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Recipe for a millennial novel about twentysomethings living abroad: Take two couples and combine with equal parts desperation and languid slacking. Gently blend with just a pinch of romance. Actually, on second thought, just dump a whole lot of sex into the pot and bring to a boil. Sprinkle with lengthy discussions about the merits of particular movies, directors, etc. Finally, just add drugs. Ready to serve!
Geoff Dyer's Paris Trance is full of these ingredients. Luke and Alex are Englishmen living in Paris, spending their days packing books in a warehouse and spending their free time playing football and quoting sections of dialogue from Blade Runner. Soon they hook up with their respective mates--Luke with Nicole, Alex with Sahra--and proceed to party heavily.
What distinguishes this novel from its hip brethren is its ability to evoke a sense of coziness with these expatriates, to the point where their idle chitchat seems utterly familiar, if benign. Here's some of the loopy, go-nowhere dialogue with which Dyer fills their mouths:
"I can't imagine not being with him, either," said Nicole. "But I can imagine him not being with me--but I can't imagine him being with anyone else. Whereas although I can't imagine me not being with him, I can imagine me being with someone else. Does that make sense? I'm not sure I followed it myself."
Neither are we. But that's beside the point. Paris Trance succeeds and fails on its own set of criteria--how to capture a moment in time and preserve a feeling within it. In this case the feeling is a dreamy, warm one. --Ryan Boudinot
Book Description
Luke moves to Paris and, with his new love and the other expatriate couple from whom they become inseparable, wanders the Eleventh Arrondissement where clubs, cafés, banter, and ecstasy now occupy Gertrude Stein's city "which is not real but is really there."
In Paris Trance, Geoff Dyer fixes a dream of happiness--and its aftermath--with photographic precision. Boldly erotic and hauntingly elegiac, comic and romantic, this brilliant reconception of the classic expatriate novels of the Lost Generation confirms Dyer as one of our most original and talented writers.
Customer Reviews:
Got to understand how European mind works to understand the book..........2006-08-26
I thought this book was terrific. I'm not a big fan of romantic novels, but this one got me going for a week or so. It has a plot that for some may not make too much sense, the writing itself is very straight forward and quite real...you can almost feel those characters to be a part of you.
What I loved most about this book is the language the author uses, his examples....how he describes the scenes of love, sex...it's very raw, ugly in a way, but real and beautiful at the same time.
If you want to read a story about how people in Europe feel about sex, love, relationships, the importance of work...happiness you can read this book, because it will give you a very close point of view...
Definitely recommended, very different from what so called "New York Bestsellers" are trying to sell you...enjoy it and I hope you do as much as I did. I spent every free moment I had to read this book.
A BLEAK RATHER INCOHERENT TALE.......2004-07-06
Just as a drunk's jokes fall flat before those who are sober, so drug induced experiences are surreal to those whose awareness has not been chemically altered. Such is often the case in Paris Trance, the seventh novel by English author/journalist Geoff Dyer. One wishes to empathize with the characters, but finds it difficult to relate.
This puzzling rather incohesive tale of misspent youth set in the City of Light covers several years in the lives of four twenty-something expatriates who trade arch remarks, go to many movies (Cassavetes films being a special favorite), are often strung out on Ecstasy, and have non-stop sex.
Luke arrives in Paris from England with the announced intention of writing a book, but he never sets pen to paper. He is lonely, yet neglects to learn French, and wanders aimlessly until he finds work at the Garnier Warehouse overseen by Lazare, who seeks contentment in "whipping himself into a froth of anger and irritation."
It is at the warehouse that Luke meets Alex, a fellow Britisher and film buff with whom he becomes fast friends as "there was an immediate ease and sympathy between them."
"They flourished in each other's company, their intimacy increased as they met more people. Things Alex said in groups were always addressed implicitly to Luke; other people were used as a way of reflecting back something Luke intended primarily for Alex."
Shortly thereafter Luke meets and becomes involved with Nicole, a Belgrade, who came to Paris on a scholarship and now works as a translator. Alex partners with Sahra, an interpreter from Libya. The foursome become inseparable, sharing meals, holidays, and dancing the nights away with drug fueled energy.
In a year or so the two couples go their separate ways - Sahra and Alex stop taking E and "Saying no to E - or anything else for that matter - was like saying no to Luke,"
whose "happiness had begun to have a desperate edge to it."
As abruptly as he had arrived on the scene Luke leaves Paris. He goes first to America, later Mexico, then finally returns to London.
Some eight years later when Alex is in London for a relative's funeral, he again finds Luke. He is living in a dismal flat where, as Alex writes, "As soon as I stepped inside I could feel the loneliness, could smell the life he led..."
