It is one of the 10 best books of 2009 says Publishers Weekly. Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi by Geoff Dyer is the hilarious tale of Jeff Atman, a burnt-out London journalist who travels to Venice to drink his way through the 2003 Biennale. In the disquieting second half of the novel, Jeff is a hack London journalist who travels to the holy city of Varanasi, where the filth and poverty inspire him to abandon all ambition and desire. In this excerpt, where we meet Jeff in Venice, it's "already desert-hot outside", but he's happy to be there.
"Fruit and veg were being sold from barges, or whatever they were called, a few gondoliers were punting for business along the canals. People were looking out of windows, shouting and waving. Barrows of produce were being wheeled through the narrow streets. It was like being in The Truman Show. Every day, for hundreds of years, Venice had woken up and put on this guise of being a real place although everyone knew it existed only for tourists. The difference, the novelty, of Venice was that the gondoliers and fruit-sellers and bakers were all tourists, too, enjoying an infinitely extended city-break. The gondoliers enjoyed the fruit-sellers, the fruit-sellers enjoyed the gondoliers and bakers, and all of them together enjoyed the real residents: the hordes of camera-toting Japanese, the honeymooning Americans, the euro-pinching backpackers and hungover Biennale-goers."
Before reading the book, read From Venice To Varanasi: Geoff Dyer's wandering eye by James Wood. It's totally excellent.
