Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi

by Geoff Dyer

A wildly original novel of erotic fulfillment and spiritual yearning.

Every two years the international art world descends on Venice for the opening of the Biennale. Among them is Jeff Atman–a jaded and dissolute journalist–whose dedication to the cause of Bellini-fuelled partygoing is only intermittently disturbed by the obligation to file a story. When he meets the spellbinding Laura, he is rejuvenated and ecstatic. Their romance blossoms quickly, but is it destined to disappear just as rapidly?

Every day thousands of pilgrims head to the banks of the Ganges at Varanasi, the holiest Hindu city in India. Among their number is a narrator who may or may not be the Atman previously seen in Venice. Intending to visit only for a few days he ends up staying for months, and suddenly finds–or should that be loses?–a hitherto unexamined idea of himself, the self. In a romance he can only observe, he sees a reflection of the kind of pleasures that, willingly or not, he has renounced. In the process, two ancient and watery cities become versions of each other. Could two stories, in two different cities, actually be one and the same story?

Nothing Geoff Dyer has written before is as wonderfully unbridled, as dead-on in evocation of place, longing and the possibility of neurotic enlightenment, and as irrepressibly entertaining as Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi.

Genres: Fiction, Travel, India, Italy, Literary Fiction, British Literature, Book Club

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2008

About the author

Geoff 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

Reviews

[Baba · Rating 2 out of 5]

Geoff Dyer's critically acclaimed semi-autobiographical cum-travelogue part black comedy about an aging, recently separated journalist on assignment in Venice, Italy; and then later in Varanasi, on the Ganges, in India; and his adventures on these assignments. Ultimately, in my opinion, about a non-native trying to build a life (or indeed lives) on the the watery foundations of places like Venice and Varanasi, and no matter what glib brief respites gained by 'Jeff' on assignment, the foundation of both his living and the book itself are ultimately weak. Worth a read for the black humour alone, if that is your cup of tea, as Dyer makes clever, almost spiteful attacks on the art world and Westerners seeking solutions from the East. Just a 4 out of 12, Two Star read overall.

2011 read

[Steven Godin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I read Geoff Dyer's Paris Trance back in 2015 and absolutely loved it. It was then probably my favourite novel by a British writer. This was going great too, up until the point when Geoff dumped Jeff on another Continent. Although a novel, it felt more like two longish novellas featuring the same character. I much preferred the first story to the second.
But overall Paris Trance walked all over this.

I'd break it down like this -

Jeff in Venice: Parties. Beautiful women. Sex. Coke. A feeling of euphoria.

Death in Varanasi: Shit. An abundance of shit. Dogs eating humans. Illness & disease.

Dyer's protagonist is Jeff Atman, a forty-five-year old London based journalist who covers the art world. He doesn't like his job, nor his greying hair, which he decides to dye. It must take some guts for a man to go to the Barber's and ask for this, but Jeff does. Maybe he didn't like the idea of getting all messy at home with Just for Men. Anyway, it takes years off him and he feels great.

He sets off to Venice to write about the Biennale, and it's here that echoes of Thomas Mann's austere hero Gustav von Aschenbach from Death in Venice start to emerge. Only it isn't a boy that catches Jeff's eye but rather a ravishing Californian woman called Laura. After first getting acquainted through small talk and flirting, they eventually find themselves gripped by lust, and end up having lots of sex. They also like to snort lots of a certain white powder too. But like that of a holiday romance, their sexual bliss can't last forever, and eventually their fun comes to an end as Laura departs Venice. Two becomes one, and Jeff just mopes about feeling glum.

If the first part of the novel spoils itself on fleshly pleasures and drugs, then the second part empties itself of these temptations, and is dominated by the holy river of life and death: the Ganges. Although the narrator here is nameless, one would presume it is Jeff Atman, or at least someone of a similar age and occupation. He has come to Varanasi, one of the holiest sites of Hindu pilgrimage, to write a piece for a London newspaper, and with time becoming less important to him during his stay, he extends it, and goes in search of some kind of spiritual enlightenment, whilst also constantly trying to fight off stomach flu.

There is no doubt that Dyer's wonderful and keen observations, both pungent and sometimes strangely amusing, are kept for the second part of the book. It really felt like the reader was sucked straight to the heart of Varanasi, whereas Venice didn't feel so much like Venice. Nevertheless, I still preferred the moral emptiness to the first story.

[Fionnuala]

'Dazzling', 'wonderfully entertaining', 'extraordinarily reflective' 'Dyer can write as beautifully as Lawrence and Proust', are just a small sample of the critics' comments from the inside cover of this book. So why have am I so unimpressed? Yesterday, when I finished it, my review might have read as follows: 'I have nothing to say about this book because I am unwilling to spend any more of my precious time trying to think of something to write that won't be too harsh and dismissive.' Instead, I decided to sleep on it and see if a new day might offer me a different perspective and indeed today I did find some positive things to say.
The book is full of literary and artistic references which I always find interesting but I do like them to have a purpose and I did not always understand their purpose in this novel. Direct references are made to Thomas Mann, Mary McCarthy (Dyer used the quotes from her very well), D H Lawrence, Henry James, Somerset Maugham and other writers too, but nothing much is made of the references. Dyer also refers to some Venetian artists, to Giorgione, although I failed to understand why he kept underlining the threatening storm in Giorgione's version of The Tempest, and to Tintoretto's paintings in the San Rocco church which was one of the better bits in the book. He also mentions many, many contemporary artists. This is valid referencing since the first part of the book is set during a Venice Biennale but eventually the listing of names became boring. There were also some more veiled literary references, the most intriguing for me were the subtle evocations of Dante and his Beatrice, especially in the pieces about Isobel, in the second part.
Considering all of this literary citation, I expected the writing to be more polished but instead I found it very variable in quality, even awkward at times, forcing me to reread some sentences in order to grasp their meaning. I didn't find the the story elements in the Venice section compelling in any way. The 'Julia' theme might have been interesting but Dyer didn't develop it at all and by the end of the first half, I was ready to abandon the book but then the story veered off in a different direction, to Varanasi in India, this time with a first person narrator. Ah, I thought, now it will be interesting, especially since I'd just read Damon Galgut's 'In A Strange Room' which has a section about India. Damon Galgut's writing is part travelogue, part story and he is very good at weaving together fact and fiction without losing the reader through boredom or incredulity. Galgut isn't interested in plot as such but the reader quickly accepts this and follows the story wherever it leads because his writing is so good and his voice is so deeply human. I tried to apply this principle to Dyer's Indian section as it seemed to be some sort of travel writing. I tried very hard to follow the narrator without question in his wanderings around Varanasi but Dyer kept throwing in plot hooks which distracted me and lead nowhere and the narrator's voice sounded so banal, even smug at times. On several occasions, thinly disguised references were made to elements of the Venice section leading the reader to suppose that some connection would eventually emerge between the two. I didn't particularly need this connection to be made but Dyer did lead me to expect it. Instead he offered a different resolution. Not death as the title might suggest but a sort of living death, for the narrator, and for the reader. I was relieved when it was over.

