\zona\ geoff dyer\s beautiful obsessive mind
Last Updated : GMT 06:49:16
Arab Today, arab today
Arab Today, arab today
Last Updated : GMT 06:49:16
Arab Today, arab today

'Zona': Geoff Dyer's beautiful, obsessive mind

Arab Today, arab today

Arab Today, arab today 'Zona': Geoff Dyer's beautiful, obsessive mind

London - Arabstoday

In Zona, Geoff Dyer confronts a giant: Russian visionary filmmaker Andrei Tarkovsky. During his peripatetic career, Dyer has tackled literature, photography, jazz, fiction, painting, food, memoir and travel essays. He is a relentlessly restless writer — utterly contemporary and light on his feet. It's fascinating to see him take on this master of stillness, timelessness and heavy self-regard. Consciousnesses collide, overlap, meld — and if nothing else, the book is a mesmerizing mashup of sensibilities. For decades, Dyer has been obsessed with Tarkovsky's richly suggestive 1979 masterwork, Stalker. Perhaps in an effort to exorcise its hold on him, Dyer takes us step by step through the film, detailing what scans as a rather uneventful plot. Stalker tells the story of three men — known as the Writer, the Professor and the Stalker — who make their way through the mysterious Zone, a sealed-off area possibly created by a meteor. Within the Zone lies the even more mysterious "Room," where, it's said, your deepest desires might be fulfilled. But first, you must survive the dangerous journey there — a glacially paced sojourn replete with frights that are almost completely in the characters' heads. (Watching the film before you read the book is highly recommended. Think of them as an aesthetic two-pack of sorts.) Stalker has been said to prophesize the events at Chernobyl or reflect the Soviet gulags. It has been called a twist on The Wizard of Oz. But Tarkovsky's methods are so obscure yet so evocative, the film turns into a litmus test of one's attitude toward the bigger, broader themes. Hope. Faith. Love. Death. You name it. This is perfect material for Dyer. Whether he's writing about the world's best doughnuts or D.H. Lawrence, he is ultimately concerned with the nature of life itself — and how best to live it. As a result, Zona is not your typical exegesis of a film. The meaning of the movie — and the making of it — are probed with seriousness. But this is not a book of cinema scholarship per se. Dyer uses the movie as a stimulant and stepping-off point for a wide range of memories (his parents appear often), musings and concerns. Basically, he throws Stalker into his Dyer-rama and hits "spin." Dyer's associative leaps can be very funny. He's not timid about vaulting from a deep discussion of one of the film's most cryptic images — that of an inky substance filling the frame — to Bo Derek in the comedy 10. (The link: Bolero on the soundtrack.) And for even more discursive, far-reaching effect, he adds voluminous footnotes — which sometimes overwhelm the text proper on the page, almost as if two voices are moving through the book simultaneously, often turning the book into a series of modular thought bubbles. In this, Dyer has found a fresh way of mirroring his — and our — fractured consciousness and concentration. Throughout Zona, you get the sense that the author is not quite the same as he once was. His boyish, Peter Pan-ish tone is becoming darker (one might say, more dire). As he reaches into his 50s, the issues with which he concerns himself have taken on a graveness. (You began to feel this change with his last novel, the two-part Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi.) On the downside, there's a hint of the formulaic — the timeworn — to some of his methods. But Dyer remains a uniquely relevant voice. In his genre-jumping refusal to be pinned down, he's an exemplar of our era. And invariably, he leaves you both satiated and hungry to know where he's going next.

arabstoday
arabstoday

Name *

E-mail *

Comment Title*

Comment *

: Characters Left

Mandatory *

Terms of use

Publishing Terms: Not to offend the author, or to persons or sanctities or attacking religions or divine self. And stay away from sectarian and racial incitement and insults.

I agree with the Terms of Use

Security Code*

\zona\ geoff dyer\s beautiful obsessive mind \zona\ geoff dyer\s beautiful obsessive mind

 



Name *

E-mail *

Comment Title*

Comment *

: Characters Left

Mandatory *

Terms of use

Publishing Terms: Not to offend the author, or to persons or sanctities or attacking religions or divine self. And stay away from sectarian and racial incitement and insults.

I agree with the Terms of Use

Security Code*

\zona\ geoff dyer\s beautiful obsessive mind \zona\ geoff dyer\s beautiful obsessive mind

 



GMT 10:06 2012 Saturday ,28 July

Querrey advances at ATP LA Open

GMT 21:15 2017 Thursday ,01 June

Trump condemns deadly Kabul explosion

GMT 02:15 2017 Thursday ,24 August

Is your country on the Qatar free entry list of 80?

GMT 19:48 2016 Monday ,03 October

Controversial boxing champ Tyson Fury retires

GMT 08:20 2015 Tuesday ,08 December

PC market woes show no sign of easing

GMT 17:27 2017 Tuesday ,25 April

20 Yemeni soldiers killed, injured in explosion

GMT 11:52 2017 Saturday ,30 December

OIC condemns Mar Mina Church attack

GMT 00:03 2017 Saturday ,25 March

Arab Meeting to Examine Anti-Corruption Methods

GMT 13:12 2017 Thursday ,20 April

Deputy premier meets Arab League chief

GMT 14:13 2014 Friday ,10 January

Opel Astra GTC

GMT 18:27 2016 Tuesday ,02 August

Turkish Foreign Minister arrives in Islamabad

GMT 11:27 2016 Tuesday ,13 December

Saudi woman arrested for challenging social norms
Arab Today, arab today
 
 Arab Today Facebook,arab today facebook  Arab Today Twitter,arab today twitter Arab Today Rss,arab today rss  Arab Today Youtube,arab today youtube  Arab Today Youtube,arab today youtube

Maintained and developed by Arabs Today Group SAL.
All rights reserved to Arab Today Media Group 2021 ©

Maintained and developed by Arabs Today Group SAL.
All rights reserved to Arab Today Media Group 2021 ©

arabstoday arabstoday arabstoday arabstoday
arabstoday arabstoday arabstoday
arabstoday
بناية النخيل - رأس النبع _ خلف السفارة الفرنسية _بيروت - لبنان
arabstoday, Arabstoday, Arabstoday