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Writers in Residence
Another Great Day at Sea: Life Aboard the USS George H. W. Bush
Another Great Day at Sea( Life Aboard the USS George H.W. Bush) Hardcover GeoffDyer PantheonBooks
208 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2014
70 people are currently reading
816 people want to read
About the author
Geoff Dyer
140 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 167 reviews
April 28, 2019
This is two stories in one. The first is what life is like on an American aircraft carrier as experienced in two weeks by writer-in-residence Geoff Dyer. This story is quite interesting. It makes several points, that integrating women in to the military as a topic of conversation on board was a non-starter, it was a good idea and everyone was happy with it. The upside of life on a George H.W. Bush seems to be that it is a good chance to get away from family responsibilities and live a man's life (even the women) where every moment of every day, almost, is totally laid out for you, no room for individual expression. Thus, almost everyone on the ship is a follower and not a leader.
This is delineated quite clearly by who gets to sleep where. The enlisted get to sleep in dorms of over 200 and eat really crap food. The officers live in cabins of between 1 and 6 people and, those at the top, have a personal chef whose aim is to cook in the White House, so good is she. There is no alcohol, officially, on board, and iced tea is served in crystal wine glasses to the officers which struck me as funny as the thing about iced tea is that you want a lot of it to quench your thirst.
The second story is about the author who is kind of a sub Jon Ronson or Louis Theroux. That is, they insert their very British self-deprecating personalities into whatever story they are telling in a humorous but fairly major way. Geoff comes across as a nice man, but not a particularly interesting one. This might be because that's how he wants to be perceived, it's hard to tell. He is, in any case, picky, cries easily like a spoiled child if he doesn't get his own way, and has a complex about being taller, thinner and older than everyone else.
All in all a book that passes the time, a diversion for maybe reading on the beach when the idea of a romantic saga filled with angst fills you with angst too. But it's nothing more.
This is delineated quite clearly by who gets to sleep where. The enlisted get to sleep in dorms of over 200 and eat really crap food. The officers live in cabins of between 1 and 6 people and, those at the top, have a personal chef whose aim is to cook in the White House, so good is she. There is no alcohol, officially, on board, and iced tea is served in crystal wine glasses to the officers which struck me as funny as the thing about iced tea is that you want a lot of it to quench your thirst.
The second story is about the author who is kind of a sub Jon Ronson or Louis Theroux. That is, they insert their very British self-deprecating personalities into whatever story they are telling in a humorous but fairly major way. Geoff comes across as a nice man, but not a particularly interesting one. This might be because that's how he wants to be perceived, it's hard to tell. He is, in any case, picky, cries easily like a spoiled child if he doesn't get his own way, and has a complex about being taller, thinner and older than everyone else.
All in all a book that passes the time, a diversion for maybe reading on the beach when the idea of a romantic saga filled with angst fills you with angst too. But it's nothing more.
July 11, 2024
Seventh Geoff Dyer book overall, and forth piece of non-fiction. My last outing was Out of Sheer Rage, the part travelogue part rant at his inability to write the D. H. Lawrence book he always dreamed of writing, and this time around, good old Geoff boards an American aircraft carrier on active service in the Arabian Gulf for a couple of weeks, and records his experiences. Now, I can't say I have much of an interest in aircraft carriers, and can only think of Top Gun: I half expected Tom Cruise to come waltzing out on deck in those cool looking aviators, or seeing one on a news report from the Gulf War or something like that. Being a fan of Dyer had me read this, and if not him then in all likelihood I wouldn't have gone near it. The good news though: unless you're truly hardcore for military vessels, is that he never fills the book with all the boring technical stuff about the actual carrier, and more so concentrates on the people on board, covering various different jobs and ranks, and along with the level of noise on board: especially the occasions of jet engines roaring, and the fact that as a fussy eater, and a lanky beanpole of a man constantly ducking down to limit the chance of knocking himself out whilst below deck, he rarely produces a dull moment because there isn't really a moment's peace. Also for me; despite this not being one of his best books, he is such good company as a writer writing honestly about himself just as much as his descriptions of anything or anybody else, that by the time of reaching the closing pages, I couldn't help but feel that I'm going to miss his eccentric, wise, funny, and intriguing personality again like I have before. Until next time Geoff.
September 17, 2014
If Geoff Dyer wanted to write about the mating habits of sloths, I'd read it; if he wanted to write about the invention of the lawnmower, I'd read it; if he wanted to write about how hard it is to write about D.H. Lawrence, well, I already read that one. The point is, Dyer floats my boat no matter what, even when he is writing about boats, or aircraft carriers.
Dyer got this assignment as a grant from the Alain de Botton Writers in Residence non-profit, which aims to place writers in significant modern institutions. Having read a few newspaper reviews of Another Great Day at Sea, I can see that some people don't think Dyer quite captures the significance of his institution. I understand that criticism - he often writes like a man-child, awed by the planes, complaining about the food, and delighted by the personalities aboard, but a man-child with a really good vocabulary. And ultimately, that is what I love about Dyer. If I wanted to read analytic reports about aircraft carriers, I would (I don't!). But I'd much rather follow around this endlessly curious, sarcastic, endearing man-child and see what kind of trouble he gets into, or what kind of insights occur to him while adrift a warship in the Atlantic.
I'm thinking of starting a non-profit: Dyer in Residence. Who's with me?
Dyer got this assignment as a grant from the Alain de Botton Writers in Residence non-profit, which aims to place writers in significant modern institutions. Having read a few newspaper reviews of Another Great Day at Sea, I can see that some people don't think Dyer quite captures the significance of his institution. I understand that criticism - he often writes like a man-child, awed by the planes, complaining about the food, and delighted by the personalities aboard, but a man-child with a really good vocabulary. And ultimately, that is what I love about Dyer. If I wanted to read analytic reports about aircraft carriers, I would (I don't!). But I'd much rather follow around this endlessly curious, sarcastic, endearing man-child and see what kind of trouble he gets into, or what kind of insights occur to him while adrift a warship in the Atlantic.
I'm thinking of starting a non-profit: Dyer in Residence. Who's with me?
August 25, 2014
Can one loathe a writer just from reading his or her work? Such revulsion for another human based on mental processes and attitudes, as revealed by his or her writing, happened to me reading GREAT DAY. This is, I admit, a character flaw on my part for which I apologize, but there it is. Many people may feel the same about me and my writing. So be it.
The New Yorker excerpt, with its many technical errors and its tone-deaf and apparently willful failure to do research that would have enabled the author’s basic understanding of the subject, started me down the road to antipathy. Reading others’ reviews, especially of those not captivated by the author’s exalted reputation, confirmed the core problems. I decided not to buy the book or reward the author in any way but a friend sent a copy and I read it, reluctantly. In retrospect, I should have burned it. What were they thinking at Writers in Residence? That the author would do a good or even an adequate job? That his past reputation would serve?
The technical errors, deep and crisp and even, have been discussed by other reviewers. One oft-repeated and egregious example: the author’s “F-18” is actually an F/A-18 and the distinction is important—‘F’ designates a fighter, but the F/A-18 is both a fighter and an attack (‘A’) aircraft. Billions were spent on combining these capabilities and it takes immense training effort for pilots to handle both tasks. To mention this technical defect barely scratches the surface of the author’s ignorance and failure to master a complex technological environment.
What other reviewers failed to describe adequately, which instilled my loathing and contempt, was the writer’s style and tone. Some Englishmen (I am English) embody characteristics other Englishmen find intolerable. The author covers all the loathable bases magnificently: an arrogant, know-it-all posture in which he looks down on others from the lofty height of his intellectual superiority, his endlessly self-serving and self-referential writing, his disrespectful references to his accompanying photographer whom he terms derisively and repeatedly as “the snapper,” as if photography were some silly little hobby and the man with the silly little Box Brownie merely his servant, his sneering dismissal of a religious speaker in the ship’s chapel, his gratuitous ‘prolier than thou’ sliming of the British class system as evidenced historically in the British military, his staggeringly persnickety attitude about food (food tolerated by 5,000 others, in a warship on a nine-month, not just two-week deployment in which he was a guest) and relentless demands for a personal cabin because he cannot tolerate bunking with others, his attempts to borrow WWII Battle of Britain pilot heroism (he was born in 1958), his recounting a scene from a WWII film about a British battleship that ignores the definitive US carrier film “The Bridges at Toko-ri,” his disdainful characterization of the dedication of the commanding officer and his peers (in context, the book title comes across as ironic, even sarcastic), his failure even to acknowledge the challenge of carrier aviation (especially night traps) performed daily by young men and women pilots . . . the list of his attitudinal and literary transgressions is too long to recount here.
As for his comment about it being ‘difficult to fall overboard’ unless blown by a jet blast, Dyer should have paid attention. Loss of an unpopular, too-strict superior is Navy history and a great controller of seamen sadists who understand the very real risk and moderate their behavior (or behaviour) accordingly. But he gets so much so wrong so often, typically framed in a lame joke, that the mind reels. Stop me before I vomit.
