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Zona: A Book About a Film About a Journey to a Room by Geoff Dyer

There was a fair amount of buzz surrounding this book when it was released back in February. And I’ve been itching to read this ever since. It definitely lives up to the hype. I’ve read a few essays in various magazines and newspapers by Dyer but nothing of significant length, so reading this was a bit of a delight. One trademark of Dyer is his attention to detail and this book is very much about details. 

The premise of the book is straightforward and exactly what you would expect with that title. It is a book about a film about a journey to a room. It is a detailed analysis of Andre Tarkovsky’s Russian SF masterpiece: Stalker. 

Many reviewers have commented on the fact that a familiarity with the film is not a prerequisite for his book but I decided to go ahead and watch the film prior to my read. I’ve read detailed accounts of media that I am not familiar with and while one can still absorb the information that is being analysed, without viewing the original work the finer nuances are lost. Missing out on those finer points just nags at the back of my brain. But, I digress. The point is that one need not be familiar with the film in order to read this work, it’s just that like all media - familiarity breeds deeper comprehension. 

I watched the film in one sitting and I finished the book in another. I’m not certain if this was simply a result of the type of mood I was in or if Tarkovsky and Dyer tap into some deep-seated obsessions from within. 

It’s difficult to describe the film but if I must: SF Wizard of Oz set in a Russian post-industrial landscape. The film is about three men who attempt to venture into “The Zone” a barren and desolate landscape that may or may not contain fantastical remnants from a supposed meteorite that crashed into the area. A government authority now controls access in and out of “The Zone”. 

Three men: Stalker (our tour guide and the only one who has previously visited the Zone) offers to sneak in Writer and Professor into the mysterious and unknown. 

The film is slow, plodding, and much of it philosophical. It’s definitely not for everyone. The first 9 minutes are without dialogue and consist entirely of drips, creaks, groans. It’s an art-house film, the type of movie that film-study graduates argue about in coffee-houses. And bored hotel-owners. 

So you’re thinking, why would you want to read a book about this film. Well, that’s exactly why I wanted to read it. I love books that are so narrowly focused on such a specific piece of media. There’s something beautiful about this type of obsession and attention to detail. And Geoff Dyer is obsessional about the details of this film. The book is largely an essay-length film critique, and the first half consists of a scene by scene break down of the entire film. As I mentioned earlier, one need not have watched the film in order to enjoy this book (Dyer anticipates this and does half the work for you). 

What follows is a wonderful account of Russian film history, media studies, literary analysis, and a semi-biographical account of why we obsess over the things we obsess about. Dyer delves deep into the making of this film as well as his first experience with film as a medium and what it does to us to confront these types of images. 

‘If the regular length of a shot is increased, one becomes bored, but if you keep on making it longer, a new quality emerges, a special intensity of attention.’ At first there can be a friction between our expectations of time and Tarkovsky-time and this friction is increasing in the twenty-first century as we move further and further away from Tarkovsky-time towards moron-time in which nothing can last—and no one can concentrate on anything—for longer than about two seconds. Soon people will not be able to watch films like Theo Angelopoulos’s Ulysses’ Gaze or to read Henry James because they wil not have the concentration to get from one interminable scene or sentence to the next. The time when I might have been able to read late-period Henry James has passed and because I have not read late-period Henry James I am in no position to say what harm has been done to my sensibility by not having done so.

As you can see there is a certain amount of tongue-in-cheek humor involved with his criticism/re-telling.

The book is in a weird place, not pure criticism nor a proper film review (too short for the former, too long for the latter). It’s one man’s passion, detailed and thorough. This is an odd way to frame it but it’s the perfect bathroom read. It’s a short novella length essay and I think it’s worth picking up. Even if you’ve not watched the film, you’ll walk away with your eyes open. An open love letter to a film. 

• Worked a 12 hour shift. 
• Started & finished Point Omega by Don Delillo in a single sitting. 
• Ran 5.5 km 
• Breakfast for dinner. 
• Clipped my toe-nails. 
• Staying awake past 10 p.m.

