. El autor no se cansa de explicar TODO. Además lo pinta como si fuera la gran aventura y en realidad no es para tanto. Mi vida es lejos más entretenida.
May 28, 2017
Few authors use absences as well as Geoff Dyer does. Whether it is the gaping narrative hole that (dis)connects the two narratives which comprise Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi, the conspicuous absence of D.H. Lawrence in Dyer's biography of Lawrence himself, the literal missing of the Somme from WWI, Dyer continually finds ways to make the absences of his books their most animating force. For some, this is a symptom of Dyer's post-modern glibness--a lack of seriousness and constant attack via word-play and cleverness on "truth," and the "real,"--which deprive his books of any bigger, more profound thematic takeaways other than glibness itself.
If I haven't yet already tipped my hand, I think that this line of critique tends to miss the point, and certainly does in Paris Trance, a novel that his haunted and animated by its ghostly presences/absences. The book tracks two couples over approximately a year in Paris: Luke and Nicole, Alex and Sahra. Like F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night, upon which the book is modeled, the narrative becomes more fractured as it progresses, slipping in and out of time and between Alex's first person narration and a third person omniscient narrator. The narrative tension which constantly throws into confusion the reader's idea of who is speaking and from where, also serves to underscore the massive gap in plot progression that the novel also wrestles with. The novel spends the majority of its time following the growing happiness of the two couples, paying special attention to the moments when their relationship first begins and when it reaches its apotheosis of happiness over a summer spent in the French countryside. But that progression is haunted from its first utterance by the reader's knowledge that it ends in ruins. A brief chapter in the middle of the book brings Alex and Luke together for a meeting years later, when Luke is a shell--miserable, bored, washed-up and alone in London. But we are never shown how this transformation from complete Paris happiness transforms into utter London loneliness.
Or do we? Dyer's revelations of the future prompt a paranoid reading of text as we are constantly searching for clues in Luke's behavior that might explain such a self-implosion. Perhaps, as the text tentatively suggests, it's because Luke is afraid of contentment. He's so afraid of reaching "peak-happiness," that once he has attained it, he realizes the impossibility of ever being happier and, devoid of that hope of future improvement, merely fades away.
That's one reading, but certainly not the only explanation. Perhaps there is no explanation, for where is the agency in any of our lives anyways? How much, Dyer suggests, are we all at the whim of bigger forces of determinism--the biology of generations that makes us who we are, the chance of missed or made connections in modern urban life? Perhaps Luke's lonely, faded-away existence in London is exactly the same as the one he lived in Paris, a never ending trance that can be read and re-read again and again with endless differences, or endless sameness.
If I haven't yet already tipped my hand, I think that this line of critique tends to miss the point, and certainly does in Paris Trance, a novel that his haunted and animated by its ghostly presences/absences. The book tracks two couples over approximately a year in Paris: Luke and Nicole, Alex and Sahra. Like F. Scott Fitzgerald's Tender is the Night, upon which the book is modeled, the narrative becomes more fractured as it progresses, slipping in and out of time and between Alex's first person narration and a third person omniscient narrator. The narrative tension which constantly throws into confusion the reader's idea of who is speaking and from where, also serves to underscore the massive gap in plot progression that the novel also wrestles with. The novel spends the majority of its time following the growing happiness of the two couples, paying special attention to the moments when their relationship first begins and when it reaches its apotheosis of happiness over a summer spent in the French countryside. But that progression is haunted from its first utterance by the reader's knowledge that it ends in ruins. A brief chapter in the middle of the book brings Alex and Luke together for a meeting years later, when Luke is a shell--miserable, bored, washed-up and alone in London. But we are never shown how this transformation from complete Paris happiness transforms into utter London loneliness.
Or do we? Dyer's revelations of the future prompt a paranoid reading of text as we are constantly searching for clues in Luke's behavior that might explain such a self-implosion. Perhaps, as the text tentatively suggests, it's because Luke is afraid of contentment. He's so afraid of reaching "peak-happiness," that once he has attained it, he realizes the impossibility of ever being happier and, devoid of that hope of future improvement, merely fades away.