Perhaps Dyer should have gone aboard a nuclear submarine for a 90-day combat cruise, instead of his mere 14 days aboard the George H.W. Bush. If he hated a U.S. aircraft carrier so much, and considered it so far beneath him, maybe the boomer (British or American—he wouldn’t even bother to understand the word) might have made an even longer and deeper impression (though he would never have researched the subject ahead of time and might have thought that a publisher was stroking his immeasurably huge ego). They would definitely not give him his own cabin, enabling him to escalate his endless whining about being exposed to the fellow humans he apparently despises so profoundly and whose names he can’t be bothered to record or remember. Do not overlook the fact that he was being handsomely rewarded for his ‘work’ by The New Yorker and the book’s publisher.
Dyer is considered by some to be a Very Important Contemporary British Writer (don’t believe me? ask him) so this critical review will flow off him like water off the proverbial duck’s back. He is indeed a somewhat competent writer of English. The real tragedy is that he had a fascinating opportunity to reveal the interior of one of the most interesting and important contemporary phenomena—the U.S. aircraft carrier and its unique role in world affairs—but snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by apparently not caring and taking the gig as a pleasure cruise. Dyer encountered the admiral in charge of regional strategy in the Persian Gulf but failed to interview her, an omission that underlines his fundamental indifference to the task at hand. Or perhaps his U.S. Navy hosts had come to realize that he was the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time and made sure he couldn't waste her time.
If you want to read about military aviation from writers who know and care—Dyer barely touches on the flying stuff, though it’s the core mission of the modern aircraft carrier, and only talks to a few pilots of the scores aboard—try Richard Bach’s first book, Stranger to the Ground, a selfless piece of first-person revelation, or the WWII-era British book Flat Top, by J.D. Ommanney. Both reveal intimately the real worlds of flying and carrier aviation and make Dyer’s work look like the chicken-scratchings of a rank beginner.
The New Yorker excerpt, with its many technical errors and its tone-deaf and apparently willful failure to do research that would have enabled the author’s basic understanding of the subject, started me down the road to antipathy. Reading others’ reviews, especially of those not captivated by the author’s exalted reputation, confirmed the core problems. I decided not to buy the book or reward the author in any way but a friend sent a copy and I read it, reluctantly. In retrospect, I should have burned it. What were they thinking at Writers in Residence? That the author would do a good or even an adequate job? That his past reputation would serve?
The technical errors, deep and crisp and even, have been discussed by other reviewers. One oft-repeated and egregious example: the author’s “F-18” is actually an F/A-18 and the distinction is important—‘F’ designates a fighter, but the F/A-18 is both a fighter and an attack (‘A’) aircraft. Billions were spent on combining these capabilities and it takes immense training effort for pilots to handle both tasks. To mention this technical defect barely scratches the surface of the author’s ignorance and failure to master a complex technological environment.
What other reviewers failed to describe adequately, which instilled my loathing and contempt, was the writer’s style and tone. Some Englishmen (I am English) embody characteristics other Englishmen find intolerable. The author covers all the loathable bases magnificently: an arrogant, know-it-all posture in which he looks down on others from the lofty height of his intellectual superiority, his endlessly self-serving and self-referential writing, his disrespectful references to his accompanying photographer whom he terms derisively and repeatedly as “the snapper,” as if photography were some silly little hobby and the man with the silly little Box Brownie merely his servant, his sneering dismissal of a religious speaker in the ship’s chapel, his gratuitous ‘prolier than thou’ sliming of the British class system as evidenced historically in the British military, his staggeringly persnickety attitude about food (food tolerated by 5,000 others, in a warship on a nine-month, not just two-week deployment in which he was a guest) and relentless demands for a personal cabin because he cannot tolerate bunking with others, his attempts to borrow WWII Battle of Britain pilot heroism (he was born in 1958), his recounting a scene from a WWII film about a British battleship that ignores the definitive US carrier film “The Bridges at Toko-ri,” his disdainful characterization of the dedication of the commanding officer and his peers (in context, the book title comes across as ironic, even sarcastic), his failure even to acknowledge the challenge of carrier aviation (especially night traps) performed daily by young men and women pilots . . . the list of his attitudinal and literary transgressions is too long to recount here.
As for his comment about it being ‘difficult to fall overboard’ unless blown by a jet blast, Dyer should have paid attention. Loss of an unpopular, too-strict superior is Navy history and a great controller of seamen sadists who understand the very real risk and moderate their behavior (or behaviour) accordingly. But he gets so much so wrong so often, typically framed in a lame joke, that the mind reels. Stop me before I vomit.
Perhaps Dyer should have gone aboard a nuclear submarine for a 90-day combat cruise, instead of his mere 14 days aboard the George H.W. Bush. If he hated a U.S. aircraft carrier so much, and considered it so far beneath him, maybe the boomer (British or American—he wouldn’t even bother to understand the word) might have made an even longer and deeper impression (though he would never have researched the subject ahead of time and might have thought that a publisher was stroking his immeasurably huge ego). They would definitely not give him his own cabin, enabling him to escalate his endless whining about being exposed to the fellow humans he apparently despises so profoundly and whose names he can’t be bothered to record or remember. Do not overlook the fact that he was being handsomely rewarded for his ‘work’ by The New Yorker and the book’s publisher.
Dyer is considered by some to be a Very Important Contemporary British Writer (don’t believe me? ask him) so this critical review will flow off him like water off the proverbial duck’s back. He is indeed a somewhat competent writer of English. The real tragedy is that he had a fascinating opportunity to reveal the interior of one of the most interesting and important contemporary phenomena—the U.S. aircraft carrier and its unique role in world affairs—but snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by apparently not caring and taking the gig as a pleasure cruise. Dyer encountered the admiral in charge of regional strategy in the Persian Gulf but failed to interview her, an omission that underlines his fundamental indifference to the task at hand. Or perhaps his U.S. Navy hosts had come to realize that he was the wrong man in the wrong place at the wrong time and made sure he couldn't waste her time.
If you want to read about military aviation from writers who know and care—Dyer barely touches on the flying stuff, though it’s the core mission of the modern aircraft carrier, and only talks to a few pilots of the scores aboard—try Richard Bach’s first book, Stranger to the Ground, a selfless piece of first-person revelation, or the WWII-era British book Flat Top, by J.D. Ommanney. Both reveal intimately the real worlds of flying and carrier aviation and make Dyer’s work look like the chicken-scratchings of a rank beginner.
April 3, 2014
You've probably seen a documentary or two about life aboard an aircraft carrier. Or read articles about how these giant craft function like small cities at sea. This book isn't like those documentaries or articles.
You'll still learn a lot about life aboard a carrier, but Geoff Dyer isn't your average journalist or documentary maker. In fact, he's a novelist and essayist, with no apparent background in reporting. And unlike most documentary makers and reporters, (Morgan Spurlock and Michael Moore are exceptions) he doesn't fade into the background. Dyer is front and center, moaning about the food, discreetly admiring the physically fit sailors of both sexes, and letting his mind wander as interviewees earnestly answer his questions.
At first I had some doubts about how this would work out as a book, but I was surprised to find that this anti-journalistic method worked pretty well. Aside from Dyer's over-sharing regarding his digestive issues, I learned a lot about the carrier and its crew. Although Dyer's poor memory, poor note-taking, and indifferent attitude toward details like names and ranks left you with less detail than you might expect, he still manages to give a pretty full picture of what the crew does, how they interact, and what they think about it all.
Dyer's two weeks aboard the USS George H.W. Bush in the Persian Gulf were courtesy of a Writer-in-Residence program, and goodness knows what they were thinking in assigning a British writer in his fifties with no military or journalism experience to an American carrier in a war zone. Brilliant!
You'll still learn a lot about life aboard a carrier, but Geoff Dyer isn't your average journalist or documentary maker. In fact, he's a novelist and essayist, with no apparent background in reporting. And unlike most documentary makers and reporters, (Morgan Spurlock and Michael Moore are exceptions) he doesn't fade into the background. Dyer is front and center, moaning about the food, discreetly admiring the physically fit sailors of both sexes, and letting his mind wander as interviewees earnestly answer his questions.
At first I had some doubts about how this would work out as a book, but I was surprised to find that this anti-journalistic method worked pretty well. Aside from Dyer's over-sharing regarding his digestive issues, I learned a lot about the carrier and its crew. Although Dyer's poor memory, poor note-taking, and indifferent attitude toward details like names and ranks left you with less detail than you might expect, he still manages to give a pretty full picture of what the crew does, how they interact, and what they think about it all.
Dyer's two weeks aboard the USS George H.W. Bush in the Persian Gulf were courtesy of a Writer-in-Residence program, and goodness knows what they were thinking in assigning a British writer in his fifties with no military or journalism experience to an American carrier in a war zone. Brilliant!