This blog is mostly about running and only sometimes about books. The fact that this post is a combination of the two delights me to no end. 

Mark Remy’s C is for Chafing, think of it as a children’s book for adults, in the same vein as Go the Fuck to Sleep. 

Written by a runner for other runners. I read this interview (NYDailyNews) and couldn’t resist. The inner child in me needed to have this book. Despite being targeted primarily at adults, the book is kid-friendly. There are illustrations that include: vomit & a blurred out middle finger. ‘G is for Get Off the Road - Respect is a two way street.’ + image of angry driver giving middle finger. 

Maybe if you ask nicely, I’ll let you borrow this tiny gem of an alphabet-book. And remember. 

‘R is for Roadkill - Phew! That sure smells nasty!’

A very small part of this blog is devoted to the things that I read. So I thought I’d do a quick run down of what I’ve been reading lately: 

Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays by Zadie Smith

I’ve not read anything by Zadie Smith prior to this collection. Aside from wanting to finally have an opinion on a writer I’ve long been interested in, I’ve also noticed that my taste in non-fiction the past few years has shifted away from biography and gravitated towards the essay form. 

I am a third of the way through this collection which is cleverly divided into five parts: Reading, Being, Seeing, Feeling, & Remembering. I’ve only just finished the Reading section in which Ms. Smith lovingly defends writers that I would normally discount: E.M. Forrester & George Eliot. Her writing is precise and sharp. She balances the observational with the academic without being pretentious or tedious in her subject matter. She does not shy away from citing other academic authorities that she is familiar with and yet she does not flaunt her education or reading experience in the reader’s face either. Instead she takes on the role of a literary museum tour guide offering witty asides and commentary that a reader would otherwise be unfamiliar with. A gifted writer and a collection that thus far has stood up remarkably well. 

In His Majesty’s Service: Three Novels of Temeraire (His Majesty’s Service, Throne of Jade, Black Powder War) by Naomi Novik

We’re now in a genre that I have a firm grasp of: fantasy. The beauty of Novik’s Temeraire series is the way she combines two genre: history with fantasy. Think of this as an alternate history. Some things are familiar and then some are very much not. The Napoleonic Wars is still an epic war of naval conquest. There’s just one small tweak: Dragons. The various countries of Europe and Asia possess massive dragons upon which battles are waged. Think of C.S. Forester’s Horatio Hornblower series —only with dragons. 

Captain Will Laurence services with honour and pride on a British Naval ship when he engages a French frigate with some rather unusual cargo: a dragon egg. The egg hatches upon the open sea and quickly bonds with the young Captain. Soon Laurence finds himself leaving the high seas naval life in favour of the Air Corps. Battling giant dragons high above the earth, the Napoleonic wars plays out. Aside from being an entertaining read, the series is also highly informative with respect to this particular time in history. I find myself googling and wiki-searching historic naval battles and noted heroes of the Napoleonic age. 

Some criticism has been levelled at Novik, Jane Austen style writing that comes across as a bit stilted. But, I disagree and find that she finds the perfect balance when it comes to writing style. The history is there but it does not overwhelm the reader with dry facts. Rather she simply enhances an already exciting moment in history with dragons. I mean come on: fucking dragons!!! How can that not be anything but awesome. 

My Debt to Ireland by John Jeremiah Sullivan

I blogged back in December about JJS’s wonderful essay collection, Pulphead.  His recent article in the New York Times is a wonderful look at a modern Ireland that seems to consistently butt heads with its older self. If you’re looking for a pleasant Sunday afternoon read, grab a Guiness and click on the link above. You’ll thank me later. 

The Fall by Guillermo Del Torro and Chuck Hogan

This is Book 2 in the Strain Trilogy by Guillermo Del Toro & Chuck Hogan and it improves upon the first. The first I found to be a bit too slow, but this book is all action. It’s non-stop vampires, explosions, gang-war-fare, mysterious books, ancient prophecies, nuclear devastation. The power of this particular trilogy is how Del Toro takes familiar horror/vampire elements and tweaks them. They’re recognizable and familiar but they’re still unique. That seems illogical but he finds a way. Definitely worth picking up. 

4/5.

The Fart Party (Vol. 1) by Julia Wertz

The brilliance of Julia Wertz is her ability to take the seemingly every day frustrations, joys, weird moments of living, working, etc. and make them accessible to the rest of us. And yet she does this while she still keeps her personal relationships with her family and bf at the forefront. The story is hers and yet we can all relate. Her semi-weekly/monthly updates to her blog are worth the wait and so too this collection of asides as she documents living her with boyfriend and writing comics for a living. 

This is one of my favourite panels and it should provide you with all the evidence you need to purchase everything she’s published. 

5/5

Surfacing by Margaret Atwood

I bought this book early yesterday morning. I was in the mood for Atwood. This has come to mean a very specific thing for me. I want to say dark but that’s unfair to Atwood. Her works are not necessarily dark, though they do tend to tap into those types of feelings, characters. “Deep” that’s a better word. Atwood for me is something deep. She has a way of burrowing into the furthest reaches of your mind, your heart, she finds the humanity that exists and brings it to the front.

Surfacing is about an unnamed woman who returns to her hometown in Canada. She is searching for her father in a cabin in the woods where she was raised. She is on this journey with her lover and another married couple. As the days progress, she struggles to make sense of this return home. The search for her father is a search through her own childhood, her home. As the days pass, she experiences a kind of transformation not unlike Kafka’s Gregor Samsa. Nature and separation are two major themes of this novel. Surfacing is at once heartbreaking and beautiful, a lonely woman trying to find her place in nature. There’s a purity to her transformation, to this return to nature as she slowly removes herself from her friends, her family, her memories, her sense of humanity.

It’s not a long novel at 208 pages. I finished it in a single day. Something about this novel pulled me in and I felt compelled to finish it in a day. It felt wrong to read this in anything larger than a single sitting. As if I were betraying the novel and it’s unnamed female protagonist. I needed to follow her on this journey, to see it to the end, to be done with it. I don’t think I could ever read this work again. It’s too intense, too full of emotion. 

This book is definitely worth reading, but it’s not for everyone. I think you have to be in the mood for something like this, you have to want to read Atwood. And unless you’ve read a book by her, it’s difficult to explain what this means. Femininity, feminism, sexuality, nature, isolation, madness, beauty, family, nationalism. You’ll find all of these things in this novel. Five stars.

The Strain by Guillermo del Toro

This was a very entertaining read. The reason it does not garner more than 3 stars is because I found the start of the book to be TOO slow for my own tastes. 

It is well written, engaging, and filled with some very memorable (gory) scenes. It takes the vampire novel to a new level. The book reads very much like a film and this is not at all a bad thing. Guillermo del Toro is well known for his films: Pan’s Labyrinth, Hellboy. And hopefully he’ll adapt this for film at some point in the future as well (once he finishes his work on The Hobbit!) 

This is only the first in a trilogy and as I mentioned above, while it takes some getting into, it’s worth it. The book starts off like a run of the mill contagion/virus story and soon all of Manhattan is in an uproar. The novel takes place in just a few days, told from the points of view of a high level CDC (centre for disease control) doctor and an ageing Holocaust survivor who has first hand knowledge/experience of the dark terror that is spreading throughout the city. It’s this ageing Jewish man that really makes this book worth reading. Driven to the point of madness out of a desire to exact vengeance, this old man carries the novel on his back. 

Pick it up, you won’t be disappointed. Just give the book a bit of time to establish itself.

The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

I was annoyed with this book without ever having read it. All the buzz, the fact that it was on virtually every single 2011 “best-of” list. New York Times, Slate, LA Times, Salon, The Guardian, and on and on. 

My friend Faith told me that an article in Vanity Fair about the publishing of this book was so compelling that she felt it was something I’d enjoy reading. I’ve since downloaded the expanded e-book of that article, it’s my next read. 

