Working the Room. Geoff Dyer

      

      For my mum and dad

      ‘There are writers for whom no forms exist: too clever for novels, too sceptical for poetry, too verbose for the aphorism, all that is left to them is the essay – the least appropriate medium for the foiled.’

      Don Paterson

      Contents

      List of Illustrations

      Introduction

       Visuals

      Jacques Henri Lartigue and The Discovery of India

      Ruth Orkin’s ‘VE Day’

      Richard Avedon

      Larry Burrows

      Enrique Metinides

      Jacob Holdt’s America

      Martin Parr’s Small World

      Joel Sternfeld’s Utopian Visions

      Alec Soth: Riverrun

      Michael Ackerman

      Trent Parke

      Miroslav Tichý

      Saving Grace: Todd Hido

      Idris Khan

      Edward Burtynsky

      Turner and Memory

      The Awakening of Stones: Rodin

      The American Sublime

       Verbals

      D.H. Lawrence: Sons and Lovers

      D.H. Lawrence: Lady Chatterley’s Lover

      F. Scott Fitzgerald: The Beautiful and Damned

      F. Scott Fitzgerald: Tender is the Night

      James Salter: The Hunters and Light Years

      Tobias Wolff: Old School

      Richard Ford: The Lay of the Land

      Denis Johnson: Tree of Smoke

      Ian McEwan: Atonement

      Alan Hollinghurst: The Line of Beauty

      Lorrie Moore: A Gate at the Stairs

      Don DeLillo: Point Omega

      The Goncourt Journals

      Rebecca West: Black Lamb and Grey Falcon

      John Cheever: The Journals

      Ryszard Kapuściński’s African Life

      W.G. Sebald, Bombing and Thomas Bernhard

      Regarding the Achievement of Others: Susan Sontag

      The Moral Art of War

       Variables

      Is Jazz Dead?

      Editions of Contemporary Me

      Fabulous Clothes

      The 2004 Olympics

      Sex and Hotels

      What Will Survive of Us …

       Personals

      On Being an Only Child

      Sacked

      On the Roof

      Reader’s Block

      My Life as a Gatecrasher

      Something Didn’t Happen

      Otherwise Known as the Human Condition (with particular reference to Donut Plant donuts)

      Of Course

      Sources and Acknowledgements

      Index

       List of Illustrations

       Black-and-white photographs

       Jacques Henri Lartigue: ‘Cap d’Antibes, August 1953’ © Ministère de la Culture – France/AAJHL

      Ruth Orkin: ‘Times Square, VE Day, NYC, 1945’ © Ruth Orkin, 1981

      ‘Celebrants in Times Square on VE Day’ © Bettmann/Corbis

      Richard Avedon: ‘W. H. Auden, Poet, St. Mark’s Place, New York, March 3, 1960’ © The Richard Avedon Foundation

      Roger Mattingly: ‘Larry Burrows, February 17, 1971’. By kind permission of the photographer

      Enrique Metinides: ‘Mexico City, 1972’. Courtesy of Thomas Dane/Ridinghouse

      Michael Ackerman: ‘Untitled’, from the series and book Fiction. By kind permission of the photographer

      Trent Parke: ‘White Man, 2001’ © Trent Parke/Magnum Photos/Stills Gallery

      Miroslav Tichý: ‘Untitled’ © Miroslav Tichý. Private collection

      Idris Khan: ‘The Uncanny’, 2006, 70 x 80 inches, Lightjet Print. Courtesy of Idris Khan, Victoria Miro Gallery, London, and Yvon Lambert Gallery, New York

      Robert Hall: ‘Ghost Bike’ © Robert Hall, 2008

      ‘On the Roof’

       Colour plates

      Jacob Holdt: ‘Palm Beach’ © Jacob Holdt. By kind permission of the photographer

      Martin Parr: ‘Acropolis, Athens, Greece’. By kind permission of the photographer and Dewi Lewis Publishing

      Joel Sternfeld: ‘Ruins of Drop City, Trinidad, Colorado, August 1995’. Courtesy of the artist and Luhring Augustine, New York

      Alec Soth: ‘Peter’s Houseboat, Winona, Minnesota’, from Sleeping by the Mississippi © Alec Soth

      Todd Hido: ‘#7310-b’ © Todd Hido, 2009. Courtesy of Stephen Wirtz Gallery

      Edward Burtynsky: ‘Oil Fields #19a’, Belridge, California, USA, 2003. Courtesy of the artist and Luhring Augustine, New York

      J.M.W. Turner: ‘Figures in a Building’, c.1830–35 © Tate, London, 2010

      Jennifer Gough-Cooper: ‘Danaid’ from Apropos Rodin, Thames & Hudson, London 2006. By kind permission of the photographer

       Introduction

      This collection of essays and reviews follows right on from Anglo-English Attitudes. The last piece in that book was written in 1999; the earliest one here is from the same year. To be honest, nothing much has changed in the interim. I write about whatever happens to interest me, sometimes accepting commissions from editors, sometimes writing pieces and sending them in on spec. A decade from now, by which time I’ll be in my sixties, I hope to have enough new material to bring out a third volume. You see, I’ve got tenure on this peculiarly vacant chair – or chairs, rather. It’s a job for life; more accurately, it is a life, and hardly a day goes by without my marvelling that it is somehow feasible to lead it. As in the earlier collection, there’s no area of specialised concern or expertise; on the contrary, the pleasure, hopefully, lies in the pick ’n’ mix variety, the way one thing leads to another (often quite different) thing.

      Actually, one thing has changed: in the last ten years I’ve been asked to contribute introductions