December 28, 2015
Why the heck are you reading this book? I've been asked that question a couple of times, and my response is always the same: Tom Clancy. I am a huge Clancy fan and have read all his books - the ones he wrote himself - none of the ones with a co-author. And one of the things about the massive Clancy books, is that in the midst of all the drama and action, there are these detailed descriptions of military technology. And I love it.
This author has been on my list to read for a while. He is a Brit and an odd duck from what I gather - though I assume that he is not an odd duck because he is a Brit. Anyways, he gets a grant to be a writer-in-residence on this American aircraft carrier for two weeks. It is a strange choice, and he spends much of his time whining, but there is something about him that makes you want to both hit him and soothe him simultaneously. I don't understand it, but there you have it.
His "reportage" is really nothing like being on a carrier, but is everything like being this guy on a carrier for two weeks. It will not be for everyone, but I liked it and will read more of his stuff. Is he is man-child in all of them I wonder? Or did this project just bring out that side of him?
This author has been on my list to read for a while. He is a Brit and an odd duck from what I gather - though I assume that he is not an odd duck because he is a Brit. Anyways, he gets a grant to be a writer-in-residence on this American aircraft carrier for two weeks. It is a strange choice, and he spends much of his time whining, but there is something about him that makes you want to both hit him and soothe him simultaneously. I don't understand it, but there you have it.
His "reportage" is really nothing like being on a carrier, but is everything like being this guy on a carrier for two weeks. It will not be for everyone, but I liked it and will read more of his stuff. Is he is man-child in all of them I wonder? Or did this project just bring out that side of him?
December 25, 2015
This is light entertainment, amusing, edifying in a lazy manner. Remember Tom Wolfe’s enthralling description of fighter jets landing on an aircraft carrier (“a heaving greasy skillet”)? Dyer duly, and with admiration, references Wolfe's description and builds on it, corrects it, enhances it - often by describing his own responses to the cacophony and danger of the jets and other arenas of life (and toilets, and food) aboard an US carrier in 2011. But like all Dyer books (even his fiction) this is as much about him as his ostensible subject. So one presumably has to enjoy not only Dyer's style but his persona to appreciate this work – heavy doses of his droll and self-deprecating humor (after two weeks on ship he's referring to himself in the third person as Beachbelly), but also his boredom, his ego, his embarrassment, and his general bewilderment at the attitudes and work-ethic of the sailors (he's convinced few of them - male nor female - think about sex, and he decides they are far too Christian and Republican. I suspect there is more nuance to be found than he noticed). This from The Baffler in July 2014 explains both Dyer’s skills and the problem with this book:
At the level of the sentence, this works; Dyer is a very good writer. His meandering, flâneuring style is suited to the setting, and his phrases wobble in glib self-negation, wavelike in their motion. There’s a stochastic element, too. Though by the end you realize that Dyer retains very firm control over where exactly his sentences wander, your first read feels like being caught in a storm of Brownian particles, buffeted back and forth and back again. […]But the glibness gets old, quickly, and without cover of humor, Dyer’s extreme solipsism becomes overwhelming, even annoying.I didn’t get too annoyed because this book was over before it struck me. And I agree he might not be the best fit for the subject. But when you read Dyer you get glibness. It’s like turning to non-sailor John McPhee to read about life in the merchant marine – I’m reading for the voice and the great writing as much as for the facts.
June 30, 2014
dyer has written some fascinating books, honest, quirky, sexy, here you can see his range in essay collection of book reviews and sex and doughnuts Otherwise Known as the Human Condition: Selected Essays and Reviews and he's written book length essays on john berger Ways Of Telling: The Work Of John Berger and a book length essay on not writing about d h lawrence (but he did find a lovely beach in mexico) Out of Sheer Rage: Wrestling With D.H. Lawrence so his assignment of reporting on the life of a usa nuclear powered air craft carrier in the persian gulf recently sounds excitig. and he does come to some insights. but you will not learn the speed of the boat, the size, the missions. he does look into the food a bit, the teamwork, the captain;s chef, pilots, exercise regimens, bunks, off hours, lack of sex.
so this is for a new series run by alain de botton and could be quite exciting, http://www.writersinresidence.org/boo... putting writers in interesting places to report back to us, of possibly, the inner workings and interesting bits of airports, imf, air craft carriers...
so dyer, did he find some interesting bits? yes, and no. the awesome power of military indoctrination building loyalty, striving for perfection, bravery, can doism, even and including female "tips of the spear". but also, the rather tawdry and gross prevalence of usa evangelical chistianity in all aspects of on-board life (nightly broadcast prayers and wholehearted believers in all positions, in a detached observer come across as fundamentalists no different than osama and taliban, but if you live in middle usa you already know that and not too surprising if you have paid attention to the weird military scandals during its decades long wars and the role of evangelicals, sheesh).
he also addresses the reasons some (many? most? see we don;t really get too many facts, but more haphazard encounters of the author with the sailors)joined the navy/military to start with: school dropouts, in trouble with the law, poverty due to higher education, dead end life of usa etc... so there is a real difference between the careerists and the EC-1's.
also, dyer did not address the waste and pollution except as it affected his clothes and possessions.
so if they don;t dump stuff in the ocean, which the captain got super pissed off about as somebody was throwing stuff over the side and they thought it was 'man over board'. so where does all that waste go to? maybe taken off by helicopter but not sure.
i did like that dyer both was respectful about h w bush and got in his digs at that screwy, very sad and typical usa family. has a super funny line about shrub in this book, almost worth reading the whole thing just for that. no spoiler here though. not perhaps one of dyer's most brilliant efforts, but still lots of his special angles of looking, unique ideas of a thinking person visiting behemoths of human culture. four stars for old times sake geoff.
so this is for a new series run by alain de botton and could be quite exciting, http://www.writersinresidence.org/boo... putting writers in interesting places to report back to us, of possibly, the inner workings and interesting bits of airports, imf, air craft carriers...
so dyer, did he find some interesting bits? yes, and no. the awesome power of military indoctrination building loyalty, striving for perfection, bravery, can doism, even and including female "tips of the spear". but also, the rather tawdry and gross prevalence of usa evangelical chistianity in all aspects of on-board life (nightly broadcast prayers and wholehearted believers in all positions, in a detached observer come across as fundamentalists no different than osama and taliban, but if you live in middle usa you already know that and not too surprising if you have paid attention to the weird military scandals during its decades long wars and the role of evangelicals, sheesh).
he also addresses the reasons some (many? most? see we don;t really get too many facts, but more haphazard encounters of the author with the sailors)joined the navy/military to start with: school dropouts, in trouble with the law, poverty due to higher education, dead end life of usa etc... so there is a real difference between the careerists and the EC-1's.
also, dyer did not address the waste and pollution except as it affected his clothes and possessions.
so if they don;t dump stuff in the ocean, which the captain got super pissed off about as somebody was throwing stuff over the side and they thought it was 'man over board'. so where does all that waste go to? maybe taken off by helicopter but not sure.
i did like that dyer both was respectful about h w bush and got in his digs at that screwy, very sad and typical usa family. has a super funny line about shrub in this book, almost worth reading the whole thing just for that. no spoiler here though. not perhaps one of dyer's most brilliant efforts, but still lots of his special angles of looking, unique ideas of a thinking person visiting behemoths of human culture. four stars for old times sake geoff.
May 30, 2014
to borrow from another reviewer, Another Great Day... is exactly as good as a book written by a narrator with
I somehow hitched myself to the Geoff Dyer wagon after Zona, even though in retrospect I never actually read Zona -- it just sort of pervaded 2012, that rare book that somehow floods various channels (friends, book reviews, etc.) and makes itself known. the weird Stalker + live commentary thing he did was definitely the kicker.
Anyways so I think I remain in on Geoff Dyer, man of letters, but Another Great Day didn't do a lot for me. I can echo the other reviews here - Dyer is a remarkably unsympathetic narrator. Cantankerous; selfish; full of complaints about food and noise and sleeping quarters. That's not really the point, though - that was DFW's approach towards cruise ships, and that equation netted a pretty brilliant essay.
The flaw here is Dyer's... glibness? His unwillingness to fully submit to life on an aircraft carrier makes him a poor correspondent; two moments stand out.
Perhaps I am picking at nits, but Another Great Day never really delivers because Dwyer promises an insider story of a city on the water that really never experiences, because he never immerses and never commits.
poor memory, poor note-taking, and indifferent attitude toward details like names and rankscould be. which is to say, entirely in the eye of the beholder, and to this beholder, mostly disappointing.
I somehow hitched myself to the Geoff Dyer wagon after Zona, even though in retrospect I never actually read Zona -- it just sort of pervaded 2012, that rare book that somehow floods various channels (friends, book reviews, etc.) and makes itself known. the weird Stalker + live commentary thing he did was definitely the kicker.