That's one reading, but certainly not the only explanation. Perhaps there is no explanation, for where is the agency in any of our lives anyways? How much, Dyer suggests, are we all at the whim of bigger forces of determinism--the biology of generations that makes us who we are, the chance of missed or made connections in modern urban life? Perhaps Luke's lonely, faded-away existence in London is exactly the same as the one he lived in Paris, a never ending trance that can be read and re-read again and again with endless differences, or endless sameness.
July 20, 2025
I’m rather fond of this titillating and explosive little novel. Makes me want to move to Paris, learn French, and become someone else entirely.
Three passages I’ve extracted for memories sake.
1.
“Why did you come here?”
“To become a different person. Or at least more of a person.”
“What were you before?”
“An Englishman living in England”
“Who were you before?”
“Someone i’d lost interest in”
…
“Are you learning French?”
“A little”
“You have to. To become someone else that is essential. When I was a little girl my father was very insistent that I learned other languages. He said, “The more languages you speak, the more people you can become.”
2.
‘Luke and Nicole showered and lay in bed. “It’s so lovely to go to bed and not have sex,” Luke whispered. “Isn’t it?” Nicole was already asleep. He lay on his back, unable to sleep, drifting. There will come a time, he thought, when I will look back on this night, when I will lie in another bed, when happiness will have come to seem an impossibility, and I will remember this night, remember how happy I was, and will remember how, even when I was in the midst of my happiness, I could feel a time when it would be gone. And I will realise that this knowledge was a crucial part of that happiness …
3.
“What is it you want to do, Luke?”
“How do you mean?”
“With your life.”
“Ultimately.”
“Ultimately.”
“Ultimately I want to keep on doing it. Keep on living it. My life, I mean. You just said I was in your core, yes? Well, I feel the same. That I’m close to the centre, the core, of my life.”
. . .
“You’re strange, Luke. When I first saw you, at passage Thiéré. I thought . . . there was such yearning in you”
“I was yearning for you.”
“No, it was more. I see it in you still. It’s part of you. It is you. And then in other ways you seem almost not to want anything, not to care.”
As he leaves his mark on everyone lures into his orbit, Lukey boy has left his mark on me - it’ll be a gradual suffusion I suppose.
Three passages I’ve extracted for memories sake.
1.
“Why did you come here?”
“To become a different person. Or at least more of a person.”
“What were you before?”
“An Englishman living in England”
“Who were you before?”
“Someone i’d lost interest in”
…
“Are you learning French?”
“A little”
“You have to. To become someone else that is essential. When I was a little girl my father was very insistent that I learned other languages. He said, “The more languages you speak, the more people you can become.”
2.
‘Luke and Nicole showered and lay in bed. “It’s so lovely to go to bed and not have sex,” Luke whispered. “Isn’t it?” Nicole was already asleep. He lay on his back, unable to sleep, drifting. There will come a time, he thought, when I will look back on this night, when I will lie in another bed, when happiness will have come to seem an impossibility, and I will remember this night, remember how happy I was, and will remember how, even when I was in the midst of my happiness, I could feel a time when it would be gone. And I will realise that this knowledge was a crucial part of that happiness …
3.
“What is it you want to do, Luke?”
“How do you mean?”
“With your life.”
“Ultimately.”
“Ultimately.”
“Ultimately I want to keep on doing it. Keep on living it. My life, I mean. You just said I was in your core, yes? Well, I feel the same. That I’m close to the centre, the core, of my life.”
. . .
“You’re strange, Luke. When I first saw you, at passage Thiéré. I thought . . . there was such yearning in you”
“I was yearning for you.”
“No, it was more. I see it in you still. It’s part of you. It is you. And then in other ways you seem almost not to want anything, not to care.”
As he leaves his mark on everyone lures into his orbit, Lukey boy has left his mark on me - it’ll be a gradual suffusion I suppose.
November 12, 2017
So, I really, really liked this one. I passed it in the library one day this week--spotted it on the shelf from an aisle away with my super special Paris radar vision--and went back for it the next day on my lunchbreak, feeling some kind of cosmic pull towards it (anything with Paris in the title is basically irresistible to me). I just sort of knew I'd enjoy it, even if (because?) it wasn't a "Paris novel" in the current sense of the genre. I read it in two long stints and found it unputdownable. I even found myself recognizing some of own writing traits in Dyer's, lots of asides, parenthesis inside of em dash breaks. It was obvious Dyer had spent a significant amount of time in Paris, and the city as he presented it was the most authentic version of it, not the swoony, perfect, pastel-colored version with accordion music swelling in the background which seems to suffuse every novel about Paris these days. This was my first book by the author but won't be my last.
October 23, 2017
I wish I had written this book, not because it was 'epic' or perfect or any kind of superfluous platitude but because it was just so beautiful.
I think it'll get five stars very soon, maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after, or the next.
Oh man.
4.237
I think it'll get five stars very soon, maybe tomorrow, maybe the day after, or the next.
Oh man.
4.237
July 27, 2021
This is a book based more on mood rather than a story, and focuses on relationships between lovers and friends. Poignant at times, drifting, it captured me enough to continue, but was unsatisfying in that it felt like there was so much simmering underneath, too much was unsaid. Shifting narrators also caused some confusion, and I wasn’t able to relate to the characters that well, but still a worthy read.
April 22, 2023
Crudely beautiful.
August 6, 2011
The book jacket identifies the Paris Trance as a romance. I suppose to a large extent it is indeed a romance. Geoff Dyer who I am getting to scorningly, grudglingly admire ( more for the life he’s lead than his writing, which by no measure is any less admirable) is a writer of themes and images.
The stories of the two couples, on their own and together is developed well. The unique, perhaps even daring aspect of the book is the dedication to idleness. I’ve never come across a book where the characters mooch around as much as they do in this one. It’s almost as if the book itself had smoked a joint and entered a trance.
Dyer has indeed admitted that one of the two main purposes of the book was to capture this aimlessness (the aimlessness of the 20s to be specific , the other purpose - to capture the drifting away). Dyer does capture it well in wry, informed Dyereseque prose ; a typical Dyer sentence would essentially twist on its tail contradicting its meaning yet conveying a perfect sentiment. And it is for this self flagellating funplay, that one reads Dyer. But as the book progresses the images and the themes that Dyer specializes in turn monotonous and well, excessive. Somewhere midway through the book I became slightly nonplussed and at pages even lost interest.
+++
Dyer is a core romantic in denial. All his works or rather the books that I've read so far are elaborate sublimation to wrap the romance in a deliberate, middle aged sort of wisdom, even cynicism. But at its heart they are all young wild at heart romances.
Agreed that Paris Trance is a romance and agreed it is Paris, but how often do you meet a woman studying Nietzsche in Paris who also fancies walking past the idle men playing street football everyday at lunch time? She must be almost unrealistic right? This is where I find Dyer faltering in his fictions, in his conception of his fictions rather (he’s admitted he’s poor at plots).
Most of his characters save for the protagonist ( who are invariably versions of himself) lack the richness of what I would call ‘an original fiction writer’, say Zadie Smith. Often most of his women characters become versions of themselves. I couldn’t tell the difference between Nicole in Paris Trance and Laura in Jeff in Venice… Dyer seems to fail to look beyond a set template that he seems to have for his women – they are always intelligent, funny, articulate, somewhat attracted to marginalised men, and they are invariably, good at quips!
For these reasons we don’t really know much about Nicole in the book. I mean her own internal mind, her perspective. For the most of the book she is invariably looked at from outside, while pages and chapters go on about Luke. In the story both Luke and Nicole seem equally purposeless and lacking any direction, which is what makes them a great couple, well couple in a first place. But something’s got to give right? Of the two, Nicole seems more mainstream and integrated. She comes close to questioning Luke about his life once - What does he want to do? gets a typical I'm living my happiness answer and drifts back into the trance again! I felt slightly disappointed that somehow Dyer leans towards Luke than Nicole, almost overlooking her if not ignoring. I would have loved if Nicole actually broke up with Luke than the other way around. She had reasons to, yet it seemed that Dyer was too preoccupied with Luke which left the ending, in my opinion, one-sided and somewhat confused. I am aware that Dyer was trying to portray the absurdity and the confusion of the breaking up, but again it can’t be absurd without it making no sense to both the parties involved. As far as I know, the separation made perfect sense to Luke and Nicole just went with it. It's symbolised in their parting scene where Luke makes Nicole walk away from him while he watches her leave, as though living a Noir scene of a movie he had memorized in Pariscope. She willfully complies!
Must say was slightly relieved to finish it. And quite aptly finished in travelling in Turkey in the meander river basin, the river that gave us the word meandering just what the book did in its latter half.
As a plot and characterizations quite thin actually, not one of Dyer’s best, and slightly stretched, otherwise a good read, the usual Dyer positives apply like the change of narrator - enjoyable in most parts. I loved some of the Parisian images the book evoked, Dyer's view of Englishness and the coffeeshop flags conversation. Even Dyer can’t convince me that the said conversation didn’t really happened in his life.
The stories of the two couples, on their own and together is developed well. The unique, perhaps even daring aspect of the book is the dedication to idleness. I’ve never come across a book where the characters mooch around as much as they do in this one. It’s almost as if the book itself had smoked a joint and entered a trance.
Dyer has indeed admitted that one of the two main purposes of the book was to capture this aimlessness (the aimlessness of the 20s to be specific , the other purpose - to capture the drifting away). Dyer does capture it well in wry, informed Dyereseque prose ; a typical Dyer sentence would essentially twist on its tail contradicting its meaning yet conveying a perfect sentiment. And it is for this self flagellating funplay, that one reads Dyer. But as the book progresses the images and the themes that Dyer specializes in turn monotonous and well, excessive. Somewhere midway through the book I became slightly nonplussed and at pages even lost interest.
+++
Dyer is a core romantic in denial. All his works or rather the books that I've read so far are elaborate sublimation to wrap the romance in a deliberate, middle aged sort of wisdom, even cynicism. But at its heart they are all young wild at heart romances.
Agreed that Paris Trance is a romance and agreed it is Paris, but how often do you meet a woman studying Nietzsche in Paris who also fancies walking past the idle men playing street football everyday at lunch time? She must be almost unrealistic right? This is where I find Dyer faltering in his fictions, in his conception of his fictions rather (he’s admitted he’s poor at plots).
Most of his characters save for the protagonist ( who are invariably versions of himself) lack the richness of what I would call ‘an original fiction writer’, say Zadie Smith. Often most of his women characters become versions of themselves. I couldn’t tell the difference between Nicole in Paris Trance and Laura in Jeff in Venice… Dyer seems to fail to look beyond a set template that he seems to have for his women – they are always intelligent, funny, articulate, somewhat attracted to marginalised men, and they are invariably, good at quips!
For these reasons we don’t really know much about Nicole in the book. I mean her own internal mind, her perspective. For the most of the book she is invariably looked at from outside, while pages and chapters go on about Luke. In the story both Luke and Nicole seem equally purposeless and lacking any direction, which is what makes them a great couple, well couple in a first place. But something’s got to give right? Of the two, Nicole seems more mainstream and integrated. She comes close to questioning Luke about his life once - What does he want to do? gets a typical I'm living my happiness answer and drifts back into the trance again! I felt slightly disappointed that somehow Dyer leans towards Luke than Nicole, almost overlooking her if not ignoring. I would have loved if Nicole actually broke up with Luke than the other way around. She had reasons to, yet it seemed that Dyer was too preoccupied with Luke which left the ending, in my opinion, one-sided and somewhat confused. I am aware that Dyer was trying to portray the absurdity and the confusion of the breaking up, but again it can’t be absurd without it making no sense to both the parties involved. As far as I know, the separation made perfect sense to Luke and Nicole just went with it. It's symbolised in their parting scene where Luke makes Nicole walk away from him while he watches her leave, as though living a Noir scene of a movie he had memorized in Pariscope. She willfully complies!
