Yoga for People Who Can't Be Bothered to Do It

by Geoff Dyer

Release Date: 14 January, 2003

Edition: Hardcover

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What would Rilke say about this review?

I love Geoff Dyer, but this is not his best book. Consisting of stories that take place around the globe and which may or may not have happened or may not have happened quite as presented(the "genre-bending" the publishers are pushing, but anyone whose read autobiographical material... Spalding Gray, Bertrand Russell is aware of the may (not) have happened factor), the stories are Dyer's trademark style and sense of humor unevenly applied. Some of the stories ("Miss Cambodia") are simply excellent. Others are good stories peppered with far too much name checking of other authors ("Leptis Magna") and still others ("The Infinite Edge") are just simply mired in pretentious navel-gazing.

To take the latter, the author is in South-east Asia, but aside from the fact that it's ever-so-green (the first thing anyone notices about the region), there is nothing remotely remarkable about the setting. It is as though Dyer hopped half way around the world to hang around with Western backpackers (which is, I suppose, what all backpackers do, but I digress). Then, to top it off, he (rather, a character) quotes Rilke! So narrator-Geoff has traveled to the ends of the earth to quote Western authors with European backpackers? Ech. It's why people shudder at tourists. Even in "Miss Cambodia," narrator-Geoff admits that he can't distinguish between one temple and the next, but from all the Western quotes sprinkled throughout it becomes apparent that narrator-Geoff has no way to relate to his exotic settings because he knows nothing about them. He only knows a corpus of Occidental thought, DWEM's if you will.

One of the things that made "Out of Sheer Rage" so good was that every location imparted some meaning to narrator-Geoff, every event had an impact central to an intellectual development. Too often in "Yoga" the settings have no meaning whatsoever because they have no purpose for the narrator.

Having gotten my complaints out, I must say that many of the stories had me laughing out loud. The humor is quite self-deprecating in a very un-Bill Bryson way (thank goodness). "Leptis Magna" may lose its momentum navel gazing, but anyone who has ever travelled to a North African country can relate to the author's predicaments and culture barriers.

In short, it's worth reading after you've completed Dyer's better work. Just don't expect to have your Tevas knocked off.

Let go of expectations and enjoy

It's not Geoff Dyer's fault that a lot of people seem pick up this book and think they're going to get something else-a travel guide or a memoir or a philosophical treatise. Judging by the reviews, a lot of readers are uncomfortable with something that they can't really pin down. Dyer doesn't help these readers out by flitting around the globe and resolutely refusing to say anything meaningful about anything but his own state of mind. But once you let go of expectations, "Yoga" really starts to grow on you, adding up to a pleasant if transitory experience, kind of like an evening with an aging backpacker in a seedy hostel with a bottle of Thai whiskey. Dyer also charms as someone who is obviously staggeringly well-read, yet wears his knowledge lightly and seems to actually live with his favorites, instead of just name-drop. That must be a British thing, because it's rare to find American writers who can pull this off. (...)