Anyways so I think I remain in on Geoff Dyer, man of letters, but Another Great Day didn't do a lot for me. I can echo the other reviews here - Dyer is a remarkably unsympathetic narrator. Cantankerous; selfish; full of complaints about food and noise and sleeping quarters. That's not really the point, though - that was DFW's approach towards cruise ships, and that equation netted a pretty brilliant essay.
The flaw here is Dyer's... glibness? His unwillingness to fully submit to life on an aircraft carrier makes him a poor correspondent; two moments stand out.
My untrained ear was having trouble keeping up with Dicola's explanation of what the various parts of the cat[apult] were called. These, let's say, were failures at the level of the noun. They were exceeded by systematic failures at the level of the verb: what these nouns--these various parts--did. (35)Superb turn of phrase, to be sure, but do not pass go and do not collect £200; it's a dodge, and I frankly don't buy it. Try harder. Ask questions. Use your words. Give me an analogy, or describe what it evokes.
Dessert arrived--a chocolate thingy--and then everyone signed the menus and posed for pictures. (175)'chocolate thingy' here, especially in the context of the final chapter (homesickness & eagerness to leave) all but screams "I'm throwing in the towel".
Perhaps I am picking at nits, but Another Great Day never really delivers because Dwyer promises an insider story of a city on the water that really never experiences, because he never immerses and never commits.
December 25, 2015
Almost a complete bore. As much as I generally enjoy the nonfiction writing of Geoff Dyer, I found this book to fail miserably in entertaining or enlightening me. Of course, I am adverse to almost anything Bush-like or having to do with military might. Indeed, I am grateful to all the men and women who serve our country, but I abhor the constant attention given to our always-threatening war-like nature, our loud machines, regimented behavior, and the sentimentality that permeates almost everything I used to love.
June 19, 2014
One day I wish Geoff Dyer would write a book I could get my (largely female) book group to read. He's so unmistakeably male, yet without all the crap that usually means, that I want to say - this, this is what being a nice clever bloke should be. But some of them - Zona: A Book About a Film About a Journey to a Room, and the music and photography criticism - are (I think) deliberately unreadable by anyone except a fellow technical obsessive. Some of them - Paris Trance and The Colour of Memory: A Novel - are too aimless for anyone except a Dyer fan to stick with, though I am and did and am pleased they still live in my head. Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi is the one I would like to make people read, but I live a suburban lifestyle and I'm not sure I could trust my group to see he is being ironic about the vivid anal sex.
This one doesn't help to sell him either. It's sensitive to the ethics of what it means to be embedded in a US aircraft carrier, restrained but persistent in its awareness of its terrifyingly brutal force, and alert to the class and sexual tensions aboard, and characteristically nice and clever, in a blokish way, about them. Worth anyone's time, but to the superficial eye it looks too much like a Channel 5 documentary on World's Largest Killing Machines by blokes for blokes.
This one doesn't help to sell him either. It's sensitive to the ethics of what it means to be embedded in a US aircraft carrier, restrained but persistent in its awareness of its terrifyingly brutal force, and alert to the class and sexual tensions aboard, and characteristically nice and clever, in a blokish way, about them. Worth anyone's time, but to the superficial eye it looks too much like a Channel 5 documentary on World's Largest Killing Machines by blokes for blokes.
June 27, 2014
If you're a fan of Dyer's previous works and are wondering what the heck he's doing writing about an aircraft carrier, you're in for a treat.
Another Great Day at Sea is more in the vein of his books Out of Sheer Rage and Yoga for People Who Can't Be Bother to Do It, which means it was right up my alley.
He spent two weeks on the carrier talking to crew members about their various jobs, experiences, and backgrounds. In that sense, the book is a bit less about him than the other titles I mentioned. However, he is still an integral character in the stories. It's his quirky, outsider viewpoint that makes his descriptions of the carrier and life aboard it accessible to non-military readers.
Though I've seen episodes of NCIS that take place on aircraft carriers, it never quite conveys the huge size of the boat and the loudness of the planes landing and taking off.
The chapters are generally just a few pages long, so you could read it in short spurts but I found myself engrossed and wanting to know more.
There was only one chapter that put me off which had nothing to do with the writing but rather the injustice in the story relayed to Dyer.
SPOILER ALERT:
If a recruiter entices you to join the military by saying the Navy will pay off your college loans, be sure you see that in writing before you agree or sign anything.
Navy Recruiters, that bait and switch tactic is disgraceful whether due to your error or laziness. You should keep your promises instead of insuring someone is indentured to you.
I'm rooting for you, Leesa Zilempe.
And Geoff Dyer, I hope you at least followed up with the person you did know at Chez Panisse on her behalf. Just admitting you overstated your connection doesn't cut it.
Another Great Day at Sea is more in the vein of his books Out of Sheer Rage and Yoga for People Who Can't Be Bother to Do It, which means it was right up my alley.
He spent two weeks on the carrier talking to crew members about their various jobs, experiences, and backgrounds. In that sense, the book is a bit less about him than the other titles I mentioned. However, he is still an integral character in the stories. It's his quirky, outsider viewpoint that makes his descriptions of the carrier and life aboard it accessible to non-military readers.
Though I've seen episodes of NCIS that take place on aircraft carriers, it never quite conveys the huge size of the boat and the loudness of the planes landing and taking off.
The chapters are generally just a few pages long, so you could read it in short spurts but I found myself engrossed and wanting to know more.
There was only one chapter that put me off which had nothing to do with the writing but rather the injustice in the story relayed to Dyer.
SPOILER ALERT:
If a recruiter entices you to join the military by saying the Navy will pay off your college loans, be sure you see that in writing before you agree or sign anything.
Navy Recruiters, that bait and switch tactic is disgraceful whether due to your error or laziness. You should keep your promises instead of insuring someone is indentured to you.
I'm rooting for you, Leesa Zilempe.
And Geoff Dyer, I hope you at least followed up with the person you did know at Chez Panisse on her behalf. Just admitting you overstated your connection doesn't cut it.
October 14, 2015
The author Geoff Dyer is a soft man who wouldn't last a day in the enlisted Navy.
It's not out "at sea" but underway (steaming or sailing).
The Navy as a culture is this: You steam out of your home port for what is typically a six month deployment. Each port of call is the same, in this order: start drinking, get a prostitute, then get good and drunk, get a prostitute again. In that mix is also interspersed brawling with locals and your fellow sailors. No doubt in my mind that sailors are even more violent than the marines.
In these overseas cities, you're not going to hook up with a regular girl, there is no time. Liberty call for E-3 and below is six hours. So after repeating the above mentioned behavior at ports of call over and over, some of the sailors look at ALL women as prostitutes, including fellow servicewomen. Typically it's the 18 to 23 year-old set that is the problem and they are the lowest ranked. This set is also responsible for the most virulent anti-gay hatred and many officers encourage "Slipping" in which a known gay sailor is taken aft and he "slips" over the railings and churned up by the wake.
Christopher Lawrence Roberts, USS Portland, LSD-37, Amphibious Ship. Home port Little Creek, Virginia. Boiler Technician E-1 to E-3 and back down to E-1. Spanning the entire documented history of the Navy, I set the record for 105 straight days of restricted duty aboard ship. Investigated by the N.I.S. for burglaries and robberies. Served on board 1982 to 1985. My naval service is all a matter of public record. Ultra-violent were my ways, do or die, ride forever days.
It's not out "at sea" but underway (steaming or sailing).
The Navy as a culture is this: You steam out of your home port for what is typically a six month deployment. Each port of call is the same, in this order: start drinking, get a prostitute, then get good and drunk, get a prostitute again. In that mix is also interspersed brawling with locals and your fellow sailors. No doubt in my mind that sailors are even more violent than the marines.
In these overseas cities, you're not going to hook up with a regular girl, there is no time. Liberty call for E-3 and below is six hours. So after repeating the above mentioned behavior at ports of call over and over, some of the sailors look at ALL women as prostitutes, including fellow servicewomen. Typically it's the 18 to 23 year-old set that is the problem and they are the lowest ranked. This set is also responsible for the most virulent anti-gay hatred and many officers encourage "Slipping" in which a known gay sailor is taken aft and he "slips" over the railings and churned up by the wake.
Christopher Lawrence Roberts, USS Portland, LSD-37, Amphibious Ship. Home port Little Creek, Virginia. Boiler Technician E-1 to E-3 and back down to E-1. Spanning the entire documented history of the Navy, I set the record for 105 straight days of restricted duty aboard ship. Investigated by the N.I.S. for burglaries and robberies. Served on board 1982 to 1985. My naval service is all a matter of public record. Ultra-violent were my ways, do or die, ride forever days.
