Geoff Dyer's Zona: A Book About a Film About a Journey to a Room is one of the most disappointing books I have ever read, and it is even rather appalling. The title makes the book seem ostensibly about Andrei Tarkovsky's great 1979 film, and Dyer does say a few remarks about it. But then he starts drifting off into anecdotes that have nothing to do with the purported subject of his book, like the time he had a threesome with two women. Ultimately Dyer’s book feels, well, parasitic on Tarkovsky. Dyer is using the Soviet auteur and his film to lend prestige to his own writing that few would consider otherwise.

I wonder if we get such a writer once a generation or so. I have felt the same about some of Marguerite Yourcenar’s work which ostensibly responds to another artist's work but without actually illuminating it much, instead just serving to boost Yourcenar's own profile.