Rating: 
Summary: Another burnout
Review: It's sad that Geoff Dyer admits his awareness of his sickness and, like so many addicts, glibly laughs it off as if he has nothing to do with the emptiness he keeps finding inside himself. How this book ever received great reviews anywhere is beyond me. I've received more interesting, humorous and intellectual letters from friends who travel - stoned and not. I did like the cover photo. Hope Geoff gets a grip and gets over himself someday. How many times can you call yourself an "intellectual" - who are you trying to convince? Burning Man in your 40's - please!
Rating:
Summary: Don't bother to read it!
Review: This book is the printed equivalent of that pretentious bore who corners you at a party and then name-drops from a great height, leaving you battered, bruised and unsure of what, exactly, you did to receive such a fate. Stultifying tedious, this book should only be read (if at all) to highlight the fact that one should not judge a book by its cover. Or, indeed, its author, who penned the lyrical, haunting book on jazz, "But Beautiful". I bought both books at the same time and, luckily, read "But Beautiful" first. I slogged through four or five chapter of "Yoga" and then realised that life is far too short to burden my brain with such an uncompelling, non-descriptive, smug, self-love fest as this book. And the reviews on the cover are nothing short of misrepresentation. Can I sue?
Rating: 
Summary: Great Journey--Pat Ending
Review: You can draw a line from Francis Fukuyama's question: "Have we in fact reached the end of history? Are there, in other words, any fundamental 'contradictions' in human life that cannot be resolved in the context of modern liberalism, that would be resolvable by an alternative political-economic structure?" to Geoff Dyer's "Yoga for People Who Can't Be Bothered To Do It." Dyer's quest assumes that there *are* such contradictions and questions and that the resolution lies within. (In a way, Dyer's book is a resounding affirmation of Fukuyama's assertion that modern liberalism provides an adequate context to deal with our most vexing questions - but that's for another day.) Two-thirds of Dyer's book highlights the dreary devolution of everyday-life-now. Dyer starts with the premise that there is no Grand Scheme of things in which one must find one's happy place. What, then, is an intelligent, thinking being to do? He can go down the path of hedonism, but this is unsatisfactory for most such people-as it apparently is for Dyer. Dyer takes on this challenge by being out and about, observing, filching nuggets of wisdom wherever he can. One story, he's in New Orleans, another in Phnom Penh. Ultimately, it can't be sustained. The wanderings yield increasingly diminished returns, until the marginal utility of New Experiences dips so far that he's pumping in more inconvenience than wisdom or meaning he can eke out. You see this most prominently (and humorously) in his trip to Libya. In the end, Dyer finds what he's looking for in Detroit and is handed the icing on the cake at Burning Man. His realization is in line with the Western take on the main tenets of Buddhism: One should "just be"-- i.e. be in the moment, and the ability to achieve this "state" is favored when one is generous and giving of oneself. This endpoint left me feeling cheated - because every story, every thought that Dyer has, points to a far more pessimistic conclusion. It's as if the publisher or editor read some of Dyer's earlier stories, saw where he was headed, didn't feel like printing a book that not-so-subtly advocated nihilism, and instituted some sort of course correction. In any event, assuming Dyer was faithful to his inquiry and where it led him, what for me would have been its most interesting phase is, unfortunately, not in his book: What did he do with his wisdom? Did it sustain him much beyond six months? Or did his life, with or without Sarah (a woman who merits a few mentions in his stories) crash down anyway? That is, I would have liked to see the application of the moral of "Yoga ... . " I strongly suspect that an impatient person like Dyer does not have the constitution to write that book. That book would involve long technocratic explications; Dyer would moreover, being English, balk at making the necessary revelations. That book would, I think, require much more generosity of spirit than, I suspect, Dyer has, his embrace of Buddhism notwithstanding. That book, I think, would look a lot like "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance." I'd have been interested in Dyer's version. Still, this book definitely merits a read in a sunny place on a trip that's taken as an escape from winter. Travelling vicariously through Dyer is a treat. His observations are touched with moments of quirky hilarity even as they're insightful. And he may save you a trip you thought you needed to take. It's a quick read. But instead of accepting Dyer's neat summing up, the thoughtful reader should draw his/her own conclusions. That's the time-consuming part.
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