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Tutto quello che è un uomo
Nove uomini, in diverse età della vita, dall'adolescenza alla vecchiaia. Un continente, l'Europa oggi – da Cipro alla Croazia, dalle Fiandre alla Svizzera –, fotografato in una luce cruda, quasi senza ombre. I nove fanno quasi tutte le cose che i maschi sono soliti fare: inseguono donne, le abbandonano, tentano un affare improbabile, cercano un luogo dove vivere un esilio decente, chiacchierano, sognano un'altra vita. E se a ogni capitolo tutto – protagonista, ambiente, atmosfera – cambia, fin dal primo stacco le nove storie sembrano una sola. All'inizio stentiamo a riconoscerlo, il paesaggio che David Szalay ci costringe a esplorare, finché, per ogni lettore in un punto diverso, ciò che abbiamo davanti si rivela per quel che è, in tutta la sua perturbante evidenza: il nostro tempo, quello che viviamo ogni giorno, in forma di romanzo.
402 pages, Paperback
First published April 7, 2016
1008 people are currently reading
15550 people want to read
About the author
David Szalay
14 books921 followersDavid Szalay (born 1974 in Montreal, Quebec) is an English writer.
He was born in Canada, moved to the UK the following year and has lived there ever since. He studied at Oxford University and has written a number of radio dramas for the BBC.
He won the Betty Trask Award for his first novel, London and the South-East, along with the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. Since then he has written two other novels: Innocent (2009) and Spring (2011).
He has also recently been named one of The Telegraph's Top 20 British Writers Under 40 and has also made it onto Granta magazine's 2013 list of the Best of Young British Novelists.
A fourth novel All That Man Is was longlisted for The Man Booker Prize 2016.
He was runner-up of the Booker Prize for All That Man Is, and winner 2025 with Flesh.
He was born in Canada, moved to the UK the following year and has lived there ever since. He studied at Oxford University and has written a number of radio dramas for the BBC.
He won the Betty Trask Award for his first novel, London and the South-East, along with the Geoffrey Faber Memorial Prize. Since then he has written two other novels: Innocent (2009) and Spring (2011).
He has also recently been named one of The Telegraph's Top 20 British Writers Under 40 and has also made it onto Granta magazine's 2013 list of the Best of Young British Novelists.
A fourth novel All That Man Is was longlisted for The Man Booker Prize 2016.
He was runner-up of the Booker Prize for All That Man Is, and winner 2025 with Flesh.
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April 3, 2022
L’ETERNO TRASCORRERE DEL TEMPO
La copertina: fotografia di Luke Smalley.
Cos’è questo libro? Perché colpisce, cresce dentro, s’insinua, penetra, cattura, avvince…?
Non è scorrevole da leggere perché ogni 45 pagine cambia tutto, protagonista, ambiente, personaggi intorno, trama.
E poi, quale trama? Succedono tante cose, però la sensazione vincente è che non succeda nulla, almeno nulla di speciale: anche se c’è nell’aria un suicidio, un aborto, una morte, un naso spaccato a pugni, una giovane che si prostituisce per il consenziente (e incoraggiante) fidanzato, anche se si incappa in eventi che non sono certo quotidiani, che non appartengono alla media dell’ordinario di nessuno di noi, l’impressione che vince è che Szalay tessa la trama dell’esistenza.
Che parli di noi e delle nostre vite anche se la maggior parte dei suoi personaggi, sicuramente dei protagonisti, appartiene alla tipologia “se li conosci, li eviti”.
Luke Smalley
Per chi sostiene che questo libro è un romanzo (l’editore britannico, per esempio, il lancio pubblicitario, e diversi recensori), c’è un’impalcatura che lo unifica: l’Europa, decima protagonista, insieme e, forse, perfino più dei nove uomini ciascuno al centro di una storia - è un autentico inno all’Europa unita, senza frontiere, con autostrade che portano in luoghi molto diversi, con lingue diverse e cibi diversi, dove la libertà sessuale va di pari passo a quella economica, l’Europa viaggiata, attraversata, descritta, con confini che non bloccano, lingue che si conciliano pur nella grande diversità, un unico grande sfaccettato magnifico paese che pulsa; il fatto che ogni singola narrazione abbia un uomo al centro spinge alcuni a ritenere che si tratti di nove aspetti dello stesso uomo; sensazione rafforzata dal fatto che l’età dei nove maschi protagonisti cresce progressivamente, dai 17 del primo ai 73 dell’ultimo; che i nove racconti seguano un percorso ideale temporale, più o meno la durata di un anno, iniziando in primavera e terminando in inverno; che il primo racconto sia dedicato al diciassettenne Simon in viaggio con l’eurail e l’ultimo a suo nonno, un filo che raccorda principio e fine; che tutti e nove siano colti in un momento di crisi, e sempre in viaggio, treno o aereo o nave o auto.
Luke Smalley
Per chi sostiene come me che siamo invece di fronte a una raccolta di racconti, c’è il fatto che a parte il labile legame tra la prima e l’ultima storia, si tratta di nove vicende diverse e separate, ogni volta è necessario ricominciare, immergersi daccapo, scalare, fino a essere avvinti dalla trama, e dalle trame, di Szalay. D’altra parte al giorno d’oggi i racconti vendono ben meno dei romanzi, una raccolta di racconti ha bisogno di un qualche collante per superare l’esame, di un escamotage che faccia superiore lo scoglio di più narrazioni brevi.
Luke Smalley
La scrittura di Szalay appare semplice: per lo più frasi corte, spesso solo sostantivo e aggettivo (aggettivi scelti con gran cura) senza verbo.
Ricorda quella cinematografica per la sua (apparente) semplicità, per il suo prendere spesso avvio dalla semplice indicazione del luogo e dell’orario come se fosse l’intestazione di una scena, per il suo forte carattere visivo (ah, la scelta dei colori, quanto è bravo Szalay a trovare i colori che appaiono più azzeccati – invece, per fortuna, si astiene quasi sempre da quel fastidioso vezzo della letteratura contemporanea tanto dedita agli odori, sempre pessimi schifosi ributtanti), per l’indicazione di etichette, oggetti, dettagli che definiscono (la cura che Szalay mette nell’indicare la marca e il modello di ciascuna auto in modo che possa esprimere un tratto della personalità di chi la guida – oppure lo yacht dell’oligarca).
Verrebbe anche da dire che è cinematografico per come impagina, per gli accapo, per il ricorso al tempo presente (il che regala alla narrazione un ritmo di urgenza e soffice martellamento).
Luke Smalley
Dicevo, se li conosci li eviti: l’umanità di cui parla Szalay non è gradevole. Fa pensare a un mondo di figli unici. Fanno credere che alla domanda se hanno fratelli o sorelle, ciascuno di loro risponderebbe, Mio fratello è figlio unico come me.
La presunta fidanzata dice a uno di loro che è egoista e viziato, non lo sfiora mai l’idea di poter non essere al centro dell’universo. Sarebbe l’ora di crescere.
Luke Smalley
Tanto maggiore è l’impresa di Szalay di farci empatizzare, per esempio con il ricco oligarca russo della penultima storia, che ha imbrogliato il mondo e adesso sta perdendo tutto, soldi e moglie, e medita il suicidio.
Ma i nove personaggi maschili spero proprio che non rappresentino Tutto Quello che È Un Uomo, come dice il titolo, perché sarebbe davvero deprimente. Gli unici che si salvano, che emanano più umanità, sono il primo e l’ultimo, nipote e nonno, e principalmente in virtù della loro età, adolescente il primo, anziano il secondo.
Il protagonista dell’ultimo racconto ambientato in Italia, colpisce per il suo rapporto con la fine che a 73 anni si mostra più vicina di quanto vorrebbe. È in questa storia che Szalay, restando sempre lontano da qualsiasi eccesso di pathos, introduce personaggi con maggiore complessità d’anima e personalità.
Curioso che la maggior sfaccettatura di questo protagonista possa dipendere dal suo possibile, forse probabile, essere omosessuale, l’unico del gruppo.
Dan Mitchell: illustrazione apparsa a corredo della recensione sul Financial Times.
Qui e là dettagli che il mio gusto non ha apprezzato: quando nel primo racconto una pagina intera ha al centro solo due parole “La musica”, dove lo spazio bianco intorno predomina sul segno nero a sottintendere il sublime musicale che niente può avere accanto, temo si scivoli in involontario ridicolo.
Così pure l’espressione onomatopeica lasciato da sola su una riga.
Oppure lo spazio bianco che circonda la frase in latino scritta sulla lapide.
Trovo che in queste soluzioni ci sia un eccesso d’enfasi.
Ma sono peccati meno che veniali, perdonatissimi da me lettore rimasto irretito dall’arte di David Szalay.