[Warwick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Like a lot of Dyer's books, this is a fertile mix of fact and fiction squeezed into an innovative structure. I say ‘innovative’, but I suppose you could with equal justification (if less generosity) call it lazy. It's basically two short books next to each other, sharing a central character (or so we assume) and a few themes and incidental details, but otherwise diverging in location and narrative. I absolutely loved Jeff in Venice, I was less impressed by Death in Varanasi, and I'm still not sure what I think about how well the two interact.

For at least the first half, though, I was in heaven. Admittedly, I made an ideal reader: it's about a jaded English journalist visiting Venice to make a report on the Biennale, and I read it as a jaded ex-journalist while in Venice making a report about the Biennale. But I just found the writing so funny that it induced a kind of cumulative hysteria in me. Dyer is excellent on the almost-forgotten subject of travelling from one country to another, from the logistics of transport onwards:

He had been longing for the flight to be over; now he was longing for the bus ride to be over. At what point would the longing for things to be over be over so that he could reside squarely in the present?

Not, it turned out, when the bus journey ended because he then had to struggle through the coach-crowded bus terminal, with his bags, in the baking heat. It was like being in the Italian version of an oily, hugely demoralizing art installation called This Vehicle is Reversing.

Most of this story concerns Jeff's romance with fellow-visitor Laura, a romance told in a series of long, flirty conversations that are the closest thing I can ever remember reading to actually chatting someone up. Normally in books this sort of thing is done with a couple of clever-clever witticisms and some bullshit comments about something mysterious kindling in his eyes, or her loins. Here by contrast the dialogue is long, plausibly hit-and-miss, and quite exciting to be part of – culminating in some equally believable and pretty hot sex scenes.

The second section, Death in Varanasi, switches to the first-person to narrate a kind of travel diary of an extended stay in India's spiritual capital. It begins very much as an outsider's commentary, with baffled, intrigued notes on the dirt, the traffic, the religious activity, and the grungy backpackers (who ‘often had the slightly hardened look of men accustomed to spending evenings on their own, reading Mr Nice or selections from Gurdjieff’). But our narrator, on his own in a town where everyone is making connections, gradually becomes drawn into the life of Varanasi, and increasingly disappears into it.

The obvious question is, what is the connection between these two narratives? Venice and Varanasi are both quite watery towns, I suppose…both old towns, with a lot of ruined palaces in them. The both begin with V? After that it gets harder to see what's going on. Some themes do recur – the power of art, the nature of loneliness, the appeal of bananas – but the reader has to do quite a lot of work if she wants to join the dots in a very satisfying way. In a sense, the obvious answer is simply that Venice was a town with Laura in it; Varanasi is a town without her in it. She's never mentioned in the second section, but in a way it's just a long description of her absence.

Whether or not it exactly works as a coherent piece, I really enjoyed the experience of it on a sentence-by-sentence level. Dyer is a good traveller, full of sharp observations and infinite irony, but most of all he's a great writer, whose mastery of the conversational style can make it easy to miss how smart and well put together his phrasing really is. Mix yourself a bellini (or a bhang lassi) and enjoy.

[notgettingenough · Rating 1 out of 5]

The author of has been called a 'national treasure'. It's at times like this that Brexit makes sense to me.

I tried hard. I put up with the wanky cleverness, that Brit fake self-deprecation thing. I looked up bullshit pop artists I've never heard of so that I could be in the know for the humour. Want to put that word in inverted commas. I put up with the male idea of how sex should happen, though I sped-read the first instance and entirely skipped the second. But who's counting? Half way through the Jeff part, I decided maybe reading from the back of the book forward would be better, but it wasn't. I've been to Venice. It was hot as hell. But does that meteorological fact really have to fill so much of these pages? Maybe if you are a Brit it does. Maybe Brit readers go OMG, it was hot in the morning....now it's afternoon and it's HOT...maybe it'll be hot in the EVENING TOO. Unbearable tension, will it be resolved?  To be fair, there was also binge drinking and hangovers, should you find them as interesting as Amis did.

I have a female friend who, God knows why, won't read books by women. This is going to be her Christmas present.

The friend who suggested this to me introduced me to Tim Parks. How could she have got one so right and one so wrong?

[knig · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I imbibed David Deutch’s ‘theory of everything’ in ‘Fabric of Reality’, in which a multiversal universe accommodates a cotillion of copies of each of us living parallel lives, it was all very theoretical and frankly needed someone to come along, pull it off the shelf, and give it some real life applicability. Geoff Dyer duly obliges. He offers ‘Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi’. Which also proves that the Deutschian ‘theory of everything’ is tighly correlated with A Queneuesque take on reality, as in ‘Exercise in Style’.