May 22, 2014
If you want to read a book about someone complaining about everything then this is a book for you. I had to stop reading after 40 pages because I didn't want to continue wasting my life on this. This guy was going aboard an aircraft carrier. That should be pretty cool. What we get is him complaining that he had to give up his computer on the flight (which he got back when they landed), his notebook, that he was tall and had to duck between doors and how hard it was going to be for the next 2 weeks, him making a big deal that he was going to have bunkmates. You see the poor baby was an only child and is used to being by himself so he can't handle it, he said he would be typing and it would annoy people, he had a bad prostate, etc. Just a complete bitch. Then he complained about the food and how the men on board must have a hard time controlling themselves with the female officers there. I just had to stop because this was more about him then the aircraft. How this actually became a book is beyond me. The editors must have thought well we paid all this money for him to go lets just do the book...
WASTE OF TIME, EVEN IF IT WAS ONLY FOR 40 PAGES.
WASTE OF TIME, EVEN IF IT WAS ONLY FOR 40 PAGES.
January 14, 2023
hope yall don't mind if i say a rousing good morning to ocean lovers, civilians aboard aircraft carriers, tall skinny anchovy men, tall skinny anchovy men who are constantly hitting their heads on things, people with five second long attention spans, drama queens, drama kings, class clowns, picky eaters, lovers of fine wine, complainers, men who resemble "a leftover from a novel graham greene had decided not to write," military plane aficionados, people with an inordinate amount of knowledge about the battle of britain, exclamation point users, self-deprecators, excellent writers, and silly men in bathrobes, by which i mean to say, good morning geoff dyer
February 26, 2015
This is a review I composed last fall for a British maritime publication called 'Seafarer News':
An old navy adage paints life aboard an aircraft carrier as being 99 percent boredom and one percent terror. That one percent razzle-dazzle of fighter jets and sexy super-weapons has always hoarded the “Top Gun” treatment in pop culture but now, finally, we have a book about the 99 percenters, the quotidian routine, the boredom and repetition, the stink and bad food, the sheer dreary ordinariness of crewing the mightiest war machine that has ever existed.
Our uncannily unlikely tour-guide through the endless decks, passageways, ladders and hatches of one of these bristling behemoths is British essayist and novelist Geoff Dyer. Dyer, at 53, is gawky, tall and lanky, and believes he is both the tallest and oldest person aboard. He is also an effete snob, a vegan germaphobe, an atheist and a narcissist. In his interactions with these most American of Americans he comes off as variously sarcastic and supercilious, often plain bitchy, ever sharp of eye and wit, compulsively quippy, sometimes hilarious and always breezily enjoyable. He is also (who would’ve guessed?) the perfect man for documenting a sampling of the 5,000 fragile meat and sinew citizens, denizens, and coal-stokers that crew and serve this moveable beast of a warship.
In his book ‘Another Great Day at Sea’ (lifted from the Skipper’s absurdly upbeat daily greeting) and subtitled, Life aboard the USS George H. W. Bush, (Bush 41 that is, not Bush 43 whom Dyer speculates the Elder must have early on fretted ”. . . that this son of theirs was showing signs of being a retard”.) Dyer recounts in 45 snack-length chapters the fortnight he spent aboard CVN-77 observing and documenting the at once mundane and surreal existence of carrier sailors while underway.
Here’s Dyer’s take on the Skipper’s daily morale-booster wherein exemplary behavior is rewarded with a visit to the bridge and a phone call home: ‘The Captain’s Avenger of the Day announcement ended not with a hierarchical nod of approval but a nicely democratic ‘Well done, shipmate’. In that instant Captain and Avenger were equals—and the promise was held out that any of the five thousand people on board had the opportunity to attain a similar relationship and, ultimately, to become not simply the beneficiary of the award but its bestower.’
More Oscar Wilde than Tocqueville Dyer’s book is a collection of wry and indulgently subjective observations about many things, but most acutely the ‘Americanism’ of the carrier-town’s population about which he sometimes rhapsodizes, occasionally skewers but never dismisses nor disparages.
Each chapter is a brief encounter with a crewmember or shipboard situation. The chapters might be, rather than numbered, entitled: ‘Disgusting Slop’, ‘The Bible Thumpers’, ‘The Shrink Who Never Speaks’, ‘The Chaplain Who Never Shuts Up’, ‘The Plugged Toilets’, and so on. If you expect to learn much about the super sci-fi techno-porn of this five billion dollar annihilation machine you will be disappointed, “I have never liked anything that involves engines, oil or fiddly intricate work,” Dyer states. Rather, Dyer revels in revealing the non-uniform men and women inside the anonymizing uniforms, deftly unlocking their task-fettered humanity from top to bottom of the chain of command in his oddly effective Woody-Allen-meets-Monty-Python style.
The stand-alone chapters make the journey pleasantly non-linear. You can pick it up at any point for a quick turn around the harbor or make the entire crossing in one sitting. Either way your voyage will be all fair winds and following seas, and one not to be regretted.
An old navy adage paints life aboard an aircraft carrier as being 99 percent boredom and one percent terror. That one percent razzle-dazzle of fighter jets and sexy super-weapons has always hoarded the “Top Gun” treatment in pop culture but now, finally, we have a book about the 99 percenters, the quotidian routine, the boredom and repetition, the stink and bad food, the sheer dreary ordinariness of crewing the mightiest war machine that has ever existed.
Our uncannily unlikely tour-guide through the endless decks, passageways, ladders and hatches of one of these bristling behemoths is British essayist and novelist Geoff Dyer. Dyer, at 53, is gawky, tall and lanky, and believes he is both the tallest and oldest person aboard. He is also an effete snob, a vegan germaphobe, an atheist and a narcissist. In his interactions with these most American of Americans he comes off as variously sarcastic and supercilious, often plain bitchy, ever sharp of eye and wit, compulsively quippy, sometimes hilarious and always breezily enjoyable. He is also (who would’ve guessed?) the perfect man for documenting a sampling of the 5,000 fragile meat and sinew citizens, denizens, and coal-stokers that crew and serve this moveable beast of a warship.
In his book ‘Another Great Day at Sea’ (lifted from the Skipper’s absurdly upbeat daily greeting) and subtitled, Life aboard the USS George H. W. Bush, (Bush 41 that is, not Bush 43 whom Dyer speculates the Elder must have early on fretted ”. . . that this son of theirs was showing signs of being a retard”.) Dyer recounts in 45 snack-length chapters the fortnight he spent aboard CVN-77 observing and documenting the at once mundane and surreal existence of carrier sailors while underway.
Here’s Dyer’s take on the Skipper’s daily morale-booster wherein exemplary behavior is rewarded with a visit to the bridge and a phone call home: ‘The Captain’s Avenger of the Day announcement ended not with a hierarchical nod of approval but a nicely democratic ‘Well done, shipmate’. In that instant Captain and Avenger were equals—and the promise was held out that any of the five thousand people on board had the opportunity to attain a similar relationship and, ultimately, to become not simply the beneficiary of the award but its bestower.’
More Oscar Wilde than Tocqueville Dyer’s book is a collection of wry and indulgently subjective observations about many things, but most acutely the ‘Americanism’ of the carrier-town’s population about which he sometimes rhapsodizes, occasionally skewers but never dismisses nor disparages.
Each chapter is a brief encounter with a crewmember or shipboard situation. The chapters might be, rather than numbered, entitled: ‘Disgusting Slop’, ‘The Bible Thumpers’, ‘The Shrink Who Never Speaks’, ‘The Chaplain Who Never Shuts Up’, ‘The Plugged Toilets’, and so on. If you expect to learn much about the super sci-fi techno-porn of this five billion dollar annihilation machine you will be disappointed, “I have never liked anything that involves engines, oil or fiddly intricate work,” Dyer states. Rather, Dyer revels in revealing the non-uniform men and women inside the anonymizing uniforms, deftly unlocking their task-fettered humanity from top to bottom of the chain of command in his oddly effective Woody-Allen-meets-Monty-Python style.
The stand-alone chapters make the journey pleasantly non-linear. You can pick it up at any point for a quick turn around the harbor or make the entire crossing in one sitting. Either way your voyage will be all fair winds and following seas, and one not to be regretted.
June 13, 2014
I wish he spent more time describing the ship, and less time wading through his overwhelming narcissism. I frankly started just skipping the pages where he discussed how hard it was for him to be on the ship (for 2 weeks, alone in a state room).
Also, I understand he is British, but there is a tone to his portrayal of the Americans on the ship that is anthropological, like he has encountered a strange subculture that baffles him. (These people follow a strange sport (football), work out as if they're actually training for something, line dance when there is country music playing, and are all very patriotic. Shocking!!)
I would absolutely read another account of life on an aircraft carrier but I won't read anything else this strange dude has written.
Also, I understand he is British, but there is a tone to his portrayal of the Americans on the ship that is anthropological, like he has encountered a strange subculture that baffles him. (These people follow a strange sport (football), work out as if they're actually training for something, line dance when there is country music playing, and are all very patriotic. Shocking!!)
I would absolutely read another account of life on an aircraft carrier but I won't read anything else this strange dude has written.
June 1, 2018
Queria dizer que este livro é bom, porque o escritor cativa em muitos momentos, mas o livro não é bom, não. A gente termina o livro sabendo mais da chatice do autor com comida e de sua birra algo virulenta contra a religião do que sobre o que acontece de verdade num porta-aviões (além do fato de que aviões sobem e descem, e todo mundo trabalha muito) e de como são as pessoas com quem ele convive. O autor se perde tanto em si mesmo que mal é capaz de descrever como coisas funcionam ou para que servem, ou dar uma idéia clara de como é o que pensa o seu cicerone; o cazzo é que o "si mesmo" dele é menos interessante do que a coisa de que ele devia estar falando. A gente sai da leitura achando que ele esticou demais um assunto muito curto, o que é uma pena.
December 29, 2014
Although I have zero interest in the military I met Geoff at the Nantucket Book Festival and he bought me a brew at Nautilus! So when I came across his book his engaging personality meant it was a must read. I truly expected if have to slog through it and force myself to finish but I read it in just a day and found it utterly captivating!
His sense of humor and manner of delivery makes the subject matter secondary. I'd love to hear him on a subject I actually have interest in! He made this so intriguing. I also loved the way he painted each character in such an honest way.
I highly recommend it!
His sense of humor and manner of delivery makes the subject matter secondary. I'd love to hear him on a subject I actually have interest in! He made this so intriguing. I also loved the way he painted each character in such an honest way.
I highly recommend it!
July 4, 2016
This thing has me confused. I’m tempted to give it only two stars, but it’s a little hard to say why. Maybe because the full title, Another Great Day at Sea: Life Aboard the USS George H. W. Bush, seems to misrepresent it. The book contains 188 pages of text plus 8 pages of color photos, yet in a way it tells me less than I already know about aircraft carriers. Late in the book, the author quotes himself telling an interview subject that facts are not his strong point, which alert readers will already have realized, because of Dyer’s carelessness with names and ranks among other things. He seems to be at sea not only with such ordinary journalistic details but also in the entire realm of material things, mechanisms, engineering.
He freely confesses his inability to grasp such matters as how the catapults work. He mentions a few people who work in the reactor spaces but otherwise shows no interest in how the ship is powered (if not for the people and the aircraft, both of which need to be resupplied, the Bush could sail the seas for years entirely on its own). He meets ordnance men and visits the magazines but says nothing about the question of whether the ship carries nuclear weapons. He leaves unclear whether the ship is simply on a presence mission (cruising the Arabian Sea as a reminder, with all the flights and other activities taking place as a form of training) or is doing something more.
Dyer reminisces about seeing patriotic films (“The bridge: that much-filmed spot where John Mills would stand, soul and head bared to the elements in the Battle of the Atlantic”) and building models of military airplanes as a child (like me, he was fond of the F-4 Phantom, officially known as the Phantom II). He speaks repeatedly to interview subjects about why they joined, why they’re staying or leaving, what they do and, in mostly narrow ways, what they think about it. As the pages pass, you start to think it’s a good thing that the military provides order, routine, discipline, training, occupation, opportunity, purpose, and an absence of some temptations to people who might otherwise lack them. But Dyer almost totally sidesteps the dilemma, obvious to some from the outset and barely considered by others, that if you join the military, you may sooner or later find yourself having to do what the military does, the main thing anyway, which is to engage in warfare. This is an odd thing to shunt aside, especially from a writer who’s willing to report his mental disagreements with the varieties of religious practice and opinion that he finds. Dyer speculates that the presence of an American carrier off the coast of Iran might seem provocative, and that’s about all you get. (For what it’s worth, this is what kept me out of the military, though my father spent years in it. It’s not that I’m a peacenik, only that you don’t get asked whether you approve of the war of the day.)
The book, in short, is all about the people Dyer meets and not much about the ship—rather, it’s about people who happen to be aboard a ship. We learn of the bunking arrangements, the gym area squeezed into a corner of the hangar deck, the meditative turn of thought that the view from the fantail invites, the way planes on the flight deck are tracked with little models on a board, all of this conveyed by means of conversations with sailors or, fairly often, from Dyer’s internal dialogue. We learn that the brig is empty, its wardens usually occupied with nothing more than relentless cleaning; we learn also, from Dyer, that the ship itself is a kind of prison, since no one aboard is able to leave and may not even see the world outside for long stretches. But it doesn’t occur to him (at least he doesn’t put it this way) that the pilots leave the ship every time they fly.
There are fascinations but also oddities here. The text is sprinkled with brief, useful, but illuminating references to other writers: naval historian Norman Polmar, Walt Whitman, mountaineer Maurice Herzog, Tom Wolfe, Annie Dillard. Speaking of the huge craft alone in an empty sea, he says “there was nothing to compare it to” and adds, in the deftest allusion to Wittgenstein I’ve ever seen, that “in tangible, physical terms the carrier was the world and, as such, was all that was the case.” He keeps up this notion that nothing else is around (apart from one mention of small Iranian craft somewhere out there), but carriers are so valuable and vulnerable that they often have companions, other parts of a battle group. The commander of the Bush’s battle group, an admiral who happens to be a woman, is embarked, yet the thing she commands seems not to exist.
Why does Dyer, the polymathic perverse, insist on speaking of “the boat”? That the captain once or twice refers to “driving the boat” doesn’t satisfy my suspicion that submarines may still be referred to as “boats,” as the title Das Boot shows they were in World War II, but that the largest vessels in the navy are more often called ships. Is his distaste, bordering on disgust, for the food at all typical? Why is he unwilling to eat meat, leaving him with little more than “cold pasta,” except when a visitor stages a steak festival or when the captain’s cook offers him some leftover chicken? Did he never encounter mass-produced food during school days? Why is he so fussy? Is he really so lacking in curiosity—or, though this doesn’t seem likely, so thorough in his investigations—that he becomes bored days before his two-week visit reaches its end? In a way, the whole book is Geoff Dyer on a lark, the larkiness of which subsides before his allotted time runs out.
That I know a thing or two about the navy and therefore found fault with the book is part of my problem. I know, for instance, that the F-18 is more properly referred to as the F/A-18 and is, when last I checked, the only dual-designation craft currently in service; almost no one calls it that, but someone aboard the Bush probably knows it and might’ve spoken to what it means, yet facts of that kind are among the many that you won’t find here. If you know nothing before reading Another Great Day at Sea (the title comes from the captain’s daily announcements), you’ll undoubtedly come away knowing more than you did, but it may not be what you wanted to know. What person is going to pick up a book about an aircraft carrier who’s not interested in aircraft, carriers, or both? Dyer’s near-total admiration for just about everyone he talks to might make this a recruiting tool, but it’s hard to imagine a teen or a twentysomething choosing this book to help them decide whether to sign up.
Regardless of what you already know about the nominal subject, you’ll find a fair amount of amusement—often what’s funny is not Dyer’s jokes but his desire to make them—and a handful of tasty, well-crafted descriptions, but what you’ll mainly get is an encounter with a person who encounters other people. No doubt it wouldn’t have done for the cover to say, “Geoff Dyer Visits an Aircraft Carrier, by Geoff Dyer”; still, that’s basically what it presents. I’m reluctant to judge him, as he’s reluctant to judge others here, but I wouldn’t have minded if he had stepped aside more often.
He freely confesses his inability to grasp such matters as how the catapults work. He mentions a few people who work in the reactor spaces but otherwise shows no interest in how the ship is powered (if not for the people and the aircraft, both of which need to be resupplied, the Bush could sail the seas for years entirely on its own). He meets ordnance men and visits the magazines but says nothing about the question of whether the ship carries nuclear weapons. He leaves unclear whether the ship is simply on a presence mission (cruising the Arabian Sea as a reminder, with all the flights and other activities taking place as a form of training) or is doing something more.
Dyer reminisces about seeing patriotic films (“The bridge: that much-filmed spot where John Mills would stand, soul and head bared to the elements in the Battle of the Atlantic”) and building models of military airplanes as a child (like me, he was fond of the F-4 Phantom, officially known as the Phantom II). He speaks repeatedly to interview subjects about why they joined, why they’re staying or leaving, what they do and, in mostly narrow ways, what they think about it. As the pages pass, you start to think it’s a good thing that the military provides order, routine, discipline, training, occupation, opportunity, purpose, and an absence of some temptations to people who might otherwise lack them. But Dyer almost totally sidesteps the dilemma, obvious to some from the outset and barely considered by others, that if you join the military, you may sooner or later find yourself having to do what the military does, the main thing anyway, which is to engage in warfare. This is an odd thing to shunt aside, especially from a writer who’s willing to report his mental disagreements with the varieties of religious practice and opinion that he finds. Dyer speculates that the presence of an American carrier off the coast of Iran might seem provocative, and that’s about all you get. (For what it’s worth, this is what kept me out of the military, though my father spent years in it. It’s not that I’m a peacenik, only that you don’t get asked whether you approve of the war of the day.)