La statua di San Dionigi vescovo che regge in mano la sua testa nell’Abbazia di Vierzehnheiligen detta anche dei 14 santi ausiliatori a circa 20 km da Bamberga in Baviera.
La copertina: fotografia di Luke Smalley.
Cos’è questo libro? Perché colpisce, cresce dentro, s’insinua, penetra, cattura, avvince…?
Non è scorrevole da leggere perché ogni 45 pagine cambia tutto, protagonista, ambiente, personaggi intorno, trama.
E poi, quale trama? Succedono tante cose, però la sensazione vincente è che non succeda nulla, almeno nulla di speciale: anche se c’è nell’aria un suicidio, un aborto, una morte, un naso spaccato a pugni, una giovane che si prostituisce per il consenziente (e incoraggiante) fidanzato, anche se si incappa in eventi che non sono certo quotidiani, che non appartengono alla media dell’ordinario di nessuno di noi, l’impressione che vince è che Szalay tessa la trama dell’esistenza.
Che parli di noi e delle nostre vite anche se la maggior parte dei suoi personaggi, sicuramente dei protagonisti, appartiene alla tipologia “se li conosci, li eviti”.
Luke Smalley
Per chi sostiene che questo libro è un romanzo (l’editore britannico, per esempio, il lancio pubblicitario, e diversi recensori), c’è un’impalcatura che lo unifica: l’Europa, decima protagonista, insieme e, forse, perfino più dei nove uomini ciascuno al centro di una storia - è un autentico inno all’Europa unita, senza frontiere, con autostrade che portano in luoghi molto diversi, con lingue diverse e cibi diversi, dove la libertà sessuale va di pari passo a quella economica, l’Europa viaggiata, attraversata, descritta, con confini che non bloccano, lingue che si conciliano pur nella grande diversità, un unico grande sfaccettato magnifico paese che pulsa; il fatto che ogni singola narrazione abbia un uomo al centro spinge alcuni a ritenere che si tratti di nove aspetti dello stesso uomo; sensazione rafforzata dal fatto che l’età dei nove maschi protagonisti cresce progressivamente, dai 17 del primo ai 73 dell’ultimo; che i nove racconti seguano un percorso ideale temporale, più o meno la durata di un anno, iniziando in primavera e terminando in inverno; che il primo racconto sia dedicato al diciassettenne Simon in viaggio con l’eurail e l’ultimo a suo nonno, un filo che raccorda principio e fine; che tutti e nove siano colti in un momento di crisi, e sempre in viaggio, treno o aereo o nave o auto.
Luke Smalley
Per chi sostiene come me che siamo invece di fronte a una raccolta di racconti, c’è il fatto che a parte il labile legame tra la prima e l’ultima storia, si tratta di nove vicende diverse e separate, ogni volta è necessario ricominciare, immergersi daccapo, scalare, fino a essere avvinti dalla trama, e dalle trame, di Szalay. D’altra parte al giorno d’oggi i racconti vendono ben meno dei romanzi, una raccolta di racconti ha bisogno di un qualche collante per superare l’esame, di un escamotage che faccia superiore lo scoglio di più narrazioni brevi.
Luke Smalley
La scrittura di Szalay appare semplice: per lo più frasi corte, spesso solo sostantivo e aggettivo (aggettivi scelti con gran cura) senza verbo.
Ricorda quella cinematografica per la sua (apparente) semplicità, per il suo prendere spesso avvio dalla semplice indicazione del luogo e dell’orario come se fosse l’intestazione di una scena, per il suo forte carattere visivo (ah, la scelta dei colori, quanto è bravo Szalay a trovare i colori che appaiono più azzeccati – invece, per fortuna, si astiene quasi sempre da quel fastidioso vezzo della letteratura contemporanea tanto dedita agli odori, sempre pessimi schifosi ributtanti), per l’indicazione di etichette, oggetti, dettagli che definiscono (la cura che Szalay mette nell’indicare la marca e il modello di ciascuna auto in modo che possa esprimere un tratto della personalità di chi la guida – oppure lo yacht dell’oligarca).
Verrebbe anche da dire che è cinematografico per come impagina, per gli accapo, per il ricorso al tempo presente (il che regala alla narrazione un ritmo di urgenza e soffice martellamento).
Luke Smalley
Dicevo, se li conosci li eviti: l’umanità di cui parla Szalay non è gradevole. Fa pensare a un mondo di figli unici. Fanno credere che alla domanda se hanno fratelli o sorelle, ciascuno di loro risponderebbe, Mio fratello è figlio unico come me.
La presunta fidanzata dice a uno di loro che è egoista e viziato, non lo sfiora mai l’idea di poter non essere al centro dell’universo. Sarebbe l’ora di crescere.
Luke Smalley
Tanto maggiore è l’impresa di Szalay di farci empatizzare, per esempio con il ricco oligarca russo della penultima storia, che ha imbrogliato il mondo e adesso sta perdendo tutto, soldi e moglie, e medita il suicidio.
Ma i nove personaggi maschili spero proprio che non rappresentino Tutto Quello che È Un Uomo, come dice il titolo, perché sarebbe davvero deprimente. Gli unici che si salvano, che emanano più umanità, sono il primo e l’ultimo, nipote e nonno, e principalmente in virtù della loro età, adolescente il primo, anziano il secondo.
Il protagonista dell’ultimo racconto ambientato in Italia, colpisce per il suo rapporto con la fine che a 73 anni si mostra più vicina di quanto vorrebbe. È in questa storia che Szalay, restando sempre lontano da qualsiasi eccesso di pathos, introduce personaggi con maggiore complessità d’anima e personalità.
Curioso che la maggior sfaccettatura di questo protagonista possa dipendere dal suo possibile, forse probabile, essere omosessuale, l’unico del gruppo.
Dan Mitchell: illustrazione apparsa a corredo della recensione sul Financial Times.
Qui e là dettagli che il mio gusto non ha apprezzato: quando nel primo racconto una pagina intera ha al centro solo due parole “La musica”, dove lo spazio bianco intorno predomina sul segno nero a sottintendere il sublime musicale che niente può avere accanto, temo si scivoli in involontario ridicolo.
Così pure l’espressione onomatopeica lasciato da sola su una riga.
Oppure lo spazio bianco che circonda la frase in latino scritta sulla lapide.
Trovo che in queste soluzioni ci sia un eccesso d’enfasi.
Ma sono peccati meno che veniali, perdonatissimi da me lettore rimasto irretito dall’arte di David Szalay.
La statua di San Dionigi vescovo che regge in mano la sua testa nell’Abbazia di Vierzehnheiligen detta anche dei 14 santi ausiliatori a circa 20 km da Bamberga in Baviera.
October 3, 2016
Shortlisted for Man Booker prize 2016!
3.5*
An interesting collection of short stories about men, probably better appreciated by blokes.
After reading about half of the stories I thought that if this is All Man Is, then we are all doomed. What I mean is that most of the men in the stories were annoying, some even despicable. Now, after finishing all of the stories I have a better opinion and understanding of what the author tried to do with this book.
The book consists of nine stories which present a glimpse in the everyday life of 9 men, of different ages, starting from 17 to 70, coming from different social backgrounds. The characters live in various European cities and each story involves travelling to different places. The author is trying to create a portrait of the universal European Man, to convey the message that, in the end, man is all the same. There are some common themes that link the stories, among them is the way the characters regard time. At the beginning, when they are young the characters regard time with indifference, obsessing about sex, money, fame, career. Later in life they start to regret the missed opportunities, the mistakes they made with their choices, they stress there is no more time to change. In the end, there is the fear of death.
All the men are flawed individuals, some of them made me angry, other made me feel pity for them. I have to praise the author’s talent for making me react to each character, even though my feelings were not positive.
One thing that I liked about this book was the setting. I am a keen traveler and I enjoyed that each story was set in at least one European city. It was nice to revisit some of the places that I’ve been to although I felt that the author did not try to make the places come alive.
There were a few aspects of the book that diminished the enjoyment of the book. In the first place, although, as said above, there are common themes I could not read this as a novel. Also, the quality of the stories is uneven. Is felt that the quality of the stories progressed, the first stories were quite boring and the last two were the best. I wonder if this was the intention of the author. As one grows he becomes sager and life has more meaning, etc. Finally, I did not like how the women were represented. The women in these stories have no personality, they are mainly an accessory for men. Is this what men are looking for? I understand this is a novel about self-absorbed men but it still felt uncomfortable.
I am torn between 3 and 4 stars as I can see the talent of the author and I appreciate his intentions. However, something is missing to make this a great read for me.
Thank to David Szalay, Random House UK/Vintage, and Netgalley for this copy in exchange for an honest review.
3.5*
An interesting collection of short stories about men, probably better appreciated by blokes.
