JEFF IN VENICE, DEATH IN VARANASI: Geoff Dyer

This is really two quite different stories, one told in the third person, about a effete journalist from London, named Jeff Atman, who has been sent to cover the Bienalle, an art show in Venice(he ends up having a torrid love affair with an American art dealer named Laura). The second story, told in the first person, tells of the gradual disintegration or growth of the narrator, who may or may not be the Jeff referred to in the first story. Both give amazing accurate pictures of the cities, both are centered on water, in Venice the canals, in Varanasi, the Ganges River. The Venice story mostly revolves around his infatuation with Laura, their erotic love making, passionate feeling for each other, as they move from one art party to another. It ends with both leaving for home, with the agreement they will keep in touch. It's clear that Jeff has been very unhappy with his life, with his job as a writer, that in many ways, he is a failure to himself, someone who enjoys the pleasures of appetite too much, mostly woman, alcohol, and cocaine. The second story has a similar Jeff but we are never sure. He comes to Varanasi to write an article, ends up staying, going native, slowly falling apart, and by the end, we are not sure if he will live. He has definitely been seduced by Hinduism, as he ends up frequenting the various temples, swimming in the river each day, wearing a dhoti, and mostly ignoring Westerners. His health is failing, but he seems to have bought into the idea of impermanence, of desiring nothing, of going with the flow, mostly of ridding himself of the Western disease of waiting(for something), never living in the present. His previous life, no doubt, has been unfulfilling and he has fallen into the lap of a kind of life he might be better suited for...of doing nothing, believing in nothing, and just existing. The novel ends somewhat enigmatically, as you are not sure whether he is hallucinating the finding of a new god, that of a kangaroo, of what it means, or whether it's just as ridiculous to him as the rest of the Indian deities. Either way, he seems completely exhausted, physically and mentally, and the novel just stops.