The book, in short, is all about the people Dyer meets and not much about the ship—rather, it’s about people who happen to be aboard a ship. We learn of the bunking arrangements, the gym area squeezed into a corner of the hangar deck, the meditative turn of thought that the view from the fantail invites, the way planes on the flight deck are tracked with little models on a board, all of this conveyed by means of conversations with sailors or, fairly often, from Dyer’s internal dialogue. We learn that the brig is empty, its wardens usually occupied with nothing more than relentless cleaning; we learn also, from Dyer, that the ship itself is a kind of prison, since no one aboard is able to leave and may not even see the world outside for long stretches. But it doesn’t occur to him (at least he doesn’t put it this way) that the pilots leave the ship every time they fly.
There are fascinations but also oddities here. The text is sprinkled with brief, useful, but illuminating references to other writers: naval historian Norman Polmar, Walt Whitman, mountaineer Maurice Herzog, Tom Wolfe, Annie Dillard. Speaking of the huge craft alone in an empty sea, he says “there was nothing to compare it to” and adds, in the deftest allusion to Wittgenstein I’ve ever seen, that “in tangible, physical terms the carrier was the world and, as such, was all that was the case.” He keeps up this notion that nothing else is around (apart from one mention of small Iranian craft somewhere out there), but carriers are so valuable and vulnerable that they often have companions, other parts of a battle group. The commander of the Bush’s battle group, an admiral who happens to be a woman, is embarked, yet the thing she commands seems not to exist.
Why does Dyer, the polymathic perverse, insist on speaking of “the boat”? That the captain once or twice refers to “driving the boat” doesn’t satisfy my suspicion that submarines may still be referred to as “boats,” as the title Das Boot shows they were in World War II, but that the largest vessels in the navy are more often called ships. Is his distaste, bordering on disgust, for the food at all typical? Why is he unwilling to eat meat, leaving him with little more than “cold pasta,” except when a visitor stages a steak festival or when the captain’s cook offers him some leftover chicken? Did he never encounter mass-produced food during school days? Why is he so fussy? Is he really so lacking in curiosity—or, though this doesn’t seem likely, so thorough in his investigations—that he becomes bored days before his two-week visit reaches its end? In a way, the whole book is Geoff Dyer on a lark, the larkiness of which subsides before his allotted time runs out.
That I know a thing or two about the navy and therefore found fault with the book is part of my problem. I know, for instance, that the F-18 is more properly referred to as the F/A-18 and is, when last I checked, the only dual-designation craft currently in service; almost no one calls it that, but someone aboard the Bush probably knows it and might’ve spoken to what it means, yet facts of that kind are among the many that you won’t find here. If you know nothing before reading Another Great Day at Sea (the title comes from the captain’s daily announcements), you’ll undoubtedly come away knowing more than you did, but it may not be what you wanted to know. What person is going to pick up a book about an aircraft carrier who’s not interested in aircraft, carriers, or both? Dyer’s near-total admiration for just about everyone he talks to might make this a recruiting tool, but it’s hard to imagine a teen or a twentysomething choosing this book to help them decide whether to sign up.
Regardless of what you already know about the nominal subject, you’ll find a fair amount of amusement—often what’s funny is not Dyer’s jokes but his desire to make them—and a handful of tasty, well-crafted descriptions, but what you’ll mainly get is an encounter with a person who encounters other people. No doubt it wouldn’t have done for the cover to say, “Geoff Dyer Visits an Aircraft Carrier, by Geoff Dyer”; still, that’s basically what it presents. I’m reluctant to judge him, as he’s reluctant to judge others here, but I wouldn’t have minded if he had stepped aside more often.
October 5, 2024
Dyer sounds like a bit of a twit (I was thinking of another vowel), and so self-absorbed that he barely has time to describe the aircraft carrier as a vessel, preferring instead to discuss at length his gustatory impressions. But, in the end, his impressions add up to a genuinely-felt and humanely-expressed paean to the people and the organization of the Navy.
I laughed out loud several times. The following quote is not typical, but it is representative of the kind of thing that made me laugh.
I laughed out loud several times. The following quote is not typical, but it is representative of the kind of thing that made me laugh.
Living on a subsistence diet, I alternated between manageable diarrhea, and stringy little turds. The sailors who were tucking daily into their burgers and hot dogs, meanwhile, were sitting there solidly, feet planted on the ground, straining away like weightlifters, and depositing swollen bicep-turds that put the vacuum system through its paces.
September 24, 2014
A quick, enjoyable read... Geoff Dyer embeds aboard an aircraft carrier and observes the goings-on from his characteristic Englishman-in-America perspective. He grew up in the postmath of WWII, and spent his childhood building model airplanes and daydreaming about air combat and naval deployments. So when he gets the chance to ship out with an American carrier and experience things first hand, he doesn't hesitate. As usual, Dyer writes with his trademark blend of self-deprecating wit and absurdist observational humor, and this book cracked me up in many places (see below).
At times, Another Great Day at Sea reminded me of David Foster Wallace's essay about taking a luxury cruise, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. In both cases you have a comically self-aware/insecure/neurotic pseudo-intellectual "writer-type" reporting in great detail about the mechanics of a large sea vessel, the social hierarchy of its crew, the beauty of stars at sea, and also their (the writer's) phobia about pooing in a ship commode, saying stupid things to stern men of military bearing, etc. Not to overstate the similarity-- Dyer is his own man, with his own way of stating things, different confidences and weaknesses, different fascinations. I just really enjoyed both writers' takes on this topic.
I'll end with some of the bits from this book that made me laugh.
re taking off in "ungainly propeller plane" that gets him to the carrier:
re Commander Couch's bewildering explanation of aviation technology:
re visiting the empty brig (jail):
re getting quizzed by Lieutenant Commander Ron Rancourt about the meaning of different colored nuts and bolts placed on top of minature airplanes on the Flight Deck control table:
At times, Another Great Day at Sea reminded me of David Foster Wallace's essay about taking a luxury cruise, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. In both cases you have a comically self-aware/insecure/neurotic pseudo-intellectual "writer-type" reporting in great detail about the mechanics of a large sea vessel, the social hierarchy of its crew, the beauty of stars at sea, and also their (the writer's) phobia about pooing in a ship commode, saying stupid things to stern men of military bearing, etc. Not to overstate the similarity-- Dyer is his own man, with his own way of stating things, different confidences and weaknesses, different fascinations. I just really enjoyed both writers' takes on this topic.
I'll end with some of the bits from this book that made me laugh.
re taking off in "ungainly propeller plane" that gets him to the carrier:
We were not taxiing but a noisy increase in power had taken place and the noise was deafening. I'd thought the noise was deafening when we'd first boarded but back then I didn't know anything about noise or deafeningness.
re Commander Couch's bewildering explanation of aviation technology:
'Wow,' I said during a brief lull in Couch's litany. 'This is the most A-I-E I've ever been in."
'Excuse me?'
'Acronym Intensive Environment,' I said, feeling both smart and stupid at having risked a first joke in a new place.
'That's a good one,' said Couch in a tone suggesting that there are only bad ones.
re visiting the empty brig (jail):
Hungry for gossip, for anecdote, I asked Petty Office Young if she could give me examples of serious stuff that had happened.
'With all due respect I have no authority to describe or discuss particular cases.'
I felt like I'd been told off, like I'd taken a tentative step towards trouble, towards the brig (in which I was already standing). I've always hated getting told off. If you're not going to tell me then what the bad word am I doing here? I thought to myself . Petty Officer Young, meanwhile, was telling me about another category of inmate: enemy prisoners of war. I'd like to have seen some of them, maybe even poked at them with a stick from behind the safety of the cell bars, but the brig, today, was devoid of all prisoners, friendly or hostile (pronounced American-style, as in 'youth hostel')...
From my point of view it would have been much better if the jail had been occupied, by sailors in the process of being punished, or, ideally, an Al-Qaida suspect, one of those guys with a gleaming black beard and a gentle expression whose eyes burned darkly with some implacable faith and who—for all we knew—was a just a devout Muslim and a caring father.
re getting quizzed by Lieutenant Commander Ron Rancourt about the meaning of different colored nuts and bolts placed on top of minature airplanes on the Flight Deck control table:
'You see some planes have washers on them,' said Ron. 'Which means...?'
My hand shot up—Me sir! Me sir!—and I called out the answer before the snapper [photographer] had a chance to even open his mouth. 'It means the plane needs a wash!'
'That's right.' Oh, the bliss of getting answers right, of doing so publicly and being seen to be the cleverest boy in class...
'Now, what about these planes with a wing nut on them?'
'Something to do with the wing?' snapped the snapper. 'Fold up the wings maybe?'