After reading about half of the stories I thought that if this is All Man Is, then we are all doomed. What I mean is that most of the men in the stories were annoying, some even despicable. Now, after finishing all of the stories I have a better opinion and understanding of what the author tried to do with this book.
The book consists of nine stories which present a glimpse in the everyday life of 9 men, of different ages, starting from 17 to 70, coming from different social backgrounds. The characters live in various European cities and each story involves travelling to different places. The author is trying to create a portrait of the universal European Man, to convey the message that, in the end, man is all the same. There are some common themes that link the stories, among them is the way the characters regard time. At the beginning, when they are young the characters regard time with indifference, obsessing about sex, money, fame, career. Later in life they start to regret the missed opportunities, the mistakes they made with their choices, they stress there is no more time to change. In the end, there is the fear of death.
All the men are flawed individuals, some of them made me angry, other made me feel pity for them. I have to praise the author’s talent for making me react to each character, even though my feelings were not positive.
One thing that I liked about this book was the setting. I am a keen traveler and I enjoyed that each story was set in at least one European city. It was nice to revisit some of the places that I’ve been to although I felt that the author did not try to make the places come alive.
There were a few aspects of the book that diminished the enjoyment of the book. In the first place, although, as said above, there are common themes I could not read this as a novel. Also, the quality of the stories is uneven. Is felt that the quality of the stories progressed, the first stories were quite boring and the last two were the best. I wonder if this was the intention of the author. As one grows he becomes sager and life has more meaning, etc. Finally, I did not like how the women were represented. The women in these stories have no personality, they are mainly an accessory for men. Is this what men are looking for? I understand this is a novel about self-absorbed men but it still felt uncomfortable.
I am torn between 3 and 4 stars as I can see the talent of the author and I appreciate his intentions. However, something is missing to make this a great read for me.
Thank to David Szalay, Random House UK/Vintage, and Netgalley for this copy in exchange for an honest review.
October 11, 2016
I’ve just found my best book of the year…in a year filled with best books. Szalay (pronounced SOL-loy) writes nine stories about men, different men, each approximately seven years older than the man preceding him. The men are Europeans, visiting or living in a country not their own. The youngest man is seventeen, the oldest is seventy-three. I laughed my way through this tragicomic look at what it means to be a man, for Szalay put in more than enough to qualify this as the best sort of literature.
Some critics have raised the point that a collection of stories about white heterosexual males isn’t rounded enough without a diverse population. While I crave the author’s take on the immigrant experience or that of a black male in London, the truth is I want his opinion on everything...with jokes, please. He has chosen to share this delicious, mordant look at what adherence to the masculine role has done to several generations of white males adrift in their culture, and that has produced an entirely sufficient and complete work of art. I look forward to what he comes up with next.
Women are the sun and stars about which the stories revolve. Their roles appear to be supporting ones, waitresses, prostitutes, mothers, wives, vacationing lushes, but any woman would recognize that there is ample going on behind their eyes. Their power is undeniable, if only they would seize it. A few of them do. Szalay “fleshes out” several of his female characters, but the most gorgeous one is never physically described, except by the double exclamation, “Wow. Wow.” That was a wise cop-out, sparing the author attacks for focusing on a woman’s physical charms, or for mistakenly forgetting to emphasize a reader’s most fantasized-about body part.
The whole collection of stories together are unforgettable in their descriptions of the haplessness of European white males, but the amusement we experience is tempered by the knowledge that men like these are responsible for fighting wars, closing borders, electing nitwits, denying climate change, and any number of other scourges plaguing our societies. Their lack of self-examination is our annoyance.
Murray Dundee on the “Croatia Riveira” had me screaming with laughter and weeping tears of hilarity. At the beginning of #7, Dundee returns to his mother’s memorial service in Scotland, sleeping overnight in his sister’s house, in his nephew’s bed. He doesn’t sleep well, though he claims he does. Too much thinking going on. Murray has hit a few speed-bumps settling in Croatia in his attempts to 1) make friends, 2) start a business, 3) bed a woman. A local man Murray can’t call a friend, “short, muscular, untalkative - the sort of man that Murray instinctively defers to,” suggests Murray might be cursed, and he does seem that. Murray goes to see a woman about it.
The stories begin strong and just get deeper and richer as we progress though the novel. The glitz and glamour and misplaced attention in story #8 brought to mind the outsized ambition of Donald Trump (can I ever not see this man in the novels I read?) but I found myself slowing my reading as the stories went on. There is something about the accretion of sorrow and of despair, no matter how funny, that makes us feel these men. There is always the edge of the precipice in sight. Each new story presents the prospect of fulfillment: would you be happy if…you took a sun vacation in the Mediterranean? Had a luxe apartment in the Alps? Took your retirement on the Croatian Riviera? Owned a multi-storied yacht? Unexamined lives and denial bring them there…alone…and their fate, when they realize it is too late to change anything, describes our pain.
In a Paris Review interview Szalay tells us that he originally thought of calling these linked stories Europa. It does seem like a good title, but perhaps the current title with the word “man” in it is more appropriate. Certainly one gets the sense of Europe in this novel, in much of its diversity, but the subject is both broader and narrower than that.
All I can say is if you don’t read this one you are missing something very special indeed. I won’t expect Szalay will top this one immediately (isn’t that the problem with writing something so very good to begin with?), but whatever he comes up with will be interesting. All my chips on the man with the x-ray vision.
This novel has just won the 2016 Gordon Burns Prize, and has been shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize.
Some critics have raised the point that a collection of stories about white heterosexual males isn’t rounded enough without a diverse population. While I crave the author’s take on the immigrant experience or that of a black male in London, the truth is I want his opinion on everything...with jokes, please. He has chosen to share this delicious, mordant look at what adherence to the masculine role has done to several generations of white males adrift in their culture, and that has produced an entirely sufficient and complete work of art. I look forward to what he comes up with next.
Women are the sun and stars about which the stories revolve. Their roles appear to be supporting ones, waitresses, prostitutes, mothers, wives, vacationing lushes, but any woman would recognize that there is ample going on behind their eyes. Their power is undeniable, if only they would seize it. A few of them do. Szalay “fleshes out” several of his female characters, but the most gorgeous one is never physically described, except by the double exclamation, “Wow. Wow.” That was a wise cop-out, sparing the author attacks for focusing on a woman’s physical charms, or for mistakenly forgetting to emphasize a reader’s most fantasized-about body part.
The whole collection of stories together are unforgettable in their descriptions of the haplessness of European white males, but the amusement we experience is tempered by the knowledge that men like these are responsible for fighting wars, closing borders, electing nitwits, denying climate change, and any number of other scourges plaguing our societies. Their lack of self-examination is our annoyance.
Murray Dundee on the “Croatia Riveira” had me screaming with laughter and weeping tears of hilarity. At the beginning of #7, Dundee returns to his mother’s memorial service in Scotland, sleeping overnight in his sister’s house, in his nephew’s bed. He doesn’t sleep well, though he claims he does. Too much thinking going on. Murray has hit a few speed-bumps settling in Croatia in his attempts to 1) make friends, 2) start a business, 3) bed a woman. A local man Murray can’t call a friend, “short, muscular, untalkative - the sort of man that Murray instinctively defers to,” suggests Murray might be cursed, and he does seem that. Murray goes to see a woman about it.
She’s in a dressing gown, A solid, surly woman…like someone who sells you a train ticket to Zagreb, frowning at you through the perforated glass as you try to explain what it is you want, while the queue lengthens. Short hair. Little buds of gold in her earlobes, Breath that smells of cigarette smoke, bacteria.
She says something to Murray in a sharp, imperative voice.
“She says you should relax,” is the translation…
He has the weird fear that she’s going to ask him to strip.
The stories begin strong and just get deeper and richer as we progress though the novel. The glitz and glamour and misplaced attention in story #8 brought to mind the outsized ambition of Donald Trump (can I ever not see this man in the novels I read?) but I found myself slowing my reading as the stories went on. There is something about the accretion of sorrow and of despair, no matter how funny, that makes us feel these men. There is always the edge of the precipice in sight. Each new story presents the prospect of fulfillment: would you be happy if…you took a sun vacation in the Mediterranean? Had a luxe apartment in the Alps? Took your retirement on the Croatian Riviera? Owned a multi-storied yacht? Unexamined lives and denial bring them there…alone…and their fate, when they realize it is too late to change anything, describes our pain.
In a Paris Review interview Szalay tells us that he originally thought of calling these linked stories Europa. It does seem like a good title, but perhaps the current title with the word “man” in it is more appropriate. Certainly one gets the sense of Europe in this novel, in much of its diversity, but the subject is both broader and narrower than that.
All I can say is if you don’t read this one you are missing something very special indeed. I won’t expect Szalay will top this one immediately (isn’t that the problem with writing something so very good to begin with?), but whatever he comes up with will be interesting. All my chips on the man with the x-ray vision.
This novel has just won the 2016 Gordon Burns Prize, and has been shortlisted for the 2016 Man Booker Prize.
August 29, 2025
Just finished and thought but didn't say aloud what a great fucking book. Now it's first thing the next morning and I'll try to collect my thoughts in text: my mother started recommending this in the fall but I was in the middle of The Sleepwalkers and wasn't reading so many pages a day, meaning it would be months until I read something else, plus the title seemed unrememberable and maybe excessively manly (it's ultimately sort of ironic: time reduces "all that man is" to nothing). She kept saying I really needed to read it, and so I asked for it for Xmas since I pretty much always heed such insistence (she's previously insistently recommended DFW's A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again, Helen Dewitt's The Last Samurai, Muriel Barbery's The Elegance of the Hedgehog, and most recently KOK's My Struggle: Book One). So I received it for Xmas and soon after was diagnosed with walking pneumonia, which kept me from work for the last days of 2016 and placed me in bed, under the covers, propped up with pillows, shades wide open to let in dark gray daylight, reading this in two day-long extended sessions, something I can never do these days.
So: this is a novel composed of nine, very subtly linked stories sequenced by each male protagonist's age, from 17 to 73. Like the last book I read (Seiobo There Below), this is a novel composed of thematically and stylistically linked stories. Each story could easily stand on its own but it felt like a novel in that it's held together by a consistent perspective (close third), similar tone (steady yet not totally conventional, restrained yet not spare, descriptive but not lyrical), and recurring bits like the appearance of lagers, football clubs on the telly, kebobs, love triangles (or at least situations with two men and one woman), tarot cards (the phallic ace of wands and the tower), sentence fragments and occasional repetitions of phrases, the grandson of the final protagonist (a knighted former British ambassador in Italy) is the quiet literary kid from the first story traveling in Prague reading Henry James's The Ambassadors (which made me wonder if I'd missed other associations among the stories).
Each story for the most part took about six pages to coalesce, for the magic-eye poster thing to kick in where I was deeply imagining the characters (always white male hetero Europeans) and settings (always European, in Prague, the Croatian coast, Cyprus, Italy, London, Germany, Slovenia). The book description says that these men are striving to figure out what life is about, something like that, but more so they're not particularly ambitious, and life is imposing itself on them, life is revealing itself to them, they're not particularly active characters (other than the journalist), it's life itself that's active in this, and the major catharsis in each story is recognition, for the most part, that this is their life, this is what life is, for example, the kid in his early twenties swimming in the sea in the morning with warm sun on his skin after insatiable romping with a dramatically obese daughter and the next night with her not quite as large mother.
Only one of these stories is sort of deliciously humorous, although it's a dark, almost silent laugh -- the one about Murray, the guy in his mid-fifties exiled to a pathetic life with a Dutchman he doesn't like, lusting after an unattractive bartender he doesn't pull, a climate change denier totally isolated from humanity who can only really talk about the S-class Mercedes he used to have.
At times toward the beginning I wondered if the author was condescending a little to his characters, mostly lower class gents, as inarticulate as they are introspective. But I've rated this five stars because after a few pages each story came alive, each character seemed alive, the scenes seemed effortlessly real, the scenarios seemed to carry a real dramatic charge, and the clever structure of a sequence of stories about men from various classes between the ages of 17 to 73 gave way, as did the craft conventions (loved how each story unfolded, how essential information about what the characters were doing for example was withheld for a few pages to pull you along or how action was interrupted by a white space break and then summarized later, pulling you along to see what happened) and the always clear, controlled, evocative, precise, fluid language, and ultimately it felt true to life, or just true, conveying the truth about life that the only eternal thing in life is the passing of time: "The passing of time. That is what is eternal, that is what has no end. And it shows itself only in the affect it has on everything else, so that everything else embodies, in its own impermanence, the one thing that never ends."
If you come to this expecting a statement on the modern European male, you won't come away with something neat and reductive. It demonstrates the complexity of humanity, instead of reducing it to demographics/identity politics. A globalized Europe is in the background, replete with American fast food (KFC, Starbucks, etc), but the essence of this one is the texture of time, that's the real star of the show, the real focus.
It's a totally successful experiment, I'd say, and although a few minor unconventional dalliances with creative spacing, including a page that's blank except for only the words "The music" when the two 17 years olds in Prague attend a Mozart concert, irritated me a little, in the end, the next morning, all the stories are so vivid, so clear, so poignant for the most part, I've decided to rate it five stars, although it's probably more like 4.5 stars rounded up for my immersive, sick-in-bed reading experience (all ratings really reflect one's reading experience, anyway, not the book itself).
Something else not necessarily about the book that occurred to me and seemed somewhat disturbing was that this was published in the US by Graywolf Press, although it was originally published in the UK by an imprint of Vintage/Penguin Random House, which makes it seem like all those Penguin Random House imprints in the US, Knopf particularly, passed on this. It's possible that there was some other reason that Graywolf, a totally venerable independent, published it instead of one of the Penguin Random House imprints, but halfway through, as I became more entirely on its side, the thought occurred now and again, something like how the hell did all those major US presses pass on this?!
I was also worried when I looked at the author photo and it seemed like his neck had been photoshopped clear. I wasn't sure what I thought about that, just that no man in his early forties has such a pristine neck. Anyway, a great reading experience for me, and an author -- regardless of what his neck really looks like or how you pronounce his name (sol-LOY, apparently) -- who I'll definitely keep reading. Will soon read Virginia Woolf's The Waves, which tracks characters from childhood to old age, to see if I can maybe eek out some similarities.
So: this is a novel composed of nine, very subtly linked stories sequenced by each male protagonist's age, from 17 to 73. Like the last book I read (Seiobo There Below), this is a novel composed of thematically and stylistically linked stories. Each story could easily stand on its own but it felt like a novel in that it's held together by a consistent perspective (close third), similar tone (steady yet not totally conventional, restrained yet not spare, descriptive but not lyrical), and recurring bits like the appearance of lagers, football clubs on the telly, kebobs, love triangles (or at least situations with two men and one woman), tarot cards (the phallic ace of wands and the tower), sentence fragments and occasional repetitions of phrases, the grandson of the final protagonist (a knighted former British ambassador in Italy) is the quiet literary kid from the first story traveling in Prague reading Henry James's The Ambassadors (which made me wonder if I'd missed other associations among the stories).
Each story for the most part took about six pages to coalesce, for the magic-eye poster thing to kick in where I was deeply imagining the characters (always white male hetero Europeans) and settings (always European, in Prague, the Croatian coast, Cyprus, Italy, London, Germany, Slovenia). The book description says that these men are striving to figure out what life is about, something like that, but more so they're not particularly ambitious, and life is imposing itself on them, life is revealing itself to them, they're not particularly active characters (other than the journalist), it's life itself that's active in this, and the major catharsis in each story is recognition, for the most part, that this is their life, this is what life is, for example, the kid in his early twenties swimming in the sea in the morning with warm sun on his skin after insatiable romping with a dramatically obese daughter and the next night with her not quite as large mother.
Only one of these stories is sort of deliciously humorous, although it's a dark, almost silent laugh -- the one about Murray, the guy in his mid-fifties exiled to a pathetic life with a Dutchman he doesn't like, lusting after an unattractive bartender he doesn't pull, a climate change denier totally isolated from humanity who can only really talk about the S-class Mercedes he used to have.
At times toward the beginning I wondered if the author was condescending a little to his characters, mostly lower class gents, as inarticulate as they are introspective. But I've rated this five stars because after a few pages each story came alive, each character seemed alive, the scenes seemed effortlessly real, the scenarios seemed to carry a real dramatic charge, and the clever structure of a sequence of stories about men from various classes between the ages of 17 to 73 gave way, as did the craft conventions (loved how each story unfolded, how essential information about what the characters were doing for example was withheld for a few pages to pull you along or how action was interrupted by a white space break and then summarized later, pulling you along to see what happened) and the always clear, controlled, evocative, precise, fluid language, and ultimately it felt true to life, or just true, conveying the truth about life that the only eternal thing in life is the passing of time: "The passing of time. That is what is eternal, that is what has no end. And it shows itself only in the affect it has on everything else, so that everything else embodies, in its own impermanence, the one thing that never ends."
If you come to this expecting a statement on the modern European male, you won't come away with something neat and reductive. It demonstrates the complexity of humanity, instead of reducing it to demographics/identity politics. A globalized Europe is in the background, replete with American fast food (KFC, Starbucks, etc), but the essence of this one is the texture of time, that's the real star of the show, the real focus.
