The Ongoing Moment by Geoff Dyer
In his last book, YOGA FOR PEOPLE WHO CAN'T BE BOTHERED TO DO IT, Geoff Dyer confessed that not only did he not take pictures in the course of his travels but that he did not own a camera. With characteristic perversity - and trademark originality - THE ONGOING MOMENT is an idiosyncratic history of photography. Seeking to identify their signature styles Dyer looks at the ways that canonical figures such as Alfred Stieglitz, Paul Strand, Walker Evans, Kertesz, Dorothea Lange, Diane Arbus and William Eggleston have photographed the SAME things (benches, hats, hands, roads). In doing so he constructs a narrative in which the same photographers - many of whom never met in their lives - constantly come into contact with each other. Great photographs change the way we see the world; THE ONGOING MOMENT changes the way we look at both. It is the most ambitious example to date of a form of writing that Dyer has made his own; The non-fiction work of art.
Engaging THE SPECTATOR'Dyer at his absolute best' DAILY TELEGRAPH'One of the most graceful ruminations on photography ever.. Dyer's tour de force is as inspirational as it is accessible' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH'Dyer is a master of the close-up, a hawk-eyed spotter of small coincidences' INDEPENDENT ON SUNDAY'Dyer's subtle, understated, unforgettable masterpiece deserves to join Susan Sontag's On Photography on our bookshelves' SCOTLAND ON SUNDAY'Dyer's meditations on the genre contain some intriguing insights and his elegant prose is a pleasure' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH'Dyer's quirky and original survey of American photography finds revealing angles on all its decisive moments. Enjoy a witty, incisive lesson in how to rescue cultural criticism from shuttered academia' Boyd Tonkin, INDEPENDENT'Photographs are vivified and become catalysts for philosophical discussion, sprightly anecdotes and digressions . . . As readable as a novel but densely informative . . . Dyer is a richly informative and humorous commentator' OBSERVER
Geoff Dyer is the author of 3 novels, a critical study of John Berger and 3 genre-defying titles: But Beautiful, winner of the Somerset Maugham Prize,The Missing Of The Somme and Out Of Sheer Rage, a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award in the US). His collection of essays, Anglo-English Attitudes, was critically acclaimed.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780349118888 |
| ISBN 10 | 0349118884 |
| Title | The Ongoing Moment |
| Author | Geoff Dyer |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Little, Brown Book Group |
| Year published | 2006-03-02 |
| Number of pages | 304 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |