tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609668304633418767.post7042953470276933183..comments2023-12-24T17:41:42.989-08:00Comments on seraillon: A Post about a Book about a Film about a Journey to a Roomseraillonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17654593356535433945noreply@blogger.comBlogger13125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609668304633418767.post-91017002643755582452015-08-04T14:34:42.494-07:002015-08-04T14:34:42.494-07:00I'm very curious about Tom's comment above...I'm very curious about Tom's comment above, that Dyer's books are "novels" of a sort. He says so many deliberately provocative things in this book that I can't help but believe (or hope to believe) that it's all kind of a put on. And perhaps his rescinding his barbed comment about <i>The Wizard of Oz</i> is also a kind of put on. He was here recently giving a talk; I'm sorry I missed it, as I would have liked to ask him about this (knowing that his response could be a put on as well).<br /><br />I just checked out your Ismailov review; it seems nearly impossible that the author isn't deliberately evoking the Tarkovsky film (and perhaps the Strugatskys' book as well, which I indeed like very, very much and have read several times). seraillonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17654593356535433945noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609668304633418767.post-9149804249973114452015-07-31T03:23:59.343-07:002015-07-31T03:23:59.343-07:00Okay, I just stumbled upon another fascinating pos...Okay, I just stumbled upon another fascinating post after spotting the Strugasky brothers on your list of labels. I don't think Dyer's book is for me (well, fictional or not, the author is bored by L'Avventura - enough said). Roadside Picnic, however, is another book that has been sitting on one of my wishlists for several months. Max recommended it to me a while back, and it sounds as though you liked it too (despite your reservations about its faults). It came up in the conversation when I reviewed Hamid Ismailov's The Dead Lake, which features The Zone - a hazardous nuclear test site in the Kazakh Steppe region. Max though it must be a reference to Roadside Picnic. There's a link to my review here if it's of any interest. I liked the Ismailov very much - a haunting story, beautifully written.<br /><br />https://jacquiwine.wordpress.com/2015/01/02/the-dead-lake-by-hamid-ismailov/<br /><br />Back to films, my memories of Stalker are a little fuzzy now, but I recall it being strange and fascinating and elusive. Another one to re-watch soon. JacquiWinehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16220597283351925721noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609668304633418767.post-66904919681993247112012-09-24T13:59:42.233-07:002012-09-24T13:59:42.233-07:00Litlove - I'm not going to have an easy time f...Litlove - I'm not going to have an easy time forgetting "He writes from his undigested beta elements"! I do, though, very much like your "anti-sympathetic narrator" theory; whatever else one may say of Dyer, he's provocative, and he's doing some clever, if befuddling, things with criticism. I should really read something else by him - if I can ever again find the patience. seraillonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17654593356535433945noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609668304633418767.post-73061030635092961052012-09-24T13:19:40.320-07:002012-09-24T13:19:40.320-07:00Hi, I came over from Andrew Blackman's site, a...Hi, I came over from Andrew Blackman's site, and got caught up in this fascinating post. I read Dyer's book on D.H. Lawrence and whilst I admired the rambling-yet-coherent voice, I was also distanced from the narrator by his tastes and opinions, not least the ferocious rant he directs against academics (I used to be one). After years of schooling myself to respond to narrators with neutrality, weighing their tastes but feeling in no way involved in them, it was strange to feel so personally attacked by Dyer at that point. I would love to think that this is some clever persona he creates, but I don't think that's so. He writes from his undigested beta elements, hence his ability to shock and offend is never smoothed over by art. I admired the book enough, however, to offer it to my husband to try. He is an arch procrastinator so I thought he'd appreciate a book by a man doing his best to avoid the work of writing a book. In fact, it was all too much and my husband abandoned the book after about 30 pages, unable to take this mirroring of his own worst habits. Maybe this is just Dyer's speciality, an uncanny ability to unsettle and disturb the reader through his ambling, supposedly pointless monologue. Maybe he is a kind of anti-sympathetic narrator, who arouses the sharpest of antipathies in the reader at times, rather than the cosiness of identification. Hmm, I'm just speculating here, but it's intriguing the reactions he provokes.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609668304633418767.post-35721903098042383932012-08-29T11:37:04.025-07:002012-08-29T11:37:04.025-07:00Wow, Miguel, thanks! I'm honored! What delight...Wow, Miguel, thanks! I'm honored! What delightful news (and delivered delightfully too, I should add). I only hope that in future posts I can actually try to merit the award. Thanks again. seraillonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17654593356535433945noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609668304633418767.post-77103720347624720812012-08-29T11:32:27.756-07:002012-08-29T11:32:27.756-07:00Umbagollah - Many thanks for this link. After read...Umbagollah - Many thanks for this link. After reading the interview, I feel even further distanced from Dyer, at least as far as taste is concerned. I mean really, how can anyone <i>hate</i> Pedro Almodóvar, a famously generous director magnanimous enough, for example, to let Caetano Veloso just do his thing uninterrupted? I can't make any sense of Dyer's excuse about the <i>Wizard of Oz</i> reference and how altering it would have had a "huge knock-on effect" on the rest of the book. Finally, I don't think that "profession of ignorance" is quite the right term for what that was. Anyway, yes, see the film.seraillonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17654593356535433945noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609668304633418767.post-87557896754540613462012-08-29T03:22:30.109-07:002012-08-29T03:22:30.109-07:00Funny, the title immediately made me think of Xavi...Funny, the title immediately made me think of Xavier de Maistre's <i>Journey Round my Room.