It's a totally successful experiment, I'd say, and although a few minor unconventional dalliances with creative spacing, including a page that's blank except for only the words "The music" when the two 17 years olds in Prague attend a Mozart concert, irritated me a little, in the end, the next morning, all the stories are so vivid, so clear, so poignant for the most part, I've decided to rate it five stars, although it's probably more like 4.5 stars rounded up for my immersive, sick-in-bed reading experience (all ratings really reflect one's reading experience, anyway, not the book itself).
Something else not necessarily about the book that occurred to me and seemed somewhat disturbing was that this was published in the US by Graywolf Press, although it was originally published in the UK by an imprint of Vintage/Penguin Random House, which makes it seem like all those Penguin Random House imprints in the US, Knopf particularly, passed on this. It's possible that there was some other reason that Graywolf, a totally venerable independent, published it instead of one of the Penguin Random House imprints, but halfway through, as I became more entirely on its side, the thought occurred now and again, something like how the hell did all those major US presses pass on this?!
I was also worried when I looked at the author photo and it seemed like his neck had been photoshopped clear. I wasn't sure what I thought about that, just that no man in his early forties has such a pristine neck. Anyway, a great reading experience for me, and an author -- regardless of what his neck really looks like or how you pronounce his name (sol-LOY, apparently) -- who I'll definitely keep reading. Will soon read Virginia Woolf's The Waves, which tracks characters from childhood to old age, to see if I can maybe eek out some similarities.
December 8, 2025
In the olden days you heard a single and if you loved it you might dash out and buy the album, and if you were lucky, you’d be plunged into a soundscape of wonder and bliss, but more than once you’d find the single was the only good song on the whole damned thing. This would be a very unkind way to describe the 9 stories in this not-a-novel. I found Chapter 2, in which a diffident dweeby 17 year old French lad is on holiday by himself and discovers an unusual sexual predilection, in a book of short stories – it’s a knockout. Wow. Got to read the whole book now. So having done that I find, yes, Chapter Two is the hit single for sure. The rest are kind of really 8 B sides. For younger readers a B side was… anyway you can guess.
David Szalay can write lovely semidemihumorous prose that glides along like a swan in the evening swimming over a lake if the swan had an ironical eyebrow raised at the world it surveyed and made many sharp observations about the banal hideousness and purposelessness of modern life, the getting and spending and nothing to show for it. I have seen a criticism that this book is all about men and the women characters are barely there, but the clue is in the title. If you buy a recipe book there will be little in it about farmers.
I saw David Szalay has won the Booker this year and I am going to read that one. It’s called Flesh so I hope that the guy from Chapter 2 is going to make a comeback.
David Szalay can write lovely semidemihumorous prose that glides along like a swan in the evening swimming over a lake if the swan had an ironical eyebrow raised at the world it surveyed and made many sharp observations about the banal hideousness and purposelessness of modern life, the getting and spending and nothing to show for it. I have seen a criticism that this book is all about men and the women characters are barely there, but the clue is in the title. If you buy a recipe book there will be little in it about farmers.
I saw David Szalay has won the Booker this year and I am going to read that one. It’s called Flesh so I hope that the guy from Chapter 2 is going to make a comeback.
May 16, 2021
All That Man Is is called a novel, but not really. Short stories? I suppose. But not really. It's a chronicle not of man but men, different ones, each older than the other as the book progresses. So, just as you get with short stories, there's a complete shift in gears and reinvestment in new characters as you go.
Sort of. The "sort of" part is that these very different men with very different personalities and tastes living in very different circumstances are, in many ways, one. Call it the "Everyman" factor. Their desires, dreams, fears, and loves are driven, of course, by the Y chromosome, but also by their age. In that sense, they echo each other.
For me, Szalay's most successful of the nine stages of life (Shakespearean, with a few added) are the very first and sixth. The first is just about a couple of teenagers bumming around Europe. One is more outgoing. The other is more likely the author remembering his own sensitive past. The young and confused and moody hero has a chance to lose his virginity with a much older woman but fumbles it away to his goofy friend. Szalay does a nice job of capturing the inexplicable mix of conflicting emotions that can beset a teen in situations like this. Especially thoughtful teens. Who think too much. You know, for their own good.
In number six, we get a middle-aged, well-to-do developer checking out properties in the French Alps. Some terrific writing--some of the best--in this segment, as Szalay uses the scenery as a mood device, nicely working in the hero, Jame's, early reflections on his life. He's beginning to doubt it--the whole shebang, the whole chasing after the almighty dollar as a symbol of success and even worth. Yep. He's beginning to get that "what's this all about, anyway, and why do I not feel happy? feeling" And he's beginning to sense the Dark Fellow that the final installment's character will deal with more directly, too.
Thrown in between these two highlights are all manner of rogues and debonair sorts. Some of them are charming, some repugnant, but all pledge allegiance to the male code in some shape or other. And, with few exceptions (I would say the one lout, but a visit to a gypsy card reader even has HIM second-guessing), all are reflective sorts, searching out a meaning for life.
Hey. Maybe I'm a sucker for "meaning-of-life" stories. Certainly I'm a fan of straightforward writing like this. No five-mile sentences resembling the autobahn. Not a lot of 10 dollar words, either. Just Booker Man-style stuff. Nine Variations on a Theme from Page-turn-anini.
Sort of. The "sort of" part is that these very different men with very different personalities and tastes living in very different circumstances are, in many ways, one. Call it the "Everyman" factor. Their desires, dreams, fears, and loves are driven, of course, by the Y chromosome, but also by their age. In that sense, they echo each other.
For me, Szalay's most successful of the nine stages of life (Shakespearean, with a few added) are the very first and sixth. The first is just about a couple of teenagers bumming around Europe. One is more outgoing. The other is more likely the author remembering his own sensitive past. The young and confused and moody hero has a chance to lose his virginity with a much older woman but fumbles it away to his goofy friend. Szalay does a nice job of capturing the inexplicable mix of conflicting emotions that can beset a teen in situations like this. Especially thoughtful teens. Who think too much. You know, for their own good.
In number six, we get a middle-aged, well-to-do developer checking out properties in the French Alps. Some terrific writing--some of the best--in this segment, as Szalay uses the scenery as a mood device, nicely working in the hero, Jame's, early reflections on his life. He's beginning to doubt it--the whole shebang, the whole chasing after the almighty dollar as a symbol of success and even worth. Yep. He's beginning to get that "what's this all about, anyway, and why do I not feel happy? feeling" And he's beginning to sense the Dark Fellow that the final installment's character will deal with more directly, too.
Thrown in between these two highlights are all manner of rogues and debonair sorts. Some of them are charming, some repugnant, but all pledge allegiance to the male code in some shape or other. And, with few exceptions (I would say the one lout, but a visit to a gypsy card reader even has HIM second-guessing), all are reflective sorts, searching out a meaning for life.
Hey. Maybe I'm a sucker for "meaning-of-life" stories. Certainly I'm a fan of straightforward writing like this. No five-mile sentences resembling the autobahn. Not a lot of 10 dollar words, either. Just Booker Man-style stuff. Nine Variations on a Theme from Page-turn-anini.
December 8, 2025
Nine short stories. Nine men. Not one man. That’s the problem with this fake novel. A theme doesn’t make a novel, and while I found it fascinating to see how much of Flesh there is here, halfway through it became hard to connect all over again with another unknown man, just a little older than the one in the previous chapter. I really hope authors learn to write what they actually want. Don’t pretend you’re writing a novel when you want to write short stories, because you’re not only lying to your readers - you’re lying to yourself.
August 22, 2016
I found this to be an entirely uneven read, the individual short stories not seeming to connect enough to be considered a novel. I would rather Szalay had reversed the order- the youthful protagonists of the first offering were irritatingly dull and I'm sure it negatively affected my enthusiasm for the rest of the work. As the stages of life progressed, the people became more interesting (is that the point, maybe? I'm not sure) but I never felt like I discovered anything profound about human behaviour. Some writers manage to develop character well within the limited framework of the short story but many of these had little depth and the often stilted conversation did not offer enough to balance it.
I think the author has talent, that comes through, but the form chosen here does not play to it. I want to read a real novel by him and I intend to look at his previous writing.
Thank to David Szalay, Random House UK/Vintage, and Netgalley for this copy in exchange for an honest review.
I think the author has talent, that comes through, but the form chosen here does not play to it. I want to read a real novel by him and I intend to look at his previous writing.
Thank to David Szalay, Random House UK/Vintage, and Netgalley for this copy in exchange for an honest review.
Read
February 15, 2017Leaving aside the over-ambitious title for a minute, David Szalay's best writing is about ordinary working life, the bits of existence disproportionately absent from the world of literary fiction, where the jobs most people have are replaced with stories of writers, artists and perhaps the odd high-flying lawyer. That understanding of working life has a chance to come through in some of these nine stories/sections about white British or European men of increasing age: however I think that only one max out of the Oxford-entrant English student, the London-based Belgian philologist and the Danish tabloid journalist really should have been included as they are just way too litfic cliche. (The Oxford-educated - again - estate agent isn't exactly representative either, but his story did at least have some things to say that are more commonly found in the business pages of a newspaper than in novels, about commercial matters and the shift of residence patterns in London as more of the north side of the river becomes unaffordable even for the traditionally well off.) Basically, there are a lot more people from households who have cleaners, than people who might be cleaners (or who couldn't afford them).