Jeff is named in the first novella: a washed out, past his sell by date, rudderless freelance newspaper writer . He is not named as such in the second novella, but ….we know. Its another washed out newspaper writer. Some might posit the second novella is a continuation of the first: that it’s the same protag and we just keep following his story. Dyer leaves it open like that. Me, I like the parallel universe theory better and choose to see it as same person, taking different forks in parallel universes. In Venice, is where I think Jeff actually dies. Not physically, of course, but his raison d’etre, on the wane, seems to just dissipate in the end, petering out like the proverbial ‘candle in the wind’. And ironically, in Varnasi is where the protag finally discovers peace, of the mind and soul, and if he is not exactly reborn, then at least he forges on with equilibrium, and intention.



Obviously Dyer conforms brazenly to cliché: one loses meaning in the western world (in Venice) and finds it in the Eastern (Varnasi). No brownie points for that one. Still, he does it with finesse and with subtlety, with such understatement that it allows us to grant him leave for this little peccadillo. Dyer shies away from bombastic statements (on the staus quo), and so the protag’s complete ‘distillment’ in Venice is less a statement and more an allusion, an ephemeral whisper or nuance which the subconscious recognises. Similarly there is no ‘redemption’ as such in Varnasi. In both Venice and Varnasi the protag remains alone and diddipated, but in Varnasi there is a ‘rebalancing’ of the chakra which, although it brings no particular ‘meaning of life’ motif, goes some way to alleviating the churn, despair and hopelessness present in Venice.



Neither option (novella) offers solace or solution for those middle aged specimens of humanity who are fast becoming disillusioned with life but have (yet) to re-orienteer themselves and find new purpose. Jeff in Venice simply doesn’t (can’t) do it, and Nameless protag in Varnassi simply gives up trying and finds peace in the ‘not trying’. Whilst superficially both can be classed as ‘failed heroes’, perhaps too pathetic and lacking in purpose, drive and vision to ‘move forward’ rather than tread in one place, constantly, or perhaps steeped in ‘analysis paralysis’:



‘I’m in mourning for myself…my old self refuses to die. The new is struggling to be reborn. In this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear’ (pg 278)



Yet at the same time I secretly rejoice. Because Dyer is showing me a way ‘forward’ nevertheless. That its OK to lose your way, and even if you never find it again, you can still have peace. Dante’s purgatory need not apply. It may be a coward’s consolation, but …..I’ll take it.

[Alana · Rating 4 out of 5]

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

I've been on the lookout for Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi even before its release in hardcover, but I couldn't tell you why. Perhaps it wasn't anything more than the allure of Venice (which is really all it takes for me to be interested), but I was delighted when I found a copy at a stoop sale, thus saving me the hardcover price and the paperback wait time. I cannot quite remember what I expected, but it wasn't this... and yet that's not at all a bad thing. Dyer's book continually surprised me with its insight and descriptive detail that vividly inserts the reader into the scene, whether that's the Biennale or the ghats along the Ganges. After reading up on Geoff Dyer, one can tell that the fellow writes books that defy genres and this book is no different. It might be presented as a novel, but really it feels more like two novellas or stories, the first taking place in Venice and the second in Varanasi. It could just as easily be described as a travel book, for each story is as interested in the city as the narrator (indeed, the narrator's interest in the city often deflects us from discovering more about the narrator).

The first part, "Jeff in Venice" features our narrator, Jeff Atman, a C-level freelance journalist attending the Biennale in Venice with the additional objective of interviewing a woman whose fame exists by association -- she was once the lover of an artist, had his child, and raised the girl, who is now rising to her own stardom as a singer. Atman is to interview her, obtain the rights to a never-before-seen sketch from the famous artist who was her lover, and also photograph the woman as she is now. Of course, Atman is also just happy to be at the Biennale, which apparently causes a segment of the London population to be transported to Venice for a few days: "You came to Venice, you saw a ton of art, you went to parties, you drank up a storm, you talked bollocks for hours on end and went back to London with a cumulative hangover, liver damage, a notebook almost devoid of notes and the first tingle of a cold sore." The stated objective might be to see a large amount of art, but clearly everyone seems bent on consuming as many bellinis and as much free risotto as they possibly can. (There's a fantastic examination of human nature in a particular scene that involves the promise of free risotto and the anger when it does not manifest.) Jeff is a pretty impressive cynic when it comes to this scene, but then, he's also incredibly funny as a guide that's tired of it all and yet cannot bear the idea of being left out. It's this humor that makes everything even more delightful than it already would be as simply an examination of a yearly Venetian event. Early on, Jeff meets Laura, a beautiful woman with whom Jeff has instant chemistry (unsurprisingly, Laura is an American with a dolphin tattoo though surprisingly only seems to have a tame supply of white cotton panties). Dyer paints some wonderfully erotic scenes and as their whirlwind romance begins, the reader (along with Jeff) is left to wonder where it all might lead in the twisting canals of such an eternal city.

Of course, from the very title of the book, one has to think of Thomas Mann's Death in Venice and will notice multiple nods along the way. Is Jeff is Aschenbach and is Laura Tadzio? Well, if only by virtue of the rampant sex and the age of consent for both parties, no... but in Varanasi, we have another beautiful woman that Jeff looks at with a more diluted sense of attraction and this relationship will never come to fruition. The real thing to notice here is that Jeff is always longing for something. Just because one desire is fulfilled, it doesn't mean another does not take its place. When we head off to Varanasi, we find the other half of Mann's title, though perhaps not the same Aschenbach fate. (Side note: there's no assurance that the narrator of the second half of the novel is the same Jeff Atman, as there are no specific ties. Yes, the narrator is a journalist from London who is now traveling in Varanasi, a location which had come up in discussions between Laura and Jeff during their time in Venice, but there's no absolute affirmation. Of course, the reader inevitably assumes they must be the same man and, indeed, assumes that his experience in Varanasi takes place after that of the one in Venice.)

