Out of Sheer Rage (1997)

Geoff Dyer wanted to write a book about D. H. Lawrence. He wanted, in fact, to write his 'Lawrence book'. The problem was Dyer didn't really know what his 'Lawrence book' would be, what form it would take, or even when he'd start writing it. He set out simply to explore and record his reactions - both as a reader, and as a writer himself. But, just as Lawrence's study of Thomas Hardy ended up being 'about anything but Thomas Hardy', so Dyer's book on Lawrence soon threatened to be as much about writers like Rilke, Camus and Thomas Bernhard as Lawrence himself, and as much - no, more - about his own experiences on the Lawrence trail, in New Mexico, Sicily, and darkest Eastwood. Impossible to categorise, Geoff Dyer's latest work of non-fiction transcends its subject with great aplomb. Both revealing and very funny, Out of Sheer Rage is a sort of travel book about Lawrence that becomes a book about the impossibility of finding a dependable supply of cornetti integrali in Rome before turning into a book about literature, and offering conclusive proof that the only decent books about art are art.