Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi

By Geoff Dyer

Discussion Questions with a little help from the New Yorker

1. Was our hero in Jeff in Venice the same person as the narrator of Death in Varanasi?

2. Were these pieces presented in chronological order?

3. Some things are mirrored back and forth between the two pieces, for instance:

a. Near the beginning of the narrator’s stay in Varanasi, he looks through a book of photographs by Michael Ackerman, entitled “End Time City,” in the safety of his hotel bar;
(The book End Time City is a frantic photo essay on Varanasi)

From Michael Ackerman’s ”End Time City” (Scalo).

b. Sexual involvement in Venice vs. sexual apathy in Varanasi

c. In Part 1, Jeff and Laura have their picture taken by a passerby: “They took off their sunglasses and stood with their arms around each other, smiling….Birds skittered by…” In Part 2, the narrator, who by this point has become a kind of permanent passerby, photographs Lal and Darrell: “They took off their sunglasses and stood with their arms around each other, smiling. Birds skittered by.”

d. the artwork of the water-logged red boat in a sea of Murano glass by the Finnish artist in Part 1 becomes a reality in Part 2: “The river was completely calm, flat as wrinkled glass. On an impulse, I asked the boatman to row across the river instead. The bottom of the boat was painted dull red and leaked slightly.”

e. Laura buys an expensive glass for Jeff in Part 1, “pale blue with tiny bobbles of orange,” and says it should not be treated like shrine. In Part 2 he comes across a blue shrine with an orange blob of Hanuman in the middle.

f. Giorgione’s “The Tempest” in Part 2 is matched by that painting by Shivalal in the museum in Varanasi of a procession crossing a flooded river in the monsoon, complete with lightning flashing overhead.

g. Ganoona is part otter, which chimes with the Venetian description of the escalating weather (“’otter”).

h. The hero of part 1 is Jeff Atman:
atman: noun Hinduism .
1. the principle of life. 2. the individual self, known after enlightenment to be identical with Brahman. 3. ( initial capital letter ) the World Soul, from which all individual souls derive, and to which they return as the supreme goal of existence.

4. How did each character enhance his experiences, i.e. chemicals/madness/enlightenment.

5. How do you think Jeff in Venice reflects Thomas Mann’s work Death in Venice?

6. The author compares the narrator’s encounter with the holy man in Varanasi with the moment when Jeff in Venice photographs Laura and zooms in on Laura’s face until it is a “galaxy of exploding pixels.” How are these moments similar?

7. Incidentally, the author tells the New Yorker, ”The music I had in mind when writing the scene of the violin concert at the Ganges View was N. Rajam playing the Raga Malkauns. And the voice I was imaginatively hearing during the other concert was the South Indian singer Ramamani. Well, somebody might be interested!”

8. Does the following quote indicate madness or enlightenment? “Ganoona is identified as ‘All that which is not anything else. But it’s also that which is everything else.’ A very tough concept for us Westerners to get our heads around.”

9. The author tells the New Yorker in 2009,”I promise I’m not being difficult or coy, but when it comes to the larger meaning of the book I just don’t have a clue. And the book does not have any kind of message that I’m aware of.” And “…certain things crop up, apparently beyond your conscious control.”Do you think a work of art can have a life of its own this way; a meaning unknown by its author?