David Szalay - Flesh (Penguin Random House, 2025) ***

We follow Istvan, the story's main character, from his isolated and psychologically vulnerable youth in Hungary to his isolated situation as an adult in the UK. As a boy, he has a sexual relationship with an older woman, and he ends up in youth detention. As an adult, he has become a security guard for a very wealthy British couple. Life happens to Istvan. He is drifting on his own life, moving from one context into another as if he has no free will. He has no opinions on things, and when asked how he feels about anything, the most common answer you get is: "it's OK". I did not count the number of words, but I guess "Okay" is possibly the most used word in any dialogue he is engaged in. 

As it happens, he starts a sexual relationship with the wife of the couple, again, more as an instrument to pleasure her than a deliberate choice for him. He undergoes anything that happens and he's fine with it. 

The reviewer of the Guardian describes the book as "Stylistically, Flesh is all bone" (Keiran Goddard
Thu 6 Mar 2025), which is an apt observation. The sentences are short, almost as in a children's book, in a systematic subject-verb-object structure, with few subordinate sentences or embellishments. The dialogues too, are just lists of sentences uttered by the characters, without comments or descriptions. 

The novel won the Booker Prize 2025, which is a good reference, but I think better novels were written last year.