There were a couple of down-at-heel types, but both were that way because of their own distinctly avoidable errors: the lazy stoned French 21 year old Bernard, who gets fired from the sinecure his uncle provided, and Murray, a thoroughly objectionable Scot in his mid fifties who used to work in dodgy sales operations and then emigrated to Croatia. (I suspect that Murray - who on nights out still seems to think he's 25 despite clearly being no catch - is a continuation of a character from Szalay's novel London and the South-East as he names its protagonist as a former colleague.) The other man distinctly on his uppers is Russian oligarch Aleksandr, and it seems that his mistakes too were the cause of his problems. Literary fiction frequently reflects left-wing values; whether the conservative-style philosophy of individual responsibility that comes through in these stories is intentional, or reflective of the author, or plain coincidental, I don't know. But it's unobtrusive enough that all but the most strident lefty readers would probably consider it fair play, given how modern novels usually skew politically.
Some stories, although interesting, were obviously derivative, and therefore felt to an extent like lazy filler (especially when added to the fact that part 3 is a reworking of the Szalay piece from the 2013 Granta Best Young British Novelists issue). Aleksandr has an awful lot in common with the late Boris Berezovsky, and the Copenhagen hack, Kristian, seemed to have been created after a binge-watch of Borgen; nearly all the characters share their names with those from that series or The Killing. The phoned-in impression of the Danish story was increased by poor attention to cultural detail in some matters, for instance assuming a British-style sensibility on animal welfare, which is not quite the case. The bigging-up of a politician's affair also felt out of step with the times; I am not quite sure how these are seen specifically in Denmark, but the country has one of the highest divorce rates in the world and a liberal attitude to activities like swinging - and in Britain most such affairs are now not the career-killers, or headlines, that they were in the Thatcher and Major years.
A minor problem I've seen in most of this year's Booker longlist has been authors who are a bit tone-deaf in naming characters here. Fair enough to have one person who's name's atypical for their age group, but more doesn't sit right. The first story includes seventeen year olds called Simon and Karen, names that were most popular in Britain in the 1960s and 70s (Szalay was born in 1974, so I wonder if names of his contemporaries at that age came to mind.) And "Dundee" as a Scottish surname? Combined with "Murray"? Why not exorcise the ghost of Paul Hogan which probably conjured that up and rename to something that actually sounds real? And like the pointlessly distracting naming of a character "Corbyn" in The North Water, "Tony Parson" here seems to have nothing particular to do with his famous near-namesake.
Discussions about whether this book reflects "All That Man Is" have tended to agree that it doesn't, even taking into account its demographic limitations. Given my age, the lifestyles of men of my acquaintance are closest to less-monied versions of Kristian and James, but there were quite a lot of sensibilities and interests that felt unrepresented, based on my own acquaintance - including geeky nerdy (science-orientated) men, plus anyone not mainstream culturally or politically; and, most surprisingly given Szalay's skill at conveying the world of the office grunt, there were no non-criminal blue-collar workers or lower-tier service occupations among the protagonists. All the characters are travelling across Europe, so a lorry or train driver would have been a highly credible addition, or a builder or similar migrant worker. Meanwhile, in two separate stories, the buzz of high level politics as a sort of addiction is mentioned, which reminded me of accounts of Machiavelli and how he suffered withdrawal symptoms from it when put into exile, and was never quite happy again without it despite some literary success.
Another review has prompted me to consider the protagonists' views of their own manliness: certainly a few of them obviously - or seem to - consider, their own achievements as exemplary, or that they are basically right, and they are not portrayed sympathetically. "All That Man Is" may be heard with a sarcastic tone here. Others, however, are more circumspect - but most are immersed in their own little worlds at the point when the narrative dips into their lives; the likelihood of transcendence broadly increases with age - simplistic perhaps but not totally unfounded.
Several motifs recur through the book - part of the argument for considering it a novel rather than a short story collection. Listing those I noticed may convey something of its world: Iron Man 3, the tarot card the Ace of Wands*, kebabs, Ermenegildo Zegma, Stansted airport, Barbaresco wine (iPads are perhaps too ubiqutous to count): aside from occasional eccentricities, this is a commercial, mainstream world, predominantly of the sort of man more likely to be found in a branch of Burton or Hugo Boss than a bookshop. And is the choice of The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914, as read by a chap who was once involved in EU expansion negotiations, meant to be a comment on these trivialities that people are emerged in (or distract themselves with) whilst larger and more worrying trends are at work?
Boredom and the neutral feeling simply of existing are perfectly described (perhaps even too much so - one might expect to find oneself in a single room in a Travelodge on looking up from the text), but what, perhaps, felt missing most of all was humour, humour in the narrative, not just rubbish David Brent-style jokes by characters, but actual humour which is surely necessary in a world of jerry-built 2 star hotels, getting up at 6.30am, being stuck on crap road trips and yet another trip to the park with the kids - and a sense of playfulness and taking such things lightly which, rightly or wrongly, is something I associate particuarly with men.
The narrative can sometimes be quite wise, with an obvious underlying influece from mindfulness / popular Buddhism: impermanence as the most enduring constant, for instance; these moments of stillness and reflection generally increase as the protagonists get older. (I still prefer my own experience of feeling this - very much what the final story keeps returning to - whilst looking down at the traffic in a gyratory system on winter evenings from an office block where I used to work. It's a scene that would fit very well in this book. But I found All That Man Is to be simply the sort of book that chimes with experience, rather than one that produces epiphanies or perfect crystallising phrases.) Beginning in spring (Easter holidays?) and ending in late November/December is a trick which could work nicely, but to me seemed heavy-handed. The reflectiveness and characters' search for direction is also nothing you wouldn't have heard before if you read a lot of this sort of book; it's typical litfic material, just like all those meditations on the nature and influence of memory. To stand out, one of these needs to be really special - or simply something an individual reader connects with strongly.
I may have enumerated more negatives than positives here, but I mostly enjoyed this book and found it a fast read. Perhaps because of its lightness, and the way the shortness of the stories mean the author rarely gets his teeth into any one topic, it felt like a particularly pure example of literary-fiction-as-a-genre: it has more than enough of the right sort of tropes to be a genre novel, they're simply those characteristic of litfic. Among my favourite features was that none of the stories end at a point that feels like 'the end'; a camera pans away incidentally as if it will be back soon, or perhaps runs out of charge; it is refreshing to be freed a little from the standard 'beginning, middle and end' structure.
All That Man Is may be too much of its time to be enduring, and I would not be at all surprised if, despite eschewing too many references to specific websites and devices, it seems dated - or more positively, a curious vintage/ period piece - in only five years' time.
* All the tarot card descriptions in the book correspond exactly with the Universal Waite images for the relevant cards on this site. In case anybody was wondering, the first one Murray gets is the Four of Coins.
There were a couple of down-at-heel types, but both were that way because of their own distinctly avoidable errors: the lazy stoned French 21 year old Bernard, who gets fired from the sinecure his uncle provided, and Murray, a thoroughly objectionable Scot in his mid fifties who used to work in dodgy sales operations and then emigrated to Croatia. (I suspect that Murray - who on nights out still seems to think he's 25 despite clearly being no catch - is a continuation of a character from Szalay's novel London and the South-East as he names its protagonist as a former colleague.) The other man distinctly on his uppers is Russian oligarch Aleksandr, and it seems that his mistakes too were the cause of his problems. Literary fiction frequently reflects left-wing values; whether the conservative-style philosophy of individual responsibility that comes through in these stories is intentional, or reflective of the author, or plain coincidental, I don't know. But it's unobtrusive enough that all but the most strident lefty readers would probably consider it fair play, given how modern novels usually skew politically.
Some stories, although interesting, were obviously derivative, and therefore felt to an extent like lazy filler (especially when added to the fact that part 3 is a reworking of the Szalay piece from the 2013 Granta Best Young British Novelists issue). Aleksandr has an awful lot in common with the late Boris Berezovsky, and the Copenhagen hack, Kristian, seemed to have been created after a binge-watch of Borgen; nearly all the characters share their names with those from that series or The Killing. The phoned-in impression of the Danish story was increased by poor attention to cultural detail in some matters, for instance assuming a British-style sensibility on animal welfare, which is not quite the case. The bigging-up of a politician's affair also felt out of step with the times; I am not quite sure how these are seen specifically in Denmark, but the country has one of the highest divorce rates in the world and a liberal attitude to activities like swinging - and in Britain most such affairs are now not the career-killers, or headlines, that they were in the Thatcher and Major years.
