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Community comment are the opinions of contributing users. These comment do not represent the opinions of Jefferson County Public Library.
Jul 30, 2014
Certainly one of the most inspired titles for a book I've ever known: seldom fails to raise a chuckle, obviously with reference to Mann's masterpiece. So Dyer is irreverent with this book, but is he good? Well, some parts were most enjoyable and well-written, yet others seem cobbled in from travel and other bits of writing. Some parts are impressively written and humous, yet others strike me as showing a decided loss of interest in the romance that allured readers at the ouset, along with paragraphs from his own travelogues (for which the protagonist was presumably hired,) etc. Then the narrator invokes a levity that fits the protagonist more than the straight narrating eye, and things begin to dissolve in this way. There's not much plot or focus to fix on, after all, while what should be incidental--the love interest and the art exhibits--turns out to be pretty much all there was, in the end. In fact, as I approached the end of Jeff in Venice (which would have sufficed as a stellar title), I had to wonder: what would propel me to read on, into Death in Varanasi? Not much, as it turns out...