Description
Book SynopsisIn this spellbinding book, the man described by the
Daily Telegraph as ''possibly the best living writer in Britain'' takes on his biggest challenge yet: unlocking the film that has obsessed him all his adult life. Like the film
Stalker itself, it confronts the most mysterious and enduring questions of life and how to live.
Trade ReviewOne of my favourite of all contemporary writers. -- Alain de Botton
Reading Dyer is akin to the sudden elation and optimism you feel when you make a new friend, someone as silly as you but cleverer too, in whose company you know you will travel through life more vagrantly, intensely, joyfully. * * Daily Telegraph * *
There is no contemporary writer I admire more than Dyer, and in no book of his does he address his animating idea - The Only Way Not to Waste Time Is to Waste It - more overtly, urgently, emphatically and eloquently. -- David Shields, author of REALITY HUNGER
Few books about film feel like watching a film, but this one does. We sit with Dyer as he writes about
Stalker; he captures its mystery and burnish, he prises it open and gets its glum majesty. As a result of this book, I know the film better, and care about Tarkovsky even more. -- Mark Cousins, author of THE STORY OF FILM
I loved this book. How can it possibly work - a book describing a film, more or less shot by shot? But it triumphantly does - i actually felt suspense, and revelation. And i'd never laugh at
Stalker, but i did laugh all the way through this. -- Tessa Hadley, author of THE LONDON TRAIN
A restless polymath and an irresistibly funny storyteller, he is adept at fiction, essay and reportage, but happiest when twisting all three into something entirely his own. * * New Yorker * *
A true original . . . [Dyer] never ceases to surprise, disturb and delight. -- William Boyd
A national treasure. -- Zadie Smith
Perennially readable and wonderfully difficult to second-guess * * Bookseller * *
Zona is penned with great linguistic flair, in a non-academic, conversational tone... It turns Zona from film criticism into a stranger, more amusing study and the section on why their journey is like the journey of writing a book is both intellectually neat and rather touching. * * Independent on Sunday * *