Must say was slightly relieved to finish it. And quite aptly finished in travelling in Turkey in the meander river basin, the river that gave us the word meandering just what the book did in its latter half.
As a plot and characterizations quite thin actually, not one of Dyer’s best, and slightly stretched, otherwise a good read, the usual Dyer positives apply like the change of narrator - enjoyable in most parts. I loved some of the Parisian images the book evoked, Dyer's view of Englishness and the coffeeshop flags conversation. Even Dyer can’t convince me that the said conversation didn’t really happened in his life.
May 26, 2012
In the most trivial of ways - regarding initial circumstances - I was briefly put in mind of Orwell's Down and Out in Paris and London, but that resemblance quickly faded. Instead I found myself caught up in an almost magical world. The dust jacket blurb uses the phrase "photographic precision" and I can't improve on that description. The plot was secondary to the study of characters and setting, and as such left me feeling unsatisfied and confused. However, I was treated to a glorious wash of scenes, which pulled me into the world in nearly-cinematic detail.
I think that the label of "romance" is appropriate - but not because of the sex scenes or love between the characters. It is a romance between the author/the characters and the lifestyle captured in the pages. Not a smooth romance, but a heady one.
I yearn to visit Paris and the French countryside, to have the places described in this book come to life for me. I wondered what it would be like to read this book without knowing any French - those untranslated sentences would be frustrating. I felt smug in my understanding, although humbled by the thought of how difficult it would be to actually live in a place where another language (even one with which I have a passing familiarity) is spoken. I was envious of the expats around whom the book centered because they had the courage to try that adventure.
I think that the label of "romance" is appropriate - but not because of the sex scenes or love between the characters. It is a romance between the author/the characters and the lifestyle captured in the pages. Not a smooth romance, but a heady one.
I yearn to visit Paris and the French countryside, to have the places described in this book come to life for me. I wondered what it would be like to read this book without knowing any French - those untranslated sentences would be frustrating. I felt smug in my understanding, although humbled by the thought of how difficult it would be to actually live in a place where another language (even one with which I have a passing familiarity) is spoken. I was envious of the expats around whom the book centered because they had the courage to try that adventure.
October 23, 2024
Bit of a mixed bag. It is well-written, but I was expecting something comparable to Irvine Welsh's Ecstasy. The novel is very light on drug tales and humour, and no mention of trance music. Obviously the trance refers to a lover's trance.
A large part of the novel seems fairly sparse and coldly written, I suspect it was maybe over-edited. The novel also indulges in a lot of meaningless clichés such as:
"She watched him unscrew a bottle of orange and gulp it down as if he were pouring sun down his throat"
Why not an Orangina, given it is to the French, what Irn Bru is to the Scottish? Who would want to pour sun down their throat? If it is based on the colour of orange juice, it's just obvious.
The romantic aspects of the novel are interesting and to his credit the author can write a good, detailed sex scene; no "we made love" nonsense. But the characters aren't credible or varied enough to tell them apart. Towards the end of the novel I had difficulty telling who was who. And as with most novels the dialogue was too stiff,formal and unconvincing.
Worth a read, but not astounding, especially given the fact it's not cheap to buy.
A large part of the novel seems fairly sparse and coldly written, I suspect it was maybe over-edited. The novel also indulges in a lot of meaningless clichés such as:
"She watched him unscrew a bottle of orange and gulp it down as if he were pouring sun down his throat"
Why not an Orangina, given it is to the French, what Irn Bru is to the Scottish? Who would want to pour sun down their throat? If it is based on the colour of orange juice, it's just obvious.
The romantic aspects of the novel are interesting and to his credit the author can write a good, detailed sex scene; no "we made love" nonsense. But the characters aren't credible or varied enough to tell them apart. Towards the end of the novel I had difficulty telling who was who. And as with most novels the dialogue was too stiff,formal and unconvincing.
Worth a read, but not astounding, especially given the fact it's not cheap to buy.
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