This is Geoff Dyer’s first novel in 11 years and for sheer entertainment value, it's difficult to beat, particularly its first half, a skewering of the pretensions of the art world at the Venice Biennale, as seen through the eyes of freelance journalist Jeff Atman – who, like everyone else, makes a nodding acquaintance with the art, but really only wants to know where the next party/free drink/line of coke is.

Then there's the hilarious inversion of the Thomas Mann story the title nods to – not for Jeff unconsummated desire, but instead a carefree sex-romp with a stunning gallery assistant he picks up and ‘falls in love with’ over three days.

The vacuity of this life is never far from the surface however, and for all its classic English self-deprecation the tone changes in the novel's second half, ‘Death in Varanasai’, where the story relocates to India and the ‘I’ character (presumably Jeff) enters a rather unusual limbo. The travel piece he's been commissioned to do is dispatched soon enough, but Jeff stays on – an omen in this city known as the best place for a Hindu to die.

The problem of eternal recurrence is indeed Jeff's symptom, and the novel ends with him finding his personal nirvana of sorts. Dyer is a classy, often hilarious writer; this novel certainly stands out for its originality!