There is a palpable difference between the stories; gone are the swarms of art world bellini-swillers. Instead, in the "Death in Varanasi" section, we have a man traveling alone and veering off on a very different kind of bender; this one is full of the concept of emptying one's self and focusing on the present, one's surroundings, and the life that occurs in Varanasi. Of course, where we had sex in Venice, there's death aplenty in Varanasi. It all seems to originate from the funerals and burning pyres on the ghats of the Ganges... and then it simply spirals out to touch everything with the knowledge that life is very fragile indeed. From terrifying taxi rides to horrifying squalor to quite disgusting illnesses... well, we're a long way from the Biennale. Atman has companions from time to time, other travelers who drift in and out, but Atman himself rather loses his desire to travel away from Varanasi and so stays in his hotel and simply exists. It's not really as though he's waiting for something, but rather, he's slowly exploring the location, taking his time and doing whatever he pleases. There's a distinct sense of melancholy, but then, this could also be interpreted as a kind of solitary peace that simply feels sadder in comparison with the parties in Venice. Jeff still seems to be seeking something, if not "enlightenment" exactly, then some kind of understanding... yet this quieter and more personal longing is starkly different from the erotic and professional longing experienced in Venice. That might be called more frivolous, but then, it could also be simply one side of a coin that represents the longing for life.

Both of these cities seem to rise up from the water, but they do very different things to the pilgrims who travel to them... or do they? Once thinks of Venice as being about life and love (even if it's swirling out of control with drugs and alcohol), whereas the holy city of Varanasi at first sight appears to be more about death and sickness (though this, in turn, makes the city a city of life, too). Venice personifies consuming passions whereas Varanasi is emptying one's self of everything (be this in a spiritual sense or a physical sense that involves copious amounts of vomiting and such). It's not that Varanasi is a bad place, necessarily, but for the casual tourist, it will seem rather dirty and squalid. As a holy city, the tourist attraction oddly lies with the ghats on the Ganges and several times, the narrator watches bodies being burned. A great deal of time is spent musing on this sacred river that seems so polluted and yet is such a source of life, but the whole time in Varanasi is not spent musing on death by any means. Jeff is, essentially, mesmerized by the life in Varanasi, from the dancing that occurs beside burning funeral pyres to the complexities of the Indian music as spontaneous jam sessions develop on the terrace of his hotel. Some very humorous scenes arise, often involving monkeys -- it almost seems like cheating in travelogues to visit a place with monkeys, as they provide reliable humor. It's as though the only way the narrator really comes to appreciate and enjoy life in Varanasi is by staying to see beyond the constant requests for money (for boat rides, for tours, for temples, for beggars) and the filthy conditions. Many fascinating experiences arise from this time in Varanasi, but when one compares the two sections, one has to wonder if a certain amount of the spiritual discussion in Varanasi is not so different from all the bollocks one talked in Venice. In Varanasi, Jeff watches two of his friends embark upon a romance and he remains the one outside. There are echoes of each story in the other, though each left me with very different emotions.

Naturally, the reader will have to notice the comparison between Geoff the author and Jeff the narrator. Even if they're not the same person, there is great significance in a character that shares the author's name and several descriptive traits. The New York Times review described it as such: "Jeff, in other words, feels a lot like Geoff: an all-purpose writer for the high-end British papers and a determined idler whose love of freeloading can never quite conceal his hunger for something deeper and more transcendent." It's easy to think of Jeff as an alternate version of Geoff... indeed, Atman is apparently Hindu for the true and universal self. Read into that what you will, but I count it as another one of Dyer's playful touches. Above all, the thing I enjoyed was Atman's tone, which was incredibly intelligent and self-aware, unafraid to be honest and yet still allowing for the chance that things could be just what they seemed and yet still be more (at one point Atman says "it’s possible to be a hundred percent sincere and a hundred percent ironic at the same time").

So ultimately, I quite enjoyed the novel and really, if I haven't processed all of it, I'm not too concerned. It's a novel that stays with you and to which your thoughts will occasionally drift back. I'll certainly be seeking out more of Geoff Dyer's work, though I shall take great pleasure in adding this book to my list of authors who have fallen in love with Venice and on whom I can rely when I need to dip into their adventures and remember the taste of that great city.

[Sunil · Rating 4 out of 5]

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


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


The action moves to very ‘otter’ than ever before Venice. Jeff, portrayed as somewhat of an outsider at the international art scene, trudges along the parties and galleries gulping Bellinis and snorting Cocaine. He meets Laura an American gallery owner (or was she a curator?) Anyway, they hit off. They roam around piazzos and gallerias cracking airy drunken jokes and witty repartees at each other. They duly end up doing what two people who hit off are expected to do – have roaring sex! The segment is well written – cynical but dipped in comical smugness, an unmistakable sense of lurking gaiety pervades through the pages as Jeff looks down upon the clichés and the quirks of art world between his broad range of experiences in Venice - absolute aimlessness ( keenly observing a pigeon on a pavement or snorting cocaine in a cathedral) to kinky sex and snogging in public toilets. He even manages to get stoned with his celebrity interviewee. I loved the sense of humour that Dyer smuggles into this segment - not overt yet well ingrained within the dialogues. There are quite a bit of puns too. (Dyer – hair dye etc)


The second part is the story of an unnamed protagonist (May be Dyer / may be Jeff, it is never revealed ) who gets assigned ( ? again) at the last minute as a substitute to write an article about Varanasi the historical-holy city of the Hindus.

He starts off at a typical arm's distance – mildly disdainful of the poor hygiene and the mad Indian traffic, but slowly gets drawn into the Hindu idea of the life and universe. He overstays well past his assignment, gets initially attracted to a fellow Brit and later a Swiss traveler but not as much as to the city itself which continually entices him like a long lost lover, unraveling through its strange inhabitants and mysterious ways that appear, at once, both profound and meaningless to him. Under such contradictions he grows more interested in mulling over his existence and life in general; he becomes more distant from his wants and lacks, finally he is shown to develop abstract spiritual ideas of his own.