A minor problem I've seen in most of this year's Booker longlist has been authors who are a bit tone-deaf in naming characters here. Fair enough to have one person who's name's atypical for their age group, but more doesn't sit right. The first story includes seventeen year olds called Simon and Karen, names that were most popular in Britain in the 1960s and 70s (Szalay was born in 1974, so I wonder if names of his contemporaries at that age came to mind.) And "Dundee" as a Scottish surname? Combined with "Murray"? Why not exorcise the ghost of Paul Hogan which probably conjured that up and rename to something that actually sounds real? And like the pointlessly distracting naming of a character "Corbyn" in The North Water, "Tony Parson" here seems to have nothing particular to do with his famous near-namesake.
Discussions about whether this book reflects "All That Man Is" have tended to agree that it doesn't, even taking into account its demographic limitations. Given my age, the lifestyles of men of my acquaintance are closest to less-monied versions of Kristian and James, but there were quite a lot of sensibilities and interests that felt unrepresented, based on my own acquaintance - including geeky nerdy (science-orientated) men, plus anyone not mainstream culturally or politically; and, most surprisingly given Szalay's skill at conveying the world of the office grunt, there were no non-criminal blue-collar workers or lower-tier service occupations among the protagonists. All the characters are travelling across Europe, so a lorry or train driver would have been a highly credible addition, or a builder or similar migrant worker. Meanwhile, in two separate stories, the buzz of high level politics as a sort of addiction is mentioned, which reminded me of accounts of Machiavelli and how he suffered withdrawal symptoms from it when put into exile, and was never quite happy again without it despite some literary success.
Another review has prompted me to consider the protagonists' views of their own manliness: certainly a few of them obviously - or seem to - consider, their own achievements as exemplary, or that they are basically right, and they are not portrayed sympathetically. "All That Man Is" may be heard with a sarcastic tone here. Others, however, are more circumspect - but most are immersed in their own little worlds at the point when the narrative dips into their lives; the likelihood of transcendence broadly increases with age - simplistic perhaps but not totally unfounded.
Several motifs recur through the book - part of the argument for considering it a novel rather than a short story collection. Listing those I noticed may convey something of its world: Iron Man 3, the tarot card the Ace of Wands*, kebabs, Ermenegildo Zegma, Stansted airport, Barbaresco wine (iPads are perhaps too ubiqutous to count): aside from occasional eccentricities, this is a commercial, mainstream world, predominantly of the sort of man more likely to be found in a branch of Burton or Hugo Boss than a bookshop. And is the choice of The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914, as read by a chap who was once involved in EU expansion negotiations, meant to be a comment on these trivialities that people are emerged in (or distract themselves with) whilst larger and more worrying trends are at work?
Boredom and the neutral feeling simply of existing are perfectly described (perhaps even too much so - one might expect to find oneself in a single room in a Travelodge on looking up from the text), but what, perhaps, felt missing most of all was humour, humour in the narrative, not just rubbish David Brent-style jokes by characters, but actual humour which is surely necessary in a world of jerry-built 2 star hotels, getting up at 6.30am, being stuck on crap road trips and yet another trip to the park with the kids - and a sense of playfulness and taking such things lightly which, rightly or wrongly, is something I associate particuarly with men.
The narrative can sometimes be quite wise, with an obvious underlying influece from mindfulness / popular Buddhism: impermanence as the most enduring constant, for instance; these moments of stillness and reflection generally increase as the protagonists get older. (I still prefer my own experience of feeling this - very much what the final story keeps returning to - whilst looking down at the traffic in a gyratory system on winter evenings from an office block where I used to work. It's a scene that would fit very well in this book. But I found All That Man Is to be simply the sort of book that chimes with experience, rather than one that produces epiphanies or perfect crystallising phrases.) Beginning in spring (Easter holidays?) and ending in late November/December is a trick which could work nicely, but to me seemed heavy-handed. The reflectiveness and characters' search for direction is also nothing you wouldn't have heard before if you read a lot of this sort of book; it's typical litfic material, just like all those meditations on the nature and influence of memory. To stand out, one of these needs to be really special - or simply something an individual reader connects with strongly.
I may have enumerated more negatives than positives here, but I mostly enjoyed this book and found it a fast read. Perhaps because of its lightness, and the way the shortness of the stories mean the author rarely gets his teeth into any one topic, it felt like a particularly pure example of literary-fiction-as-a-genre: it has more than enough of the right sort of tropes to be a genre novel, they're simply those characteristic of litfic. Among my favourite features was that none of the stories end at a point that feels like 'the end'; a camera pans away incidentally as if it will be back soon, or perhaps runs out of charge; it is refreshing to be freed a little from the standard 'beginning, middle and end' structure.
All That Man Is may be too much of its time to be enduring, and I would not be at all surprised if, despite eschewing too many references to specific websites and devices, it seems dated - or more positively, a curious vintage/ period piece - in only five years' time.
* All the tarot card descriptions in the book correspond exactly with the Universal Waite images for the relevant cards on this site. In case anybody was wondering, the first one Murray gets is the Four of Coins.
January 21, 2018
If you're interested in reading this collection of thematically linked stories, then you've likely read the publisher's blurb. We get nine stories of white, 8/9ths straight, European men who are traveling to destinations across Europe that are not home to them. Whether it is a holiday or business that puts them in planes, trains, and automobiles, their temporary displacement affords them a moment here or there to ponder Life. The men seem to portray a universal European "Every Man."
We see the progression from idealistic puppy love to lazy, hedonistic appreciation for life. When a former soldier begins to fall for but ultimately loses a girl who too might be seen as unacceptable as the romantic partners in Stories One and Two, his disappointment doesn't' last but a moment. He is on the next pretty face behind a fast food counter. I did laugh out loud in Story Three during a carpet cleaning scene, but that was the last smile I had for probably four more chapters. These first three young men pleasure themselves regularly and don't appear to be headed for a relationship any time soon.
As our Every Man ages, we see him become intensely focused on his career and note his appreciation for big-boy toys: cars. True love means little, but intercourse does. Whether it is an academic (a philologist) or the ruthless editor of a jackal-like tabloid magazine, these men might not be interested in love but the reader has none for them, either.
Man Six ages into a decent fellow, one with a dream of cutting loose from the big firm he is with and taking on risk in developing vacation homes in the Alps. Like the man before him, he is a father of two, and while likely a better role model than shown in the story before him, the kids are not his focus. Okay, so you get the trend, right?
The kid in his teens is decent, but basically from age 20 to about 50, Universal Man is mostly interested in sex and then power/career/social standing. And then he is finally a nice human being again. There is a cute little tie-in you'll find near the end of the book that might be the very carrot to keep a reader going.
I noted some odd, repeated objects that popped up in multiple stories - a woman's dressing gown and a Tarot card (ace of wands - super phallic), and perhaps somebody smarter than me can explain the author's intent with these things. I also saw a theme where the men were pursued by women they did not want. Is this a common fantasy for men, and did including it mean something I don't know?
One thing that felt ridiculously heavy handed was the commentary one character had as he passed a brilliantly lit stadium while driving through Spain. Instead of a football match, it was a bull fight. He notes how incongruous it was to see giant klieg lights, fancy cars, state of the art services/concessions, etc right there at such a ridiculously barbaric event. UGH - the blatant irony is this. See, our guy is in process of eviscerating a Danish politician - twice in one day, bringing the man to tears - and is about to plaster it all over the world via his tabloid magazine.
Our Every Man, the tabloid editor, is going to gut this man's life - just like the bull - and will use the technology of the internet (and cellphone tapping) to tell the world.
I'm sorry, but this one little thing was so overtly and crappily done, that I don't know how the Man Booker judges let it slide.
Friends, I generally love books that have ugly, awful protagonists, so the fact that half of the nine men were jerks didn't bother me. Maybe if I'd spent more time with them - say five men instead of nine? - I would have cared a tiny bit about them. There are other collection of short stories that really were outstanding novels. (Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans and The Tsar of Love and Techno instantly come to mind, and that's rather what I expected from these nine.
Indeed, I was not the right audience - an American woman. All it left me wondering was, "is that all there is?"
We see the progression from idealistic puppy love to lazy, hedonistic appreciation for life. When a former soldier begins to fall for but ultimately loses a girl who too might be seen as unacceptable as the romantic partners in Stories One and Two, his disappointment doesn't' last but a moment. He is on the next pretty face behind a fast food counter. I did laugh out loud in Story Three during a carpet cleaning scene, but that was the last smile I had for probably four more chapters. These first three young men pleasure themselves regularly and don't appear to be headed for a relationship any time soon.
