One of the benefits of doing a bunch of business travel over the past few weeks is that I've actually gotten several days with several hours of uninterrupted reading in. I'm reading three books simultaneously right now -- Red Families v. Blue Families, The Savage Detectives by Roberto Bolano, and Ill Fares the Land by Tony Judt, each of which is compelling in its own way. Before that I just finished "Jeff in Venice/Death in Varanasi" by Geoff Dyer. It's the first thing I've read by Dyer and I will definitely be heading back for more. As one might gather from the title, the novel is divided into two completely discrete parts, the first detailing Jeff's adventures in Venice, with the second part set in the Indian city of Varanasi, a sacred place for Hindus, where the dead are burned in great continuing funeral pyres, their ashes scattered into the Ganges River. Not shockingly, the book has echoes of Mann's "Death in Venice" but with a lot more laughs. For example, Dyer's description of flying on a discount airline:
The cost cutting was amazing, extravagant even. No expense had not been spared. Getting rid of free meals and drinks was just the beginning of it. They'd skimped on the flight attendants' uniforms, on the design and graphics of the check-in counter, on the amount of foam and cushion on the seats. It was hard to imagine that they had not skimped on safety features as well -- why bother with a life raft when everyone knew that if the plane ditched in the sea you were fucked anyway.
This is Jeff, a middle-aged, single, London-based free lance journalist, on his way to Venice to write a piece about the "Biennale" an every two year gathering of the art world -- a multi-day bellini-filled bender, combining art, pretense, and social climbing. Jeff is a thorough cynic, laden with contempt for both himself and the worlds of art and journalism. And yet, when he actually engages with art that is art -- not gimmicky attention grabbing crap -- one gets the sense that he is moved. Similarly, when he succeeds in his attempts to hook up with a beautiful American woman for a few days of drug and alcohol-fueled meaningless sex, he appears to fall into the closest approximation of love that he can muster. He is an essentially passive character, however, and when the festivities end, he lets this possible love leave with no real attempt to make further plans.
The book resumes with Jeff in Varanasi on another free-lance assignment, writing about the temples and the daily funeral pyres that form the spiritual heart of yet another watery tourist city -- albeit one that seems light years from the glitz of Venice. Initially, Jeff is Jeff -- funny, sharp-eyed, cynical yet open -- open to beauty and strangeness and the exoticism of this very different land. And, as this wonderful scene of a native barging into an ATM queue shows, he is an Englishman, he is an Englishman:
"You will go the back of the queue," I said to the man, who having pushed in, had now taken his card out in readiness. "There is no point in taking your card out. Your turn has not yet come."
"I am in hurry sir."
"Everyone is in hurry."
"I am in hurry, sir. I will be quick."
"Everyone is in hurry. Everyone will be quick. No one will be quick if no one waits their turn."
He was still ahead of me. I shouldered my way alongside him. I was becoming angry. He was perfectly calm, smiling. I made sure my face was arranged in something that could be construed as a smile.
"I am in hurry, sir."
"Everyone is in hurry, sir. You will not go in to this bank ahead of me."
"Sir, I am requesting you."
"But your request, sir, has not been granted. So you must go to back of queue."
"Sir, I am requesting you."
"And your request has been categorically refused."
In other circumstances I might have found this wearying, but I had been in India long enough, now, to realize that there is no limit to the number of times the same thing can be said. The fact that a point has been made does not mean that the same point does not need to be made again and again. There was scope, however, for enlarging and varying the point.
"Furthermore, your request will never be granted," I said. "Never. Do you understand me?"
At some level he did not. The idea of absolute refusal with no scope for special dispensation or exemption made no sense. He continued standing where he was. We were neck and neck. Physically, he was not ahead of me and I was not ahead of him, but I had, by now, established a crucial psychological advantage. My rival was not interested in the principle or etiquette of queuing. He simply wanted to use the bank machine quickly. That was that. Whereas for me, my place in this queue -- indeed the continued existence of the very idea and principle of the queue -- was at stake. Nothing in my life mattered more to me than not letting this man in ahead of me. I had found a cause I could die for. Or kill for.
"Sir," I said. "Look at my eyes." I took off my sunglasses. "Look at my eyes and listen to me." I had no idea how my eyes looked. I hoped the fact that they were blue lent the person glaring angrily through them an air of implacable purpose and unshakable will. In a sense it did not matter, because the queue- barger was not looking at them. He was looking at the door to the bank and he was still smiling. My own smile had by now become a death's head grin, a rictus of English rage, the product of years of rainy summers, ruined picnics, cancelled trains and losing at penalty shoot-outs. "You are not going into the bank ahead of me. The only way you will go into the bank ahead of me is by stepping over my lifeless body. Do you understand?"
Well I quite liked it -- and it's definitely the sort of thing liked by those who like that sort of thing.
I don't want to spoil the book, but suffice it to say that Jeff's English rage fades, his deep-seated passivity is perfectly suited to Varanasi's spiritual air, and the things that so concerned him in Venice -- which party he was invited to, scoring the necessary interview, grabbing another round of bellinis -- cease to matter.
It's an easy and enjoyable read, but not without its heft. Think slightly sharper and deeper Nick Hornby. (A couple of reviews I read described it as "guy literature" and that may be so -- I like to think I'm not that kind of guy, but evidence suggests that might not be the case.)
