Mr. Dyer's new book, Otherwise Known as the Human Condition, is a collection of his occasional prose. . . . They're 'bits and bobs,' he writes, but he takes them more seriously than that, and so should anyone who cares about joyous, wriggling sentences composed in the English language.” —Dwight Garner, The New York Times
“There's a restless current to these essays, as if a net were being thrown ever wider in search of fresh versions of that original burst of aesthetic delight, literature, which managed to turn a working-class grammar school boy from Cheltenham into an international 'man of letters.' . . . This is what I find most remarkable about Dyer: his tone. Its simplicity, its classlessness, its accessibility and yet its erudition—the combination is a trick few British writers ever pull off. . . . [Dyer's humor is] what separates him from Berger and Lawrence and Sontag: it's what makes these essays not just an education, but a joy.” —Zadie Smith, Harper's Magazine
“You read Dyer for his caustic wit, of course, his exquisite and perceptive crankiness, and his deep and exciting intellectual connections, but from these enthralling rants and cultural investigations there finally emerges another Dyer, a generous seeker of human feeling and experience, a man perhaps closer than he thinks to what he believes his hero Camus achieved: 'a heart free of bitterness.'” —Sam Lipsyte, Very Short List
“Dyer's writing does what the best critical writing always does, encouraging us to view, read, or listen closely to art, literature, and music as well as to pay close attention to various cultural forms and their impact on our personal lives.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“All of Dyer's work holds together very well indeed, but what holds it together is a voice, which becomes a persona. It's a very English, low-key, plainspoken, unassuming voice that invites you in, and can become intimate but not too intimate, and can smoothly transit between comedy and gravity. It takes on flesh in his reported pieces and personal essays and some of his fiction, and there it is often richly and sometimes darkly comic—self deprecating, stubborn, canny, forlorn, worldly, hapless, serious, romantic, dissipated.” —Luc Sante, Bookforum
“While contemporary writers such as David Shields decry the need to erase the lines between fiction and nonfiction, for years, Dyer has been exemplar, churning out smart essays with his own cocktail of fact and fiction, private and public, myth and truth and has proven that rigorous criticism and writing arises out of more than just an esoteric bookshelf. Good writing, it appears, begins with seeking what moves us.” —Bookslut
“[These are] brilliantly witty, surprising essays.” —The Daily Beast
“Geoff Dyer has won several prizes, all deserved. When you read accounts of Dyer's work you'll find praiseful critics comparing him to vast numbers of writers, hurling their comparisons into the useless heap that follows him everywhere he goes. I myself often think of G.K. Chesterton for the constant and dazzling flow of paradoxes in his prose.” —Jonathan Lethem, BOMB
“The essay collection 'is considered a pretty low form of book,' in Dyer's estimation, and yet Otherwise Known may be Dyer's masterpiece: a living journal documenting the wealth of his interests, the depth of his insights, and a stealthily powerful argument for the essay, not the novel, as the richest mode of contemporary letters. . . . And let us be thankful that this polymath chose to ignore his father's own words of wisdom: 'Never put anything in writing.'” —The Boston Globe
“Again and again, Dyer pairs an uncommonly precise description of what a particular artist does with an equally compelling, unexpected reason for why it is important. There are few more valuable things that a critics can accomplish in a review, . . . and Dyer's mastery of them is a testament to his achievement.” —The Barnes & Noble Review
A grab-bag of critical essays, reportage and personal stories from the irrepressibly curious Dyer (Jeff in Venice, Death in Varanasi, 2009, etc).
The title of this hefty tome, featuring pieces published in two United Kingdom–only collections, suggests ponderous philosophizing. But though Dyer takes his art seriously, his prose is as relaxed and self-effacing as it is informed. Indeed, the title essay is about nothing more serious than his quest for a decent doughnut and cappuccino in New York City, from which he extracts some surprising insights about our need for routines, standards and sense of home. Though the book is wide-ranging, his command is consistent, whether he's writing about Richard Avedon or model airplanes. Dyer consistently expresses an appreciation for the way the idiosyncratic human being emerges despite our best efforts to suppress it. That's evident in the way he admires John Cheever's confessional journals more than his acclaimed short stories, and in his urge to uncover F. Scott Fitzgerald's tragic personal history when writing about his novels. It also shows in the subjects he chooses to write about. Consistently suspicious of slickness in art, he's drawn to photographers like Enrique Metinides, who documented disasters and accidents in Mexico City, and musicians like John Coltrane, whose "My Favorite Things" grows more appealing to Dyer the more decoupled it becomes from its Rodgers and Hammerstein source. In a few pieces, particularly in his first-person reportage, Dyer works a bit too hard to find something clever to say about subjects he wouldn't have pursued were he not assigned to write about them—e.g., a Def Leppard concert or a flight in a decommissioned MiG. Also, a handful of book reviews are brief piecework of only moderate interest. But the book is chock-full of Dyer at his most open, thoughtful and lyrical, as in his study of photographs of Rodin sculptures, his appreciation of Rebecca West's neglected travel writings and a candid piece about the first time he was fired, where, in exposing his 20-something childishness, he finds the roots of the adult he became.
Whether in sketches or rigorous studies, each piece bears the mark of Dyer's unique intelligence and wit.
…almost every essay is enlivened by Dyer's characteristically crisp formulations…as he tries, impressively, to capture what he calls "the humming circuitry of an artist's imaginative life."
—The New York Times Book Review
Like other hedonists of letters, such as Cyril Connolly and Kingsley Amis, Dyer is more than just a good critic; he's also extremely funny, passionate about women, drink and life's varied pleasures, a bit of a show-off and immensely enjoyable to read…Years ago, Geoff Dyer's dad gave him a bit of worldly advice: "Never put anything in writing." As always, it's a good thing that sons never listen to their fathers.
—The Washington Post
…a collection of [Dyer's] occasional prose—reviews and essays culled from places like The Guardian, Esquire, The American Scholar and Granta. They're "bits and bobs," he writes, but he takes them more seriously than that, and so should anyone who cares about joyous, wriggling sentences composed in the English language…There's a certain, finite quantity of Mr. Dyer's sentences extant in the known universe. This book contains some of the best.
—The New York Times
