Paris Trance Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

Paris Trance Book

Recipe for a millennial novel about twentysomethings living abroad: Take two couples and combine with equal parts desperation and languid slacking. Gently blend with just a pinch of romance. Actually, on second thought, just dump a whole lot of sex into the pot and bring to a boil. Sprinkle with lengthy discussions about the merits of particular movies, directors, etc. Finally, just add drugs. Ready to serve! Geoff Dyer's Paris Trance is full of these ingredients. Luke and Alex are Englishmen living in Paris, spending their days packing books in a warehouse and spending their free time playing football and quoting sections of dialogue from Blade Runner. Soon they hook up with their respective mates--Luke with Nicole, Alex with Sahra--and proceed to party heavily. What distinguishes this novel from its hip brethren is its ability to evoke a sense of coziness with these expatriates, to the point where their idle chitchat seems utterly familiar, if benign. Here's some of the loopy, go-nowhere dialogue with which Dyer fills their mouths: "I can't imagine not being with him, either," said Nicole. "But I can imagine him not being with me--but I can't imagine him being with anyone else. Whereas although I can't imagine me not being with him, I can imagine me being with someone else. Does that make sense? I'm not sure I followed it myself." Neither are we. But that's beside the point. Paris Trance succeeds and fails on its own set of criteria--how to capture a moment in time and preserve a feeling within it. In this case the feeling is a dreamy, warm one. --Ryan BoudinotRead More

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  • Product Description

    People talk about love at first sight, about the way that men and women fall for each other immediately, but there is also such a thing as friendship at first sight . . .

    Luke moves to Paris with the idea of writing a novel but things get in the way. He becomes friends with a fellow expatriate, Alex; then he falls in love with Nicole. Alex meets Sahra, and the two couples form an intimacy that changes their lives. As they discover the clubs and cafs of the eleventh arrondissement, the four become inseparable, united by deeply held convictions about dating strategies, tunneling in P.O.W. films, and, crucially, the role of the Styrofoam cup in action movies. Experiencing the exhilarating highs of Ecstasy and sex, they reach a peak of rapture-the comedown from which is unexpected and devastating.

    In his latest book, Geoff Dyer fixes a dream of happiness-and its aftermath-with photographic precision. Boldly erotic and hauntingly elegiac, comic and romantic, Paris Trance confirms Dyer as one of England's most original and talented writers.

  • 0374229813
  • 9780374229818
  • Geoff Dyer
  • 1 May 1999
  • Farrar Straus Giroux
  • Hardcover (Book)
  • 274
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