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. 

David Szalay - All That Man Is (Penguin, 2016) ***

I was halfway through the first story when I realised that it was familiar, and by mistake, I was reading it again. Is this possible? Described as "a triumph" (The Guardian), and "sad masterpiece" (Daily Mail), it was somewhat less than memorable to this guy. "All That Man Is" is a collection of nine short stories with men in the leading role.

Because it was the only book I took with me on a trip abroad, when I realised I had already read it, that I read it twice. Now, trying to review it again, all within the same year, I still seem not to remember it too much. Yes, I recognise some of the characters, some of the settings. I remember being irritated by it, not only by the stupidity of the characters, their painful ignorance and my lack of spontaneous interest in them, but also by the way non-Brits are described, and especially eastern Europeans, the kind of ignorant buffoons that barely surpass the conservative British cliché about foreigners.

So, no, not really memorable.

Which book?