</i><br /><br />By the way, I've given you the Liebster Award:<br /><br />http://storberose.blogspot.pt/2012/08/the-2012-liebster-award.html<br /><br />Cheers!LMRhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08538873868140070018noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609668304633418767.post-4351012951937657012012-08-28T23:20:01.096-07:002012-08-28T23:20:01.096-07:00Every time I read about this book I want to see th...Every time I read about this book I want to see the film. There's a conversation online, a transcript, between Dyer and an essayist named John Jeremiah Sullivan, and they mention the <i>Wizard of Oz</i> -- Dyer says --<br /><br />Dyer: Yeah, you know, it’s one of the unfortunate things about this layer to the book is any change that I make has a huge knock-on effect because there are no chapters. That was one of those. At the end of that note on The Wizard of Oz I say I’ve never seen it and I’m not going to. It was one of these things… Sometimes one’s professions of ignorance are in themselves illuminating, and that seems to me to be, well, that was just stupid. And several people have pounced on that, and I’ve realized, yeah, they’re right to have done that because it was foolish, but I can’t do anything about it. Normally, with a more traditionally organized book, you can cut things. But that idiotic remark, which has served no purpose other than to irritate people, is stuck there.<br /><br />http://www.fsgworkinprogress.com/2012/03/geoff-dyer-and-john-jeremiah-sullivan/ Umbagollahhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14556344092820711893noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609668304633418767.post-57670768790478417292012-08-24T11:34:49.890-07:002012-08-24T11:34:49.890-07:00Yes and yes and yes and maybe. I like Tarkovsky a ...Yes and yes and yes and maybe. I like Tarkovsky a lot - maybe especially <i>Stalker</i> but <i>Andrei Rublev</i> is unforgettable, <i>Solaris</i> (<i>his</i> version, not the George Clooney one) is great, and I like that idea of <i>The Sacrifice</i> being the Ray Bradbury story in reverse. To Tom's point, I can't help but think that Dyer is really pulling our leg - to write, for example, about the translation from B&W to color in <i>The Wizard of Oz</i> and then say it's a film he doesn't ever need to see - it's not really plausible for someone with an ounce of curiosity to write that, and I got the sense throughout <i>Zona</i> that his real subject is not even <i>Stalker</i> but the forms that <i>criticism</i> takes. So yes, maybe <i>Zona</i> is a novel. He's certainly doing something quite interesting here, not quite what it seems to be on the surface. In any case I sincerely hope that he's playing with us, for if not, then <i>Zona</i> is too clever by half, and not clever enough by the other half. seraillonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17654593356535433945noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609668304633418767.post-39912418474126607692012-08-24T08:10:59.687-07:002012-08-24T08:10:59.687-07:00It is so nice to see that my dubious efforts have ...It is so nice to see that my dubious efforts have such positive results. A fine salvage job.<br /><br />How fictional does the "Dyer" of the book strike you? I have not read him, but reading about him I have picked up the idea that his books are all novels, sometimes in disguise.Amateur Reader (Tom)https://www.blogger.com/profile/13675275555757408496noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609668304633418767.post-954304750260791402012-08-24T06:31:33.607-07:002012-08-24T06:31:33.607-07:00I bought this because I was once a huge Tarkovsky ...I bought this because I was once a huge Tarkovsky fan and liked Dyer's short story collection "But Beautiful" a lot. The moment I got it I thought "Hmm, maybe not entirely what I have expected" but I would really need to start reading properly before making and real statement. As a presmise it's interesting but it's odd he totally left out the book. I haven't read it, only know Tarvovsky took major liberties, still, I would have suposed he would write something about this. <br />My memory of the movie is quite blurred by now. Maybe I don't need to re-watch it to read this. <br />Dyer didn't strike me before as being prone to excessive navel-gazing but now...I'm not so sure.Carolinehttp://beautyisasleepingcat.wordpress.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609668304633418767.post-38935143238487189152012-08-23T20:25:40.827-07:002012-08-23T20:25:40.827-07:00If you like Stalker you might also like The Sacrif...If you like Stalker you might also like The Sacrifice. It's like a reverse of Ray Bradbury’s story “The Sound of Thunder" in which an action in the past changes the future for the worse. In The Sacrifice an action in the future changes the past for the better.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2609668304633418767.post-51085208534064935582012-08-23T16:57:44.568-07:002012-08-23T16:57:44.568-07:00I've somehow suspected for a while now I would...I've somehow suspected for a while now I wouldn't like Dyer (your description makes him sound like Slavoj Zizek: "then liberally decorates his narrative with, well, apparently whatever seems to cross his mind: cultural references high and low"). I do like Stalker as well (the only Tarkovsky I get on with), so may be best to steer clear.<br /><br />The relationship between Stalker and Roadside Picnic, sounds very similar to the relationship between Solaris and Solaris: and for the very same reasons, Solaris is of course much more interesting than Solaris.obookihttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03885121629202810216noreply@blogger.com