{"id":2234,"date":"2009-04-17T17:13:03","date_gmt":"2009-04-17T21:13:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bookdragon.si.edu\/?p=2234"},"modified":"2015-08-17T09:59:06","modified_gmt":"2015-08-17T13:59:06","slug":"jeff-in-venice-death-in-varanasi-by-geoff-dyer","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/jeff-in-venice-death-in-varanasi-by-geoff-dyer\/","title":{"rendered":"Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi by Geoff Dyer [in San Francisco Chronicle]"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2009\/04\/Jeff-in-Venice-Death-in-Varanasi.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-large wp-image-29746\" src=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2009\/04\/Jeff-in-Venice-Death-in-Varanasi.jpg\" alt=\"Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi\" width=\"327\" height=\"500\" \/><\/a>Geoff Dyer&#8217;s latest novel, teasingly titled <em>Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi<\/em>, is quite the mind game. To play, you obviously have to read the book.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the initial setup: two distinct parts with a few overlapping similarities. In the first, &#8220;Jeff in Venice,&#8221; London journalist Jeff Atman is sent to the Venice Biennial to chase down an elusive subject for an article. Amid the booze and drug-filled parties (with a few forays into checking out a bit of art), he meets the attractive Laura and has the time of his life. In the second, &#8220;Death in Varanasi,&#8221; an unnamed London journalist (also Jeff, we would assume) is sent to Varanasi as a last-minute replacement to write a travel piece. He is initially overwhelmed upon arrival in the holiest of India&#8217;s holy cities, home to the ultimate in Hindu cremations along the Ganges River. He makes friends, files his article and decides to stay.<\/p>\n<p>So once the final page is finished, the reader is left with two different stories, nominally related by a single character. While one is a hedonistic, status-seeking idyll of near-debauchery told in the third person, the other is a first-person narrative about paring down and letting go. Both are interesting enough stories, detailed and engaging, and certainly the reader could leave it as one man&#8217;s life journey from one extreme to another.<\/p>\n<p>But why stop there? And are the stories so different? Yes, both Venice and Varanasi are legendary waterlogged cities with ubiquitous boats ferrying travelers, and awash in stifling heat as a journalist chases down a story. But look deeper, and the two seemingly distinct parts begin to flow in and out of each other. &#8230; [<a href=\"http:\/\/bookdragonreviews.files.wordpress.com\/2009\/04\/20090417-jeff-in-venice-death-in-varanasi.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">click here for more<\/a>]\n<p><strong>Review<\/strong>: <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/cgi-bin\/article.cgi?f=\/c\/a\/2009\/04\/17\/RV35170LQD.DTL&amp;type=books\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">San Francisco Chronicle<\/a><\/em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sfgate.com\/cgi-bin\/article.cgi?f=\/c\/a\/2009\/04\/17\/RV35170LQD.DTL&amp;type=books\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow\">, April 17, 2009<\/a><\/p>\n<p><strong>Readers<\/strong>: Adult<\/p>\n<p><strong>Published<\/strong>: 2009<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Geoff Dyer&#8217;s latest novel, teasingly titled Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi, is quite the mind game. To play, you obviously have to read the book. Here&#8217;s the initial setup: two distinct parts with a few overlapping similarities. In the first, &#8220;Jeff in Venice,&#8221; London&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":29746,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,114,23,6,52,6535,17],"tags":[6608,59,11,2480,2481,13,571,1846],"class_list":["post-2234","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-adult-readers","category-british","category-european","category-fiction","category-indian","category-repost","category-south-asian","tag-bookdragon","tag-cultural-exploration","tag-friendship","tag-geoff-dyer","tag-jeff-in-venice-death-in-varanasi","tag-love","tag-personal-transformation","tag-san-francisco-chronicle"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v19.14 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi by Geoff Dyer [in San Francisco Chronicle] - BookDragon<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/jeff-in-venice-death-in-varanasi-by-geoff-dyer\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi by Geoff Dyer [in San Francisco Chronicle] - BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Geoff Dyer&#8217;s latest novel, teasingly titled Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi, is quite the mind game. To play, you obviously have to read the book. Here&#8217;s the initial setup: two distinct parts with a few overlapping similarities. In the first, &#8220;Jeff in Venice,&#8221; London...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/jeff-in-venice-death-in-varanasi-by-geoff-dyer\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"BookDragon\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-04-17T21:13:03+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2015-08-17T13:59:06+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/10\/2009\/04\/Jeff-in-Venice-Death-in-Varanasi.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"327\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"500\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@SmithsonianAPA\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Center\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"1 minute\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi by Geoff Dyer [in San Francisco Chronicle] - BookDragon","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/apa.si.edu\/bookdragon\/jeff-in-venice-death-in-varanasi-by-geoff-dyer\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi by Geoff Dyer [in San Francisco Chronicle] - BookDragon","og_description":"Geoff Dyer&#8217;s latest novel, teasingly titled Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi, is quite the mind game. 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