The second segment, needless to say, is more engaging - the Dyer potshots are more subtle though at times gross and unnecessary ( talking goat - a chide at Rushdie and other magical realists). The description of the scape is more detailed, which lingers away as the book progresses. The change to within is well captured, as the protagonist turns more reflective and zany by the page.


At times the book was predictable, at parts needed tighter writing, but generally I liked it. It's in my favourite genre too, if it is one at all: part memoir, part travelogue, and part philosophy without any plot whatsoever. Readers looking for plots are suggested to make an easier choice. I loved both the novellas, each I could personally relate to: hedonistic frivolity of the west and the silent fatalism of the east. The book draws its title from the old Thomas Mann classic – Death in Venice - a novel that also deals with the same themes of life and death but with somewhat greater intensity.

This is a love it or hate it sort of a book. I get a feeling that goes for Dyer as a writer too. Once you finished the book it’s not hard to see why Dyer chose to weave in the two cities as a part of a book. In essence, the book is about these two cities, their similarities and contradictions. Both are very distinct cities – literally poles apart yet very similar. Varanasi being symbol of the abstractness of Hindu philosophy while Venice an international art hub of sorts. Both attract travellers but for totally different reasons.

Venice isn’t as detailed as Varanasi in the book, but I still suppose, it’s fair to say that the book is a charming tribute to both the cities, a sort of testimonial that makes you run to them the very next holiday. I haven’t been to Varanasi but I already feel I know a lot about it. I’ve even been googling hotel Ganges View.

[Dejan Dukovski · Rating 4 out of 5]

Upoznavanje sa Dyer-om je bilo sa "But Beautiful - knjiga o jazzu" i bila je jako dobra, ali nikako nisam naleteo (a nisam ni tražio) na neku drugu njegovu knjigu. Ovaj noviji naslov je diptih, dve knjige u jednu, totalno različite i osim glavnog junaka koji ničim nije povezan sa prvim delom osim imenom i da je iz Londona, nema nešto što ove dve knjiige povezuje.
Prva, šmekerska, erotična, Bellini, šampanjac, Venecijansko Bienalle, one night stand, bez mnogo mudrih stvari (a tu je Dyerr odličan), druga, Benares (Indija), gatovi, siromaštvo, dizenterija, prolivi majmuni i krave, bez puno dijaloga već, roman toka svesti.
Za moj ukus odličan roman(i).

[Drew · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I was younger, I'd often go to someone's cottage (everyone knew someone who had a cottage on the Finger Lakes) on July 3 for what was called the Ring of Fire: everyone with a cottage around the lake would make a big bonfire, big enough to see from across the lake. This was also an excuse to get rip-roaringly drunk and play lawn games and swim in the lake and zoom around in boats. Not that I was getting drunk; I was just a kid. My whole point here though is that these parties were inevitably populated by the sort of guy I imagine Geoff Dyer to be: articulate, witty, middle-aged boozehounds who can somehow pull off khaki shorts and are inexplicably good at badminton.

These guys were American, and Geoff Dyer is English, of course, but I think the only change that signifies is that he's actually more likely to be good at badminton.

At any rate, as a kid, I was more interested in hanging out with these guys than with the other kids my own age, badminton notwithstanding. Was it because they let me taste their beer? That was probably a factor, but more likely it was that they were so relentlessly entertaining, and as I was a precocious and similarly entertaining child, they treated me more or less like a member of the group.

I keep forgetting what the point of this comparison was. I think it was that Dyer seems like a good guy, the sort of guy you'd want to hang out and drink beer with. The sort of guy who can always be relied upon for a pithy* observation about just about anything.

But is the book good? It depends on what you're looking for. In terms of literary substance, it's a bit lightweight. What we're talking about is just an author stand-in (this is why I feel like I know Dyer so well) wandering around Venice and Varanasi, making pithy observations about just about everything (see?) Only towards the end of each respective section does anything particularly profound appear. A couple of examples of these observations:

"He had been longing for the flight to be over; now he was longing for the bus ride to be over. At what point would the longing for things to be over be over so that he could reside squarely in the present?"

"A pleasing side-effect of taking drugs is that once you have had some you access, as if by magic, the drug scene[. . .] As soon as he had snorted this [cocaine], James said again what a great pleasure it was to have them aboard but, if they would excuse him, he felt he should attend to his other guests. With that he stood up and left the room, shutting the door carefully behind him. Wow, Jeff was thinking to himself, this is not just the drug scene, this is the yacht scene. I'm part of the drug-yacht scene! And what a great scene it was to be part of."

(after getting ambushed by a bunch of pickpocketish Indian children) "They were hopping round excitedly holding something aloft -- something that flashed in the sunlight -- as though it were a trophy, the spoils of a raid. I checked my belongings: I still had my camera, my iPod; my money belt was still around my waist. And then I realized: they had made off with something. The object I had seen them waving excitedly in the air was my can of Coke." (this being interesting mostly for what he leaves unsaid: the difference in wealth between him and these kids being so great that he couldn't even figure out what it was they stole and were so happy about.)

That type of quote is pretty frequent, almost one interesting observation or turn of phrase per page. So if that's your thing, you will definitely like this. If not, probably skip it.

*Apparently 'pithy' doesn't mean quite what I want it to mean. The dictionary says 'brief, forceful, and meaningful' which is part of what I want; the other part is 'witty'.

[Trin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is one of those books that makes me feel stupid. It’s made up of two interrelated novellas, the first of which follows an English reporter named Jeff as he covers the Biennale in Venice; the second finds a nameless English reporter, possibly the same man, losing himself in Varanasi. Both halves have moments of beauty, of occasionally wonderfully incisive description and even humor, and both also have their share of extreme WTF. The Venice portion, in particular, is full of lengthy and highly-detailed descriptions of, frankly, some of the least-erotic-sounding sex I have ever encountered. It’s kinky (UNEXPECTED GOLDEN SHOWERS ARE UNEXPECTED) but never sensual, and what I kept coming back to was—what is the point of this exactly?

