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the complete review - film

Zona

by
Geoff Dyer

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

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Our Assessment:

B+ : entertaining riffs on Tarkovsky's Stalker; typical Dyer-fare

See our review for fuller assessment.

  Review Consensus:

  Fairly impressed

  From the Reviews:

• "But, of course, there is deft method in Dyer’s fluent playfulness. He uses the film as a springboard to philosophise more generally about life and art. His footnotes, spread over entire pages, brusquely bump us off his central narrative. Each scene in the film is scrupulously examined and then digressed upon. There is nothing so crude as a search for meaning, just a kaleidoscopic array of reference points. Many of these are autobiographical, and most reflect shrewdly on the relationship between watching a movie and living a life. (...) This is a rigorous book, and one that celebrates properly a lifelong devotion to an artistic masterpiece. But it is also entertaining. As such, it is almost revolutionary in form." - Peter Aspden, Financial Times
  
  
• "Some readers may find these riffs and asides more whimsical than enlightening. Some might be wondering too if Dyer's ever-evolving genius for comic writing now leaves him no time or desire to pursue the bruised lyricism that lit up earlier works (.....) What's certainly true is that hardcore cineastes weaned on, say, David Bordwell's cognitive film theory will find Zona a little undercooked. (...) Beyond the book's bravura formalism and in spite of the suspicion that it could be viewed as a highbrow take on live-blogging, it's Dyer's ability at moments like this to make pilgrims of his readers and to lead them on a journey in search of truths about love and about the nature of happiness that make Zona such an exhilarating achievement." - Sukhdev Sandhu, The Guardian
  
  
• "Throughout, the writing is of an aphoristic grace and concision, suffused with humour and a delight to read." - Ian Thomson, The Independent
  
  
• "The book meanders, but its backbone is scene-by-scene analysis; do brush up on the movie first. And although Dyer recognises the grating self-reverence of Tarkovsky, Zona is possibly only for those who already think he's a bit of a genius." - Holly Williams, Independent on Sunday
  
  
• "As someone who has never seen Stalker, it's difficult to say whether this book is best suited for fans of the film, but Dyer approaches the film with such good-natured depth that he allows room for neophytes. (...) For all the witty, self-referential asides that can make the book feel like the smartest Mystery Science Theater 3000 episode ever written, it's Dyer's emotional tie to Writer's journey and the wish fulfillment of that vocation that stay with you the longest after the lights finally come up." - Chris Barton, The Los Angeles Times
  
  
• "The shot-by-shot structure is lazy and keeps us intellectually low to the ground. The long, digressive footnotes, which promise wider perspectives, tend to fizzle. (One of them tells us that formative experiences are ... formative.) Superlatives assume the place of argument. Dyer lets us know incessantly how great the movie is, but he doesn’t put in the work to make us feel it. The book is convincing if you are already convinced, informative only if you already know what it says." - William Deresiewicz, The New Republic
  
  
• "What we gradually come to realize is that Dyer is using Tarkovsky's film (...) not as an object for cool critical dissection but as the occasion for thought, as a point of departure for a series of messy digressions on life, art, time, memory, and -- lest we forget -- cinema. That is to say, Zona is a kind of autobiography by other means. Amazingly, the book is not only readable, it is hard to put down." - Giles Harvey, The New York Review of Books
  
  
• "Zona comes armed with source notes and a bibliography, but as if seeking respite from Tarkovskian heaviness, the writer skews light. However droll, his self-regarding asides can be wearisome (.....) Still, Dyer’s evocation of Stalker is vivid; his reading is acute and sometimes brilliant." - J.Hoberman, The New York Times Book Review
  
  
• "In many ways, Dyer is the perfect man for the job of unpicking the complex mysteries of Tarkovsky's Zone. He has a rare talent for writing about high-minded concerns with disarming simplicity, and he is unafraid to mix in a bit of low culture (.....) This, in other words, is much more than a useful guide to a classic film. It is also, in small doses, a memoir, a rumination on art and a philosophy of how to live well. Moreover, it is a running commentary on itself, and as such it poses a problem for the reviewer." - Killian Fox, The Observer
  
  
• "An unclassifiable little gem (.....) Fortunately this book is also very funny and very personal (.....) Dyer's M.O. is associative, strolling through the film's territory with little stops along the way for memorable fancies. (...) Nobody's perfect, but in Zona, Dyer wagers everything on Tarkovsky's art as a reflective reservoir to which you can return over the years." - J.M.Tyree, San Francisco Chronicle
  
  
• "In any book that appears under Geoff Dyer’s name, whatever the ostensible subject, there’s likely to be a large accompanying portion of the author. Sometimes it seems as if it’s the subject that’s being served on the side." - Adam Mars-Jones, The Spectator
  
  
• "Dyer keeps remarkably sane. And he seems to do so by digressing wildly. And this keeps us sane. Because no other writer can flex and stretch in digressive prose more congenially than Dyer. (...) Watch the film before you read the book if you like. But it’s not compulsory, which says something of Dyer’s style. For he is just as good gibbering on about nothing as he is in full analytical mode." - Igor Toronyi-Lalic, The Telegraph
  
  
• "Zona is not without merit. Dyer writes engagingly. Reading Zona is a pleasant way to spend an afternoon. But if you’re interested in Stalker, watch the film instead, discover it for yourself." - Michael A. Morrison, World Literature Today

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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The complete review's Review:

       In Zona Geoff Dyer writes about Andrei Tarkovsky's classic film, Stalker, a defining work in Dyer's life that he saw at the right impressionable age and that, Stalker-like, haunts him still. The film was based (extremely (and increasingly) loosely) on the Strugatskys' novel, Roadside Picnic, and the bulk of the film has Stalker lead Writer and Professor through the dangerous and unpredictable 'Zone' to reach 'the Room' -- where your innermost wishes can be granted. If you haven't seen it, no worries: Dyer walks you through it, step by step; indeed, that is how the book is presented: Dyer basically recounts the film, offering along the way the usual Dyerian digressions and personal observations (often in the form of footnotes so long they take over the next page(s)). Zona is a guide to (and critique of) Stalker -- the film itself, as well as the making of -- but that's also just a stepping stone for Dyer to go off on his many and various riffs.
       Stalker readily allows itself to be used in this way: it is considered a classic, by a classic filmmaker, but, as Dyer acknowledges, isn't necessarily the most riveting of cinematic experiences (it's long and relatively uneventful); it has an interesting filming-history (a first try didn't go anywhere -- and that film has been lost); you can read a great deal into the film (as Dyer suggests, for example: "The Zone is film") and it has a great and thought-provoking premise (that whole unreal Zone, but also in particular that wish-granting Room ...).
       Dyer does note:

Stalker is a film that can be summarized in about two sentences. So if summary means reducing to a synopsis, then this is the opposite of a summary: it's an amplification and expansion.

Once again, I am struck by the film's reach, its ability to bathe events -- both actual and cultural -- in its projected light.

- M.A.Orthofer, 13 May 2012

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Links:

• Pantheon publicity page
• Canongate publicity page
• Schirmer/Mosel publicity page
• Q & A in The Brooklyn Rail

• About.com
• The Age
• Barnes & Noble Review
• Bookslut
• Boston Globe
• the Book
• Crowded On A Velvet Cushion
• Financial Times
• full stop
• The Globe and Mail
• The Guardian
• Highbrow Magazine
• The Independent
• Independent on Sunday
• The Iowa Review
• Kirkus Reviews
• Los Angeles Review of Books
• The Los Angeles Times
• The Melbourne Review
• The Millions
• New Haven Review
• The New Inquiry
• The New Republic
• npr
• The Observer
• One Hundred Words Magazine
• The Onion
• San Francisco Chronicle
• Slate
• Some Came Running
• The Spectator
• Richard W. Strachan's Blog
• The Telegraph
• The White Review
• World Literature Today

• Official site
• The complete review's Geoff Dyer page

• Anglo-English Attitudes
• But Beautiful
• The Colour of Memory
• Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi
• Out of Sheer Rage
• Paris Trance
• The Search
• Ways of Telling
• Yoga for People Who Can't be Bothered to Do It

• Arkady and Boris Strugatsky's Roadside Picnic, on which Tarkovsky's film, Stalker, is based
• See Index of Film and TV-related books
• See Index of Literary Essays

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About the Author:

       British author Geoff Dyer was born in 1958. He attended Corpus Christi College, Oxford. He has written several novels, a study of John Berger, and several books that his publishers describe as "genre-defying".

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© 2012-2014 the complete review

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