'You got it,' said Ron. The snapper had equalized, but here's the thing that marks me out as a leader, as SEAL material. I didn't sit there glowering, sulking or licking my wounds. Before Ron asked his next question, before I even knew there was going to be another question, I was looking round the board to see what other symbolic cargo the planes were carrying. So by the time Ron asked the question, about the planes with a little jack on them, I had already—repeat: Alpha, Lima, Romeo, Echo, Alpha, Delta, Yankee, already—worked out the answer by reference to intel gained just hours before, and was able to sing it out before he'd even finished his sentence.
'The aircraft's been jarred on landing and needs to be put on jacks, sir!' I didn't wait for Ron to say, 'Affirmative' or 'Correct', I just held my arms aloft, fists clenched, basking in it. In what? In that raising-the-flag-on-Iwo-Jima, watching-the-Zulus-slink-away-from-Rorke's-Drift glow otherwise known as V for victory in a Q for quiz.
May 4, 2024
Geoff Dyer wanted to write a book about life aboard a ship, but he hates all aspects of living on a ship—such as sharing sleeping quarters—so he kept finding ways to just not do anything the regular way for the two weeks he spent on board the USS George H. W. Bush.
As I hoped to read a book about life on a ship in general and not Geoff Dyer's super specific two weeks spent on a ship, which included him likening eating the chef's delicious food to having sex with her for some reason, this book was entirely useless. And frankly also a waste of time.
As I hoped to read a book about life on a ship in general and not Geoff Dyer's super specific two weeks spent on a ship, which included him likening eating the chef's delicious food to having sex with her for some reason, this book was entirely useless. And frankly also a waste of time.
Read
July 19, 2014Picked this up because of Michael Robbins's nice review in the Trib:
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/20...
Dyer had me on p.13 with an allusion to the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: "...the carrier was the world and, as such, was all that was the case". And I felt I had an intimate understanding of his character based on what he says about building model airplanes as a kid--namely, that the Phantom was the best because it could carry the most, nastiest looking ordnance, and that the British Electric Lightning and Buccaneer were the best-looking British jets. And I'm sympathetic to the urge to condemn war while aestheticizing military aircraft. He says that he protested the Falklands war while relishing footage of British harriers flying off British carriers.
But if Dyer aestheticizes weapons of war as much as he says he does, I don't know why he guesses that the machine guns in the doors of the MH-60R that he rides around in are .50cals (p.101), when they are clearly 7.62mm (as is visible in the first picture in the picture plates in the book).
Writing this reminds me of this: http://www.theonion.com/articles/peac...
Anyway, loved this.
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/20...
Dyer had me on p.13 with an allusion to the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus: "...the carrier was the world and, as such, was all that was the case". And I felt I had an intimate understanding of his character based on what he says about building model airplanes as a kid--namely, that the Phantom was the best because it could carry the most, nastiest looking ordnance, and that the British Electric Lightning and Buccaneer were the best-looking British jets. And I'm sympathetic to the urge to condemn war while aestheticizing military aircraft. He says that he protested the Falklands war while relishing footage of British harriers flying off British carriers.
But if Dyer aestheticizes weapons of war as much as he says he does, I don't know why he guesses that the machine guns in the doors of the MH-60R that he rides around in are .50cals (p.101), when they are clearly 7.62mm (as is visible in the first picture in the picture plates in the book).
Writing this reminds me of this: http://www.theonion.com/articles/peac...
Anyway, loved this.
May 31, 2017
The premise is great. A journalist giving us the day to day view of a nuclear aircraft carrier. And the excerpt I read fulfilled the promise. But the book itself is so focused on the author, his eating, expelling, sleeping habits and his phobias...has the man never used a public toilet before? While he writes about his great respect for the men and women serving, his words and actions belie that respect. He seems to be a condescending jerk...he writes of the stomach turning engorgement at meal time as if only he had the sensibilities to distinguish good food from bad. Perhaps if he had to work as hard as they did, he might eat whatever put before him rather than scrounge around for yoghurt and plums (canned at that...which of course he tells us). He has a whole chapter on his doubts about being able to write this story as well as Tom Wolfe wrote a similar tale. Needless to say, I agree with him here, he should have chucked the whole project. The most annoying part is the glimpse you get of shipboard life, and wish he'd spent a little energy on getting the details and telling the story (rather than continually bemoaning his inability to remember or understand something...like names, rank, job, etc. ). Truly a waste of money
May 23, 2015
Not being a fan of military nonfiction, I wasn’t expecting to like this book. Since I already had a ticket to Dyer’s recent reading in Houston, though, I decided to go along because I’ve heard so many positive things about him over the years without ever managing to read one of his books. Dyer’s reading was so funny, generous, and charming that I bought a copy of the book on my way out and started reading it almost immediately. I’m glad I did.
Another Great Day at Sea is not journalism, and Dyer doesn’t get hung up on the facts. Instead, it’s a very personal memoir of one man’s experience of spending two weeks on an aircraft carrier. There’s no political agenda here, and despite what is said in many of the unfairly negative reviews here and on Amazon, Dyer clearly respects the people he meets onboard as well as the larger institution of the U.S. Navy. Oh, and did I mention that this book is funny…I mean, laugh-out-loud funny. It’s also peppered with literary allusions and witty asides. I’m off to explore Dyer’s backlist.
Another Great Day at Sea is not journalism, and Dyer doesn’t get hung up on the facts. Instead, it’s a very personal memoir of one man’s experience of spending two weeks on an aircraft carrier. There’s no political agenda here, and despite what is said in many of the unfairly negative reviews here and on Amazon, Dyer clearly respects the people he meets onboard as well as the larger institution of the U.S. Navy. Oh, and did I mention that this book is funny…I mean, laugh-out-loud funny. It’s also peppered with literary allusions and witty asides. I’m off to explore Dyer’s backlist.
June 9, 2014
I read the reviews by other reviewers and completely understand their dissatisfaction with the book--the author is a real complainer and is awfully self-referential. It takes at least 50 pages to get into it. So why the three (it would be 3 1/2 if I could) stars? Because there's something beguiling about the way he finds his way into the hearts of the men and women serving on this aircraft carrier, and brings their longings and desires to us. It humanizes our military in a way that an insider or a critic could not.
It's, well, tender is the word that comes to mind. Not a word frequently associated with military non-fiction, but apt here. For that, I honor it. And add to the fact that after about four chapters I was hooked. Well worth the whining!
It's, well, tender is the word that comes to mind. Not a word frequently associated with military non-fiction, but apt here. For that, I honor it. And add to the fact that after about four chapters I was hooked. Well worth the whining!
June 20, 2016
This is a hillarious, witty and and complete non-military description of life in an aircraft carrier. The author's narrative is good and engaging but it fails terribly if the reader is looking for some technical "how-it-works" kind of thing.
An aircraft carrier is an epitome of amalgamation of different desciplines of engineering/science and represnts the awesome military power amassaed at one point which can be floated to wherever place America wants to project its power. Having said that, the expectations from the book were high.
Readers who really want to know the inside and military outllok of an aircraft carrier are encouraged to watch CBS video or read Tom Clancy's non-fictional book "Carriers"
An aircraft carrier is an epitome of amalgamation of different desciplines of engineering/science and represnts the awesome military power amassaed at one point which can be floated to wherever place America wants to project its power. Having said that, the expectations from the book were high.
Readers who really want to know the inside and military outllok of an aircraft carrier are encouraged to watch CBS video or read Tom Clancy's non-fictional book "Carriers"
December 1, 2014
A novel idea for a non-fiction military book: send a British writer with lots of personal idiosyncrasies to live on an American aircraft carrier for two weeks. He is too tall for the passages, he cannot share a room, he cannot eat the chow the sailors eat, and the list goes on.
Yet, instead of concentrating on the whiz-bank weapons and technology of the modern aircraft carrier, Geoff Dyer spends time with the officers and sailors on "the boat" including their families, their lives, their religions, and their expertise. What emerges is a wonderful picture of life at sea among highly skilled technicians and managers.
We come away with strong positive feelings for our Navy and its personnel. I strongly recommend this book.
Yet, instead of concentrating on the whiz-bank weapons and technology of the modern aircraft carrier, Geoff Dyer spends time with the officers and sailors on "the boat" including their families, their lives, their religions, and their expertise. What emerges is a wonderful picture of life at sea among highly skilled technicians and managers.
We come away with strong positive feelings for our Navy and its personnel. I strongly recommend this book.
June 25, 2014
Though this is a subject I had no particular interest in exploring, Dyer takes the reader through the fascinating world of life on an aircraft carrier. We learn what the crew is engaged in, that no alcohol is allowed, that most of those serving are about 20 years old, and that they are purposely kept busy most of the time. And there is a "jail" on board when they do get into trouble. Dyer had to be accompanied at all times or he'd be lost. (At least that is what the journalist was told.) From the kitchens to the flight deck, Dyer shares what he learned in the two weeks he lived on board. Fascinating, at times funny, and very informative.
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