I felt that way about the whole book. Dyer is clearly a smart, clever writer, and I felt like he was obviously reaching toward some deeper meaning…but I could never touch it, could barely glimpse it. So what I was left with was mostly the story of a privileged white dude being emo in exotic locales. Which, you know, yawn.

Possibly I am missing something awesome. But I am still missing it, and I am not sure if that’s my fault or Dyer’s.

[Sazuru · Rating 4 out of 5]

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

[Ieva · Rating 2 out of 5]

Mana otrā izvēle šī mēneša grāmatu klubam, kas lasa jebkā apbalvotās grāmatas. Izvēli veicu pateicoties StarFM rīta raidījumam, kurā Sipeniece stāstīja, ka Anglijā esot Vudhauza prēmija, ko piešķir labākajiem komiskās literatūras darbiem, bet šogad to nav saņēmis neviens, jo neesot darba, kas būtu sasmīdinājis visus žūrijas locekļus. Nolēmu sameklēt, kas no to prēmiju saņēmušajiem darbiem ir tulkots latviski.
Šī priekšvēsture ir būtiska, jo mans galvenais vērtējums par Džefu ir tāds, ka, ja es būtu tajā žūrijā, arī 2009. gadā Vudhauza prēmija būtu palikusi bez saņēmēja. Ja vēl grāmatas sākumā vismaz brīžiem nodomāju, ka ir "jā, smieklīgi", tad uz beigām man Džefs jau krita uz nerviem un vienkārši gribēju pabeigt lasīšanu. Tādi pagarināti veiksmīgāka pārtījbomža piedzīvojumi - sapratu, ka galvenais Venēcijas biennālē ir rauti. Un kāpēc viņš aizķērās Varansi tā arī nesapratu.

[Kent Winward · Rating 5 out of 5]

Two novellas juxtaposed on the theme of Eros and Thanatos. Dyer is delving into the world of Lawrence and Mann. (I'm going to have to go back and finish Out of Sheer Rage: Wrestling With D.H. Lawrence). The surrender to the erotic and sensual climaxes in a feeling of death, while the descent into death and the human condition somehow ends up in the ecstatic. The conflicts and contradictions of the human condition are spectacular and like the burning corpse, Dyer managed to shove a stick into my skull.

[Nathan Oates · Rating 5 out of 5]

Three quarters of the way through this book I stopped to ask myself the question writers work hard to keep far from their readers' minds: why am I reading this book? Unlike most conventional novels, which aim merely to get the reader through to the end (a difficult task), Dyer's book provokes, even encourages this question. The "novel" is in fact two short novels that may, or may not, involve the same not-quite young freelance journalist, first during a trip to Venice, and second the Indian city of Varanasi. There is very little by way of plot in either section of the book - he wanders around Venice, having sex with a beautiful young woman now and then, and then he wanders around Varanasi, eating occasionally and getting sick - and yet I found the book gripping throughout. This is in part because of the quality of the writing, and in part because of the wit and humor, which is very British (why are the so much funnier than Americans?) and incredibly well done. Dyer is able to use the intentionally diffuse structure to generate an intensity and energy that is unlike anything I've read before. This book doesn't provide most of the hooks we expect in fiction: plot, dramatic, shocking incidents, deeply felt interiority, likable characters and yet it is beautiful, strange and stunning. Dyer's book reminds me that literary conventions are only necessary when the writing isn't able to carry the book clear on its own, and it reminds me how rare (and lucky) it is to find a writer who can manage without them.

[A · Rating 1 out of 5]

Absolutely unbearable. "Jeff in Venice" = Pathetic, boring, wannabe Penthouse Forum letter. "Death in Varanasi" = Pathetic, boring, bigoted screed about how western WASPs are superior to all other races, peoples, religions, and cultures. Avoid at all costs unless you are deliberately looking to destroy brain cells and aerosol spray cans are not readily available to you.

[Mara · Rating 4 out of 5]

And I was speculating what the dude version of Eat Pray Live would look like. Actually, he never made it to Indonesia, so maybe it was just Eat, Pray?

[Ken · Rating 2 out of 5]

Two novellas that don't really go together comprise this oddly-named book by Geoff Dyer. In Jeff in Venice, we witness the rather depressing scene of journalists and art critics gathering in that wet Italian city for the Biennale where they drink themselves silly (as if they need the help) and search for sex (successfully, as Mr. Dyer apparently likes to write about it).

Things slow down (or are less racy, at least) as we head to India for some travel writing about dirt, poverty, disease, and Hinduism (much less sex). This half provides less plot than the first, and both could have used the pep plot provides.

The writing is decent, but with so many books and so little time, I say: Why bother?

[Jim Elkins]

Popular Journalism and Travel Fiction

A breezy, superficial book, a combination of the English mortification and fretting in "Bridget Jones's Diary" and ordinary travel journalism.

What is the value, for fiction, of detailed, immediate, lightly fictionalized, fairly accurate reporting of unusual places? This book is divided in two: I have never been to Varanasi, so that half struck me as having been transferred as quickly as possible from experience to fiction, as if the details of the place would go stale if they spent too long in the author's head. The result is a kind of raw, sparkling immediacy, but the price is high: the scenes don't seen thought about, mulled over, transformed into imagination and back into prose. They seem jotted down and typed.

The first part of the book, about the Venice biennale, is very familiar to me (I am an art historian). As a result I can understand all the references, and I can judge Dyer's level of engagement with, and understanding of, the art world, and I'm not interested -- and the result of that is I can read only for the idea of realistic detail; I can't be persuaded by Dyer's attempts to conjure the place or the people. As a result all the carefully gathered scenes, artworks, and characters seem to be revealed as gestures at realism, as the author's hopes of creating something that will be entrancing or persuasive. It's like looking behind the scenes at the opera, or like Barthes's "S/Z."

What's left is the author's manipulation of his model reader's sense of anticipation, of drama, love and sex, society and career, aging and vanity... because nothing in the setting was of interest, I lost confidence in whatever interest I might have in the author's other concerns; and because I saw how he assembled elements of the biennale to make his mis-en-scene, I lost the ability to suspend disbelief in anything else in the narrative.

A moral might be: if, as a novelist, you depend on veracity in travel-style writing, you need to also depend on readers' lack of knowledge of those settings. Or, to put it in a positive way, it is probably best to let the details of life sit in mind for some time, changing slowly into something that can only exist in fiction.

[James Murphy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Having read Dyer's nonfiction before and aware of what a terrific writer he is, I'd been eager to begin this novel. But it took me a few days to get into it. I was confused by the first part, Venice, unable to decide what he was trying to do. But almost immediately after beginning the 2d section, Varanasi, I began to form an understanding and saw that the novel soars. It seems to be about duality. And about transformation. Dyer has written the 2 parts as the 2 sides of a coin. Venice is about life, I think. Jeff, in Venice, proceeds from death, or at least stagnation, into life, steered by the remarkable woman he meets, Laura. Venice during the Biennale is one big party punctuated by graphically written, enviable sex. A sense of unreality pervades both sections. In Venice, as Jeff achieves life, it's represented most by the art. Varanasi, where the unreal is the society he's immersed in, is much different. There, Jeff Atman, a soul in Venice, becomes "the consciousness we all share." There in the frenzied life along the banks of the Ganges where the crematory ghats serve to celebrate death, in the miserable living conditions of the people in the streets, and in the general atmosphere of death itself, Jeff as we know him begins to dissolve, to merge into his environment. Exposure to the intense spiritual atmosphere around him coupled with a worsening illness gradually overcomes his identity. Everything about Varanasi, Jeff finally realizes, points toward death. Varanasi is marked by Zen-like koans or proverbs in which opposites seem to be the same thing. Jeff muses at one point that not knowing what to do is the same as knowing what to do. In fact, the novel ends with a similar and final dart of inscrutability: "What is here is also there, and what is there is also here." I think it's all part of Jeff's failure to complete tasks and projects, a feature of his visit to Venice, too. The difference is that in Venice the letting go is a sign of new freedom (energized by Laura Freeman), whereas Varanasi's loss of will and purpose relate to surrender. Complex and beautiful, like the two cities celebrated in Dyer's remarkable novel.

[Lynda · Rating 4 out of 5]

A strange and fascinating novel of sex and death set in two very different but curiously connected locations of Venice and Varanasi. The Venice section is written almost in the manner of Brett Easton Ellis involving as it does much name dropping brand logos drinking and drug taking interspersed with beautiful glimpses of the light and waterways of Venice. There is towards the end of the section an elaborate set piece in which Jeff views Tintoretto's great ceiling paintings through a mirror on which he has snorted cocaine, this reminiscent of Ondatji's scene in the English Patient where Kim sets up the harness in the ruined church to allow them to view the frescoes, In the midst of this party filled Venice Jeff comes face to face with love or sex and there are graphic scenes of cocaine fuelled sex. The second part of the novel moves to Varanasi , a city of burning ghats on the banks of the mighty Ganges. A city like Venice in which it is easy to lose oneself both literally and figuratively. Jeff becomes gradually immersed in the spiritual detritus of the city abandoning all his old gods. , becoming only matter through and around which the river flows and the teeming mass of the Indian city seethes. All sense of connection with his old life is lost and life becomes the moment within whicit is being lived. A haunting and deeply interesting read

[Milan]

Veoma je lako prepričati radnju romana „Džef u Veneciji, smrt u Benaresu“. Sredovečni zapadnjak iz više srednje klase u napadu krize srednjih godina razočaran ispraznošću Zapadne civilizacije odlazi u Indiju da pronađe smisao života. Ne znam da li ću da pokvarim „užitak“ čitanja, ako otkrijem da je pronađeni smisao života reka. :) Eto, sasvim neočekivano i nadasve originalno.

Uprkos sjajnim rečenicama, zanimljivim opservacijama, duhovitim i ciničnim opaskama i odličnim opisima ova knjiga je jedno veliko… hm… Hajde da probam ovako. Ako možete da podnesete još jednu knjigu o blaziranom zapadnjaku koji u krizi srednjih godina odlazi u Indiju da u bedi i siromaštvu društvenog dna pronađe smisao života (Boga, reku, život, muziku, religiju, šta god…) onda je ovo prava knjiga za vas. Meni je bilo mučno čitati je, ali se mogu kladiti da većina sredovečnih i imućnih zapadnjaka oduševljava nad stranicama ove lepe i poučne knjige. Roman je očito pisan za kako klasno, tako i geografski određenu ciljnu grupu. Ako niste u tim kategorijama (imućni zapadnjak), onda je možda najbolje da preskočite čitanje ove knjige.

[Robert · Rating 2 out of 5]

It’s strange at just how subjective humor can be. Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi won a prize for comic fiction and yet, to date, it is the unfunniest book (in the context of a novel purported as comic) I have ever read.

Freelance journalist Jeff is sent to Venice to cover the Biennale, more specifically to interview an aging pop star and dig out details about her photographer husband. On the way he ends up in a steamy love affair with a girl called Laura. Yes it is a nudge towards how a tourist would see Venice and how Venice cater to tourists. plus some digressions on art but this did nothing to me.

The second part consists of Laura going to India, at least I think it’s Laura because she mentions in the first part that she’s going to Varanasi, I stopped caring and she tries to immerse herself in the country’s religion. Once again it’s a dig at tourism plus since both places are dominated by water, it seems that the main characters go through a purification process of sorts. Once again art is mentioned a little bit more here.