Based on all of the reviews, the recommendation of my friend, I decided to give it a chance. I’m glad that I did. The first 5 pages are written with such clarity that I didn’t even realize I was several chapters in — too late. I had fallen for the book, fallen in love with the characters, the story, the style, everything. 

The story is simple, a young high-school baseball player, a short stop who is recruited by an junior on a mid-west college baseball team. We follow his journey into university, into a larger sport, his dreams, his failures, his ultimate sacrifice. It’s a very American novel, very “great” in that sense. It speaks to a national story: hope, change, faith. I know that sounds very cliché but I no of no other way to describe this work. 

J.D. Salinger is the first author that comes to my mind, that same way of writing characters that leap off of the page. It’s only January and I think I can safely say that I will not read another work as strong as this for the remainder of 2012. This is both wonderful and disappointing. This book is wonderful and worthy of all of the praise it has garnered. The characters in this novel stay with you and the interactions that take place throughout the two years that we follow these characters at this mid-west college is something beautiful to behold. I loved this work and I look forward to more from Chad Harbach. 

Now to read the story behind the story. 

I didn’t want to like Chad Harbach’s The Art of Fielding. This much praise for a first book is surely too much. The book made every Best of 2011 list imaginable. I should know - I have a kind of obsession with book sites: New York Times Sunday Book Review, Guardian Books, The Millions, LA Times, CBC Books, Dirda’s Reading Room (Washington Times), and on. I knew about the book, around the book - but not so much what the story was - outside of it being about a young baseball player. 

And now I find myself in the first 75 pages a bit annoyed that I’m reading too quickly, that my page turns are occurring frequently and soon the story will be over. There’s something here, something wonderful and brilliant. Mr. Harbach has captured something about humanity, some bit of perfection. These characters are wonderfully flushed out. If you have a little cash or a library card. Do yourself a favour and pick this up. I walked into it not knowing a damn thing. “What’s it about? - Some baseball player.” That’s all you need to know, the rest will be a pleasant surprise. 

1. Pulphead by John Jeremiah Sullivan

I’m still making my way through this collection. Not because it’s difficult because it’s so good. Faulkner + David Foster Wallace + Thoreau. I know that seems a weird combination but something about his writing reminds me of those three writers. I was not expecting to love his writing this much. I may have to purchase Bloodhorses: Notes of a Sportswriter’s Son, a memoir about his relationship with his father. I cannot help wondering what his fiction would be like. Until then I’ll have to make do with his non-fiction essays.

2. The Antagonist by Lynn Coady

I’m only a few pages into The Antagonist and something about the narrator’s voice is compelling and resonant. And the beauty of this is that one need not be a die hard hockey fan. The Antagonist is about Gordon Rankin “Rank”: former hockey player, goon, enforcer. He’s been labelled as such his entire life. Twenty years after his career, he finds himself the subject of a book, a fictitiousaccount of his life written by a former friend. The narrative is written as a series of epistles between Rank and his former friend. Rank wants to set the record straight about what happened so many years ago, about his life. This was a 2011 Giller prize contender. Considering some of the recent deaths and tragedies surrounding the sport of hockey, the book is oddly prescient. I’m not a big hockey fan. I know enough to watch the game. I can appreciate the talent that this sport takes, but it’s not something I go out of my way to watch, follow a particular team, etc. But, I have followed the sports news world as it addresses issues that this book seems to address: violence on the ice, health of hockey players, depression, the social pressure to behave in a certain role both off and on the ice, etc. Another reason I am reading this is that I try to read as much Canadian fiction as possible. I didn’t grow up in this country and I have this passion for reading books about this country. I think it’s because I feel so fractured as a citizen here. I’m always trying to find out ‘where I am’.

3. The Pale King by David Foster Wallace

Only DFW can make the history of the IRS and taxation policy fascinating. I won’t say any more because that says all you need to know about how talented a writer he is. I’m glad I picked this back up.