Lee Langley

On the waterfront | 4 April 2009

Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi, by Geoff Dyer

issue 04 April 2009

Geoff Dyer is the least categorisable of writers. Give him a genre and he’ll bend it; pigeonhole him and he’ll break out. Clever, funny, an intellectual with a resolutely bloke-ish stance; irreverent and incorrigibly subversive, this is the man who set off to write a study of D. H. Lawrence and came up with Out of Sheer Rage, a rant against academia in which Lawrence figured as a spear-carrier. His book about jazz, But Beautiful, started life as a critical study, and in its final form combined laconic history with poignant vignettes; short stories that uncovered the heart and soul of the music. Fiction as truth.

His most beguiling book, Yoga for People Who Can’t Be Bothered to Do It, was a collection of anti-travel articles and mood pieces, with some hair-raising, first-hand drug-taking stuff, and an essay on Leptis Magna that managed to be simultaneously insightful, thought-provoking and hilarious.

Dyer is more than a cult writer; he’s a virus, invading your system.

Comments

Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months

Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.

Already a subscriber? Log in