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Title: Paris Trance: A Romance by Geoff Dyer ISBN: 0865476004 Publisher: North Point Press Pub. Date: May, 2000 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 2.82
Rating: 5
Summary: Haunting and just this side of the wrong side of pretentious
Comment: Geoff Dyer's other books are mostly unclassifiable meditations on jazz (But Beautiful), the fascination of war (The Missing of the Somme) and the fear of failure (Out of Sheer Rage). His infrequent novels are pretty good, though. Paris Trance is about falling in love - I actually typed "failling" by mistake, but it was serendipity, because it's also about failing in love. Luke, the hero, is admired by the narrator Alex in much the same way that Fitzgerald's Gatsby is admired by Nick Carraway. (Hmmm, my name is Alex and my brother's name is Nick. Odd that.) What Luke is after, or thinks he's after, is a dream of perfection, and it's only when he achieves it that he lets it go. Drift is the order of Luke's universe. There's a terribly sad episode about half way through when Alex pays Luke a visit in the present (most of the book is a vast, quasi-nostalgic flashback) and speculates to himself about the loneliness of Luke's life; lines from that part have followed me around for months.
Some of the dialogue is uncomfortably Hip; there's some rather too-easy pop-culture riffing, inspired according to Dyer by his admiration for Don DeLillo's way with dialogue. But the book has the same sort of deeper ambiguities as "Gatsby"; Alex writes the book as part of a struggle with himself between his creeping discomfort with his own ordinariness and Luke's tragic appetite for living such grand abstractions as Destiny and Bliss. The sheen of the prose, when describing events like the characters walking through a French field high on acid, has the poignant lustre of remembered happiness. (Dyer's first novel was called The Colour of Memory and is, I think, quite a bit better than this one.)
I don't know if Dyer is a natural novelist and he isn't too sure himself. But Paris Trance is a beautiful book, if it isn't this writer at his best. And it has some wonderful bits: a spoof re-enactment of "Brief Encounter", brilliant accounts of what it's like to go to a pub in a foreign city and a couple of great sex scenes. His non-fiction is maybe more intellectually electric but his fiction is a quieter pleasure.
Five stars, not because I think the book is a flat-out masterpiece but because he's a fantastic writer and I wanted to bring the average up.
Rating: 2
Summary: A Mildly Interesting First Attempt
Comment: In an attempt to mimic styles similar to that of Nick Hornsby and Alain de Botton, Geoff Dyer attempts to capture the essence of love, sex, and friendship during the twenty-something stage of life. While Dyer has moments where he eloquently describes the agony of trying to make time stand still, these moments are few in the realm of a 300 page book. His characters Luke, Alex, Nicole, and Sahra are unique, but underdeveloped. The reader gets this vision of these four as nothing more than lost souls seeking another acid trip when there is so much more in their persona that could be explored. Overall "Paris Trance" is an interesting first attempt at a novella, yet perhaps with his next work, Dyer will explore his talent and show to his reader what he is "really" capable of.
Rating: 5
Summary: A Smashing Surprise
Comment: I read this book not expecting much. It seemed to be an example of someone trying to recreate the books of the lost generation in post-modern dress. I thought it would fail to be something new. I was astounded at how wrong I was. This book has some major faults but they are sandwhiched between large segments of the novel that are amazingly brilliant. This is, perhaps, the best look at the feelings of early love Ive ever read. The book is a deep look at beauty and happiness, asnd the degree to which moments of happiness survive the passage of time. Dyer brilliantly uses a second person narrator who admitedly tells the reader mental thoughts of the characters that he could not know. He has decided that since the main character will not tell his story, he must do it for him and he must fill in the holes. He does so in brilliant fashion. He captures what it is like to be twentysomething and in love, he captures what it is like to be in love in Paris, and he manages to capture the spirit of lawrence, Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and Dos Passos WITHOUT it feeling like a retelling of modernism. The book is definitively post-modern both in style and message, but still manages to update the tropes founded by The Sun Also Rises. A must read for any fan of post-modernism OR the lost generation. Dyer may well be Britain's most promising young writer. This is a life-affirming novel.
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Title: Yoga for People Who Can't Be Bothered to Do It by Geoff Dyer ISBN: 0375422145 Publisher: Pantheon Books Pub. Date: 14 January, 2003 List Price(USD): $22.00 |
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Title: Out of Sheer Rage: Wrestling With D.H. Lawrence by Geoff Dyer ISBN: 0865475407 Publisher: North Point Press Pub. Date: June, 1999 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: But Beautiful: A Book About Jazz by Geoff Dyer ISBN: 0865475083 Publisher: North Point Press Pub. Date: June, 1997 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: The Colour of Memory by Geoff Dyer ISBN: 0349109192 Publisher: Century Pub. Date: May, 1997 List Price(USD): $14.99 |
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Title: How to Be Alone: Essays by Jonathan Franzen ISBN: 0374173273 Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux Pub. Date: 01 October, 2002 List Price(USD): $26.00 |
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