Did I enjoy reading this? no. Did it make me laugh? absolutely not/ Did it bore me? yes. I will never say avoid a book but this one was definitely not for me.

[Mark · Rating 5 out of 5]

Geoff Dyer is my new best friend (even though I don't even know him, I feel that I should). I was sad to see this book end. Ostensibly fiction, but half travel writing, Dyer's writing is smart, witty and clever. It made me laugh and made me ponder.

Jeff in Venice is a love story about a writer (Jeff, Geoff?) enjoying the Venice Biennial who has a love afair, the love of his life? Maybe. His description of Venice, the global art scene and the arty people who enjoy the finer things in life (in other words people who "like to drink champagne and do coke") is vivid in it's realism and everyday-ness. You feel that you are there yourself, making the same observations.

Death in Varanasi is about another writer (the same?) who goes to Varansi to write an article and ends up "going native" in his own way and becoming a sort of wacked-out, lovable, ascetic.

Dyer's plots, though, are really a pretense for description description and a sense of place. His writing is precise and soothing, but just as soon as you are seduced into some romantic distraction you are pulled back into reality like a 5am wake up call.

Example: description of taking a boat down the Ganges

"As the boat drifted past the darkening ghats, I was caught in the ebb and sob of the sarangi. Sultan Khan was playing the raga Yeman. The current was strong enough for the boatman alongside the boatman to do little but steer. Twilight was falling. Candles floated alongside the boat. The far bank had disappeared. Soon the stars would happen. The city curved along the western bank of the vier. It could have been the coast of any popular tourist area - Amalfi, say - during a power cut, with just a few lights in homes equipped with generators, but with the unceasing fires of Manikarnika ghat in the distance. Tugged along by the sarangi and then urged on by teh tabla, we passed a deat cat, floating in teh water like a dark log."

Read Dyer. You won't be dissapointed.

[Rebecca · Rating 3 out of 5]

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

Anyway, this book consists of two novellas. The first chronicles a few days of mostly empty hedonism in Venice. The narrator, an art journalist named Jeff, goes to a lot of parties, hates his job, has status anxiety, and drinks a lot. In Venice he meets abovementioned American girl, they hit it off, and they have good sex.

In the second novella, a nameless narrator, who seems a lot like Jeff, goes to Varanasi in India. Apparently this is a place where there are a lot of funerals, or something? I didn't catch exactly what it's known for, but it has something to do with death. The narrator gradually loses his desires, becomes very serene and kind of eccentric. I think maybe I was supposed to admire him when he reaches this stage but I found him kind of repulsive. But maybe that says more about me than the book.

[Bookmarks Magazine · Rating 4 out of 5]

A play on Thomas Mann's novella Death in Venice (1912), about a middle-aged male writer who seeks spiritual enlightenment in Venice but instead finds carnal doom in a young boy, Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi is many things at once: a detailed, entertaining, travelogue; a philosophical treatise on mortality, materialism, and spirituality; and an inquiry into the nature of self. Dyer's "deceptively straightforward tale" (Oregonian)óinfluenced by Nietzsche, Roland Barthes, John Berger, and othersócan be read on all three levels, depending on the reader's level of engagement. While critics commented that the plot lines don't exactly converge, they nonetheless praised Dyer's reflections on two very different journeys. In the end, Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi is a compelling and originalóif somewhat inscrutableónovel.

This is an excerpt from a review published in Bookmarks magazine.

[Miodrag Milovanović · Rating 4 out of 5]

Džef Dajer nam u prvom delu knjige, u maniru najboljih engleskih satiričara, pruža šarmantnu storiju o odlasku sredovečnog likovnog kritičara u Veneciju na bijenale. Tamo ga, iznenada pogađa Amorova strela i njegov cinizam odjednom biva raznet u paramparčad i pretvoren u tinejdžersku zaslepljenost. Pravo blago ovog dela knjige su prikazi umetničkih radova, dati sa puno duha, ali i ljubavi.
Drugi deo knjige je potpuna suprotnost. Junak drugog dela, koji bi lako mogao biti i junak prvog, odlazi u Indiju da izveštava iz Benaresa. Međutim, tamo ga polako obuzima jedna potpuno drugi vid ekstaze i on polako počinje da odlazi od života kakav je nama blizak i priklanja se jednom drugom vidu poimanja stvarnosti. Ma koliko je meni ovaj prvi deo draži i bliži, on verovatno ne bi bio toliko svetao da nije ovog drugog dela; Dajer postiže efekat sličan Ursulinom detetu zatočenom u tamnicama ispod Omelasa.

[Elaine · Rating 2 out of 5]

Works well enough as travel writing, especially in the Varanasi part. But the detailed sex and drug descriptions in the first half of the novel seemed so adolescent in both content and style -- by middle age (both author and character) some things are better off evoked then minutely detailed.

[Jim · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am beginning to mthink that, going ino the 21st century, Geoff Dyer may well be one of its literary giants. Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi is a strange novel, or is it two novels? The first half is about journalist Jeff at the Venice Biennale during a hot spell. There he meets an attractive woman named laura from Los Angeles, whereupon the two begin a short, torrid relationship. When Laura leaves for L.A., Jeff seems to wither away, without even exchanging addresses and phone numbers.

Halfway through the book, the scene switches to Varanasi, India, on the banks of the sacred Ganges. The narrator is unnamed, but may well be Jeff (or maybe not). The narrator also is a journalist who writes his 1,200 word story, but decides to stay in Varanasi. Little by little, he appears to go native. He is wasted away by diarrhea and actually swims in the Ganges. In the end, he wears a dhoti, at which point he is no longer solicited by beggars. We ae not clear whether the narrator ever returns to England.

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book and it is thought-provoking in many parts, especially the Varanasi section. Really could have been cut down, a lot of the Varansai section was not needed.