Mr. Dyer is a capable, gifted writer. He has a keen ear and exhibits a deft knack for innovative, colorful phrasing. Nonetheless, with Paris Trance he has painted a bleak landscape littered with wasted lives.
- Gail Cooke
Self-indulgent amateur hour.......2003-10-27
I'm hoping this is the author's first book. From the jacket descriptions and the subject matter I thought this would be a sure winner just to put me in the mood of Paris in the fall. But the writing was so tepid and clumsy, the characters so poorly sketched and the dialogue either so badly written or falsely pretentious that I couldn't even finish half of this book. The sex scenes are basically just snapshots of the author's own perversions and are neither necessary nor believable. To me this book is a complete failure. If you were drawn, like me, to France and the idea of intelligent romance read James Salter or James Baldwin instead. You will be glad that you did.
BTW
Interesting - but not enough........2001-12-08
4 characters. Luke. Alex. Sahra. Nicole. Living in Paris. In love. Having fun. Having sex. Taking drugs. Uh-huh. What else? Not much.
Reading this book was like eavesdropping on a conversation. At its best, the tale told was amusing, sometimes curious and I read with uncommitted interest. At its worst, it was as insipid as any conversation one might overhear between strangers. And, to me, these characters remained strangers - indistinct, faded strangers - from start to 300-page finish. What specific insights and traits a reader could glean from the characters, Dyer spoon-feeds us through direct narration and heavy-handed depictions instead of subtle guidance and gestures. I couldn't understand why any of these character would consider the others interesting or compelling. Moreover, there did not seem to be any ultimate truth or principle in the novel that was worth pondering over. (The theme of "living out one's destiny no matter the cost" was weak and, at least in the way Dyer developed it, not worth more than a few seconds thought.)
Oddly, the strength of this novel was that it *did* make me feel as if I were eavesdropping. As I read (listened to) their conversations, stories, and jokes, observed their interactions, I was vaguely curious about their lives and relationships with one another in the same remote way I'd be interested in 4 people sitting next to me in a cafe. In other words, from a distance, the interaction between the characters and the outward structure of the relationships seemed real. But, when I tried to become more interested in Luke, Alex, Sahra and Nicole as individuals, I realized that I couldn't. There just wasn't anything there.
Excellent!.......2001-07-15
I thought this book was very well written. It kept my attention as many don't. All-in-all a very good read.
Book Description
Heartfelt Vows
Widow Bev Miller promised to keep her chin up and trust in God after her husband's untimely death. She had her boisterous children to nurture through this transitional time. When she encountered handsome businessman Dale Levin, she began to wonder about the possibilities. Could love strike her a second time?
While caring for his aging parents, Dale witnessed a true marriage and didn't feel such a powerful force could ever exist for him. Love was an old-fashioned romantic notion that faded over time. But then Bev and her kids crept into his routine. . .and into his heart. Would God prove his long-held beliefs wrong and grant him the happy ending he craved?
Customer Reviews:
Another Romance from Loving, Michigan.......2005-09-26
Meet Bev Miller, struggling to raise two young kids after the motorcycle death of her husband three years ago. We find her finishing up a grocery shopping trip when seven-year-old Michael, asked to push the empty cart to the return form-what boy can resist doing a wheelie with a shopping cart?-suddenly crashes into the rear bumper of a moving car.
Enter Dale Levin: single, never married, thirty-something - driver of that car - and boy, do the sparks fly! Not from the crash - no harm done. Not for the potential injury to the boy - he's fine. But it seems Dale doesn't like kids. And when he accuses Bev of not having control over her children, well, of course we have the ingredients of a first-class, um, potential romance.
Dale was afraid to love - afraid of commitment. All his life he had witnessed the perfect marriage of his parents - true soul-mates. Yet this perfect marriage is threatened when his mother is stricken with a debilitating disease and he sees her life ebbing away. Dale doesn't believe that kind of love will ever happen to him, and he's not sure he wanted it anyway. Love brings pain. So, he determined he will never be a husband much less a father. Kids make him -- uncomfortable.
Bev, too, is afraid to love again. Her life is moving along quite well, thank you very much. She is doing just fine raising Michael and four-year-old Kristin alone. She doesn't need anyone else interfering with things and messing up her life. It is clear that Dale has no interest in kids, but he can't seem to keep from disciplining them, and this makes Bev hot. He has no right to butt in.
Yet she and Dale are thrown together through a series of coincidences, when Bev's mother comes to live with her. It turns out that Bev's mother and Dale's father are old buddies - friends from years ago. Bev's mom is a nurse. Dale wants someone to come in and help take care of his mom to give some relief to his dad.
Bev and Dale travel a rocky road to romance in LOVING PROMISES. The differences between them create a chasm that only widens with each day. Both are afraid of love and commitment. The author has managed to throw obstacle after obstacle in their path and the reader is left to wonder if this romance was ever meant to be. Each must grow in their faith and trust in God, letting go of the control they keep snatching back from His hands.
LOVING PROMISES is the fifth book Gail Gaymer Martin has set in her lovely fictional town of Loving, Michigan. Each book stands alone, yet you will meet those that shone in the previous books - briefly - or not. But you don't have to have read any of the others to thoroughly enjoy any of them. If you like contemporary Inspirational Romance, you love LOVING.
Peggy Phifer ©2005
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Broken Promises, Loving Hearts
Clarence Jones
Manufacturer: AuthorHouse
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
 20th Century | Poetry | United States | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
General | Poetry | United States | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 1420840401 |
Book Description
I hoped you enjoyed my poetry and thoughts. Poetry for me is more than writing it's a way to understand life looking through my eyes. I've been writing poetry and short stories since the age of seven. Growing older I've pursued my writing career farther and farther. This will be the first volume of a five volume set through the next coming years. One more thing I want to leave with you before I go. "If your running late slow down, if your mad calm down, and if you find love cherish it". Clarence Jones
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Danielle Steel 23 Book Set (Summers End, Full Circle, Sunset in St. Tropez, Crossings, Now and Forever, The Promise, The Klone and I, Irresistible Forces, To Love Again, Loving, The House on Hope Street, The Kiss, Bittersweet, A Perfect Stranger, Malice, Lighting, Secrets, No Greater Love, The Wedding, The Ghost, Vanished, Fine Things, Jewels.)
Danielle Steel
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000T93S2E |
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Loving Life: Promises and Problems Pains and Joys (Landmark Books)
Helen Hayes , and
Marion Glasserow Gladney
Manufacturer: ABC-Clio
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General | Theater | Performing Arts | Arts & Photography | Subjects | Books
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Biographies & Memoirs | Large Print | Formats | Books
ASIN: 1557360456 |
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Loving Promises
Helen Steiner Rice
Manufacturer: Hutchinson
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
Single Authors | Poetry | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books | British & Irish | Continental European | United States
ASIN: 0091329108 |
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- Our Lord is ALWAYS HERE
- Inspirational
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Loving Promises
Helen Steiner Rice
Manufacturer: Fleming H. Revell Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
20th Century | Poetry | United States | World Literature | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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Gifts | Spirituality | Religion & Spirituality | Subjects | Books
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Similar Items:
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Gods Promises from A to Z
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Heart Gifts
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Someone Cares (Helen Steiner Rice Products)
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Celebrations of the Heart,
ASIN: 0800716000 |
Customer Reviews:
Our Lord is ALWAYS HERE.......2001-10-23
This book brings much confort when you are looking for reasons for the many hurts present in today's world. The answer is "Jesus" but too many times we look for other answers when the only true one is our Lord. This book shows this in every page.
I am sending this book to a family who lost a daughter and a granddaughter on the United Plane that hit the World Trade Center.
I have really tried to find words to express my heart-felt hurt for this family but this book says it all.
Inspirational.......1999-08-12
For anyone who likes poetry, especially the poetry of Helen Steiner Rice, this book is a gem. The selections she chose for this book cover many topics, such as friendship, grieving, love, over- coming trials, faith, endurance, etc. It especially brought comfort to me after the passing of my dear mother-in-law who was one of my best friends. I also liked the fact that scriptural verses (from the King James version of the Bible) were intermingled with the poetry. When I am feeling a little blue, this book always helps to cheer me up.
Book Description
While sightseeing at the Belmont Bevatron, Jack Hamilton, along with seven others, is caught in a lab accident. When he regains consciousness, he is in a fantasy world of Old Testament morality gone awry—a place of instant plagues, immediate damnations, and death to all perceived infidels. Hamilton figures out how he and his compatriots can escape this world and return to their own, but first they must pass through three other vividly fantastical worlds, each more perilous and hilarious than the one before.
Winner of both the Hugo and John W. Campbell awards for best novel, widely regarded as the premiere science fiction writer of his day, and the object of cult-like adoration from his legions of fans, Philip K. Dick has come to be seen in a literary light that defies classification in much the same way as Borges and Calvino. With breathtaking insight, he utilizes vividly unfamiliar worlds to evoke the hauntingly and hilariously familiar in our society and ourselves.
Customer Reviews:
Surprisingly good early novel.......2007-08-15
This novel is best enjoyed if you know nothing about it and just read it cold. I was fortunate enough to have done just that, and got a lot more out of it, because the back blurb gives quite a bit of it away.
Eye In The Sky is another expedition into PKD's favorite theme: "what is reality?" As such, the reader spends the first half of the book learning what the "game rules" are, and once the fun of that has played itself out, the back half is spent trying to figure out who the "game master" is -- which purposefully shifts several times. Because of this, there are two levels of enjoyment in the book.
Normally, I'm a bit wary of PKD's early works, especially his short stories (which were written for pulp magazines with an obvious looming deadline and word limit.) Eye In The Sky surprised me at how well it was written (for someone still early in his career) and I believe it ranks up with the classics of his later days.
Interesting ideas but kind of a dull ending.......2007-05-15
"Eye in the Sky" is a twisted trip through the mental realities of several messed up characters. The idea is interesting but I think that it could have been executed better by Dick, who writes this book too chaotically. Ultimately, the conclusion is disappointing and predictable. Read "Time Out of Joint" or "A Maze of Death" for some better examples of Dick's work.
One of Philip K. Dick's Best Books - A Brilliant Look at The McCarthy Era in the 1950s.......2007-04-29
In the 1950s, America was troubled with an identity crisis...the struggles between paranoia and socialism and communism and the fear of the different or seemingly un-American were gripping the nation. From the Beavers' sterile vision of America to the youth yearning to throw off the yoke of societies norms through figures like Elvis Presley to McCarthy, we were defending our society from every angle - both the overly conservative who wanted us all to act and behave the "right" way and those who embraced the false hope of socialism or communism and the belief that we can make an "equal" society and everything in between.
During a tour of the new Bevatron facility, eight people from different walks of life are bathed in the Bevatron beam when something goes terribly wrong with the Bevatron experiment. After the accident, these eight people think that they have escaped any effects of the accident until they realize that they are trapped in a time hole and dropped into an alternate reality - kind of a quantum virtual reality - where one of the eight are secretly creating the rules and manipulating the laws of physics through their dreams. And these dreams are definitely specific about how they think the world should be and how people should live in it.
From here, this book also becomes a whodunit of sorts as some the eight begin to understand what is going on; they must learn who their new companions are and what they believe if they are to determine who is controlling their reality so they can stop the madness before things get out of control. But they also figure out that the only way to stop the person is to kill them...something that isn't too easy to do when that person controls the nature of reality.
Oh yeah...and killing this person is just the beginning of their journey back to reality.
In one of his most lucid novels, Philip K. Dick's *Eye in the Sky* takes a critical look at the America where one group or another thinks they have all the answers and know exactly how everyone else should live. If ever someone wanted to truly understand the importance of keeping society out of the bedroom and the like, this would be the book to start with. And, for anyone just wanted to get started in reading Philip K. Dick, *Eye in the Sky* is one of the five to start with.
COSMIC PUPPETEER?.......2007-02-01
As readers know, what fascinated Dick were the questions: Why is man here? What registers the reality that sparks man to act? or put another way: Is there a cosmic puppeteer pulling man's invisible strings. With EYE IN THE SKY the reader sees the bare bones of Dick's questions which he later polished in later novels.
By presenting scenes in which the seven other characters were forced to live in the pleasant or horror fantasy version of one character, Dick vividly illustrates the old philosophical question of solipsism. Is reality constructed within each and every person's brain? The illusory worlds that his characters were forced to live in would seem to answer that question in the positive. Is man's reality merely a projection of the deity's eye in the sky? Is man living in the dream world of a god?
Beneath all the surplus of words in this story, of too many virtual worlds, was the stark suggestion of solipsism -- that each and every mind, given the power, could construct its own world to live in. As an aside, the mere recitation of the story elements of a book is hardly helpful in deciding if there was any "take home" value. Such a review shows zero creative content
Adventures in the World of Nightmares (Eye in the Sky).......2006-05-01
Eight people lost in the surreal world of Philip K Dick. An accident occurs in a futuristic astronomical observatory. The victims, visitors to the observatory, have all been rendered unconscious, and share the same nightmarish dreams. Just as in the land of the blind, where the one-eyed man is king, so in this land of the unconscious, the semi conscious is god, and his precepts, no matter how bizarre, are the law. The precepts of the first of the group to gain godhood includes a PKD invented religion called Second Babiism. A fabulous story marred only by a weak ending.
Book Description
In this modern Australian classic, award-winning author Tim Winton tells the story of young Ort Flack and his struggle to come to grips with the forces pulling his family apart. An extraordinary snapshot of boyhood, That Eye, the Sky is also a powerful exploration of the nature of hope and faith.
Ort doesn't have a bad life. He mucks around with his best pal, Fat Cherry; he wonders what his sister Tegwyn's so mad about and why his grandma's disappeared inside herself; he looks up at the sky and thinks it's like a big blue eye looking right back at him. But when Dad isn't back from work when he's supposed to be and a strange car pulls into the drive, Ort's life is thrown into turmoil. Suddenly, Mum doesn't seem as strong as she used to, Fat starts saying bad things, and the stranger knocking on the door seems to know an awful lot about the Flacks.
Customer Reviews:
I agree - a fine read - but mysterious ending.......2005-05-26
I agree with the reviewer in April of 2003. I really enjoyed the book. You fall in love with Ort. Seeing things through his eyes are very touching and funny at times. The end is definately what you make of it - a good book for discussion - book club.
A quick, but fine read.......2003-04-29
That Eye, the Sky is a novel about a family in the outback of Australia. Life goes wrong when the father is in a car accident and in a coma afterwards. It is narrated by twelve year old Ort Flack. Through his eyes we meet his Dad, his Mum, the helpless hippy, Tegwyn, his angry sister, Fat his only friend and Henry, the missionary that saves them.
Through the eyes of Ort, the story of the Flack family unfolds, in simple, but beautifully written language. The novel jumps from reality to surreality, from living on the dole in the outback to miracles and mystical lights. It end on a strange surreal note and the reader is left to make of it what he/she chooses.
I thoroughly enjoyed this book, although I don't quite know what to make of the end of this book. I would love to discuss it with someone that read it.
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The Collected Shorter Novels of Tim Winton: An Open Swimmer, That Eye, the Sky in the Winter Dark
Tim Winton
Manufacturer: Trans-Atlantic Publications
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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ASIN: 0330325558 |
Book Description
This digital document is an article from California Bookwatch, published by Thomson Gale on September 1, 2007. The length of the article is 852 words. The page length shown above is based on a typical 300-word page. The article is delivered in HTML format and is available in your Amazon.com Digital Locker immediately after purchase. You can view it with any web browser.
Citation Details
Title: Brilliance Audio.(suspense novels)(Audiobook review)
Author: Gale Reference Team
Publication:
California Bookwatch (Magazine/Journal)
Date: September 1, 2007
Publisher: Thomson Gale
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Article Type: Audiobook review
Distributed by Thomson Gale
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- Heart Music
- Inspirationally Powerful
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The Dove in Downward Flight
Roseanne Farano
Manufacturer: Hampton Roads Publishing Company
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
General
| Self-Help
| Health, Mind & Body
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Happiness
| Self-Help
| Health, Mind & Body
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General
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Mysticism
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Inspirational
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ASIN: 1571742581 |
Customer Reviews:
Heart Music.......2002-06-10
When we want to be moved by great music, we listen to a symphony. When we want to participate in making the music, we study with a master. And when we want to encounter the hauntingly powerful aria of our own heart, we immerse ourselves in the harmonious mosaic of Roseanne Farano's "The Dove in Downward Flight." Farano's magic lies in her ability to summon us to move more deeply into the exquisite experience of being souls in human form. I know of no one more skilled in decoding humanity with understanding, compassion and respect.
Inspirationally Powerful.......2002-03-15
As a father of two beautiful daughters Roseanne touched me from the moment I started until tonight, which by the way is 24 hours since I completed the book.
The inspiration and the insight into the powers granted by God to Roseanne and actually to many of us here on earth is amazing.
The Dove has grounded me again as a parent and brought the reality of what life is about and that God touches many of us in so many varying aspects that we need to accept and cherish what we are given.
I hope that everyone who reads this, reap the same sense of love and hope that Roseanne has given me along with my renewed spirit for being able to accept everything that is put before me by God.
I recommend this book to anyone who has, needs or wants to understand a persons passion for life.
Books:
- Pigeon Feathers and Other Stories
- Rabbit Novels Vol. 2
- River of Darkness: A Novel of Suspense
- Roald Dahl's Even More Revolting Recipes
- Salome of the Tenements (Radical Novel Reconsidered)
- Savage Run
- Schopenhauer's Telescope: A Novel
- Seeing Calvin Coolidge in a Dream: A Novel
- Senor Vivo and the Coca Lord
- Something Rising (Light and Swift): A Novel
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The Ongoing Moment