As our Every Man ages, we see him become intensely focused on his career and note his appreciation for big-boy toys: cars. True love means little, but intercourse does. Whether it is an academic (a philologist) or the ruthless editor of a jackal-like tabloid magazine, these men might not be interested in love but the reader has none for them, either.
Man Six ages into a decent fellow, one with a dream of cutting loose from the big firm he is with and taking on risk in developing vacation homes in the Alps. Like the man before him, he is a father of two, and while likely a better role model than shown in the story before him, the kids are not his focus. Okay, so you get the trend, right?
The kid in his teens is decent, but basically from age 20 to about 50, Universal Man is mostly interested in sex and then power/career/social standing. And then he is finally a nice human being again. There is a cute little tie-in you'll find near the end of the book that might be the very carrot to keep a reader going.
I noted some odd, repeated objects that popped up in multiple stories - a woman's dressing gown and a Tarot card (ace of wands - super phallic), and perhaps somebody smarter than me can explain the author's intent with these things. I also saw a theme where the men were pursued by women they did not want. Is this a common fantasy for men, and did including it mean something I don't know?
One thing that felt ridiculously heavy handed was the commentary one character had as he passed a brilliantly lit stadium while driving through Spain. Instead of a football match, it was a bull fight. He notes how incongruous it was to see giant klieg lights, fancy cars, state of the art services/concessions, etc right there at such a ridiculously barbaric event. UGH - the blatant irony is this. See, our guy is in process of eviscerating a Danish politician - twice in one day, bringing the man to tears - and is about to plaster it all over the world via his tabloid magazine.
Our Every Man, the tabloid editor, is going to gut this man's life - just like the bull - and will use the technology of the internet (and cellphone tapping) to tell the world.
I'm sorry, but this one little thing was so overtly and crappily done, that I don't know how the Man Booker judges let it slide.
Friends, I generally love books that have ugly, awful protagonists, so the fact that half of the nine men were jerks didn't bother me. Maybe if I'd spent more time with them - say five men instead of nine? - I would have cared a tiny bit about them. There are other collection of short stories that really were outstanding novels. (Nine Lives: Death and Life in New Orleans and The Tsar of Love and Techno instantly come to mind, and that's rather what I expected from these nine.
Indeed, I was not the right audience - an American woman. All it left me wondering was, "is that all there is?"
October 1, 2017
Having finished reading this year's Man Booker shortlist, I decided to go back to the one that eluded me last year. I recall that at the time much of the debate was about whether such a disconnected set of stories should be regarded as a novel, and having read it now I am not entirely convinced. It does have some thematic unity - each of the nine parts focuses on a different man, in a different part of Europe, struggling with a crisis of confidence, and they do get progressively older as the book goes on, but apart from that the stories have nothing in common.
For me the later stories were more interesting. Szalay is clearly a versatile writer and creates some memorable situations, and the stories are funny at times, but he doesn't spare his characters much sympathy. I hope the title was intended to be ironic, otherwise Szalay has a very bleak view of his fellow man.
An interesting read, possibly worthy of its shortlist place but I didn't see it deserving more than that.
For me the later stories were more interesting. Szalay is clearly a versatile writer and creates some memorable situations, and the stories are funny at times, but he doesn't spare his characters much sympathy. I hope the title was intended to be ironic, otherwise Szalay has a very bleak view of his fellow man.
An interesting read, possibly worthy of its shortlist place but I didn't see it deserving more than that.
May 30, 2018
"Una passeggera immersione nella trama dell'esistenza"
Uomini in viaggio. Viaggio di piacere, viaggio di lavoro, viaggio come modus vivendi. Viaggio in un luogo fisico, ma anche viaggio nel tempo, viaggio in ultima istanza come metafora della vita.
Sono tutti uomini in movimento, quelli descritti, in questa splendida raccolta. Movimento esteriore ed interiore. Uomini fotografati in momenti apparentemente banali ma in realtà cruciali delle proprie esistenze.
Davanti a un bivio, scelte che spesso sono non scelte, ma fatti che accadono come sull'onda di un destino che pare tracciato e irreversibile.
Non un caso credo, che in due racconti appaia la lettura delle carte, quasi a confutare l'esistenza del libero arbitrio.
Fallimento e successo sono descritti con la medesima amarezza. Sì, perché anche il successo è qualcosa di effimero, una gioia egoistica fine a se stessa che non porta nessuna elevazione dell'animo umano.
Che cosa è la vita di un uomo (di diversi uomini) di fronte allo scorrere del tempo?
Cosa sono i suoi vani tormenti, la sue pulsioni, le sue passioni, le sue ambizioni, i suoi successi, se il destino di ciascuno è quello di svanire nello scorrere del tempo?
"Si stava dissolvendo.Dissolvendo. È così che finiamo tutti: dissolvendoci?"
Perché la vita accade così. Si è giovani e poi all'improvviso non lo si è più. E cosa è la fine della giovinezza se non il pensare che vita scorrerá su un binario prederminato e prevedibile?
E quando pare di non aver piu niente da scegliere (ammesso e non concesso di aver veramente scelto) la sensazione di aver premuto il tasto sbagliato della propria esistenza, la sensazione di aver sprecato il proprio tempo.
"Non è un gioco.La vita non è un gioco."
Uomini in viaggio. Viaggio di piacere, viaggio di lavoro, viaggio come modus vivendi. Viaggio in un luogo fisico, ma anche viaggio nel tempo, viaggio in ultima istanza come metafora della vita.
Sono tutti uomini in movimento, quelli descritti, in questa splendida raccolta. Movimento esteriore ed interiore. Uomini fotografati in momenti apparentemente banali ma in realtà cruciali delle proprie esistenze.
Davanti a un bivio, scelte che spesso sono non scelte, ma fatti che accadono come sull'onda di un destino che pare tracciato e irreversibile.
Non un caso credo, che in due racconti appaia la lettura delle carte, quasi a confutare l'esistenza del libero arbitrio.
Fallimento e successo sono descritti con la medesima amarezza. Sì, perché anche il successo è qualcosa di effimero, una gioia egoistica fine a se stessa che non porta nessuna elevazione dell'animo umano.
Che cosa è la vita di un uomo (di diversi uomini) di fronte allo scorrere del tempo?
Cosa sono i suoi vani tormenti, la sue pulsioni, le sue passioni, le sue ambizioni, i suoi successi, se il destino di ciascuno è quello di svanire nello scorrere del tempo?
"Si stava dissolvendo.Dissolvendo. È così che finiamo tutti: dissolvendoci?"
Perché la vita accade così. Si è giovani e poi all'improvviso non lo si è più. E cosa è la fine della giovinezza se non il pensare che vita scorrerá su un binario prederminato e prevedibile?
E quando pare di non aver piu niente da scegliere (ammesso e non concesso di aver veramente scelto) la sensazione di aver premuto il tasto sbagliato della propria esistenza, la sensazione di aver sprecato il proprio tempo.
"Non è un gioco.La vita non è un gioco."
December 30, 2017
Non é che dopo avere letto questi racconti sapremo finalmente che cosa è un uomo, perché in questi nove racconti non sono concentrati nove tipi umani maschili.
La ricchezza e la variabilità dell'animo maschile non può, non deve essere ricondotta a dei casi, e solo la letteratura di genere, che so un thriller con l'uomo sempre impavidamente sprezzante del pericolo o la letteratura pornografico con i suoi maschi perennemente vigorosi e pronti si arroga un così presuntuoso obiettivo che invece Szalay non si prefigge.
Sono storie molto individuali e poco generalizzabili, fotografie di vite maschili catturate nelle diverse età: un po' più che adolescenti, di mezza età, viranti al declino.
Sono racconti molto lunghi che ci fanno seguire per veramente tante pagine i protagonisti, come se fossimo ogni volta in un romanzo per poi arrivare a degli epiloghi che lasciano un po' interdetti, racconti che non finiscono, semplicemente si fermano.
Ormai sono abituata e so che la conclusione di un racconto può essere deludente.
E quando l'autore decide di troncare senza spiegazioni lasciando lì tutto in sospeso, come se un terremoto avesse sorpreso un chirurgo in sala operatoria e lui alla faccia dei migliori piani di evacuazione abbandonasse defilato e noncurante il suo paziente nudo e sdraiato sul tavolo operatorio a cuore aperto e sanguinante, non me la prendo più.
Il racconto non è se lo conosco lo evito, è se lo conosco lo comprendo e lo accetto così come è altrimenti mi rivolgo altrove.
La collocazione geografica di queste nove storie è un'altra dei punti a favore della raccolta.
David Szalay è un po' cittadino del mondo: nato canedese, madre ungherese vive a Budapest, scrive in inglese, primo libro pubblicato in Italia.
Saltella qua e là in lungo e in largo nel caro nostro vecchio continente ed è bello perché ogni volta non sappiamo dove ci porterà; come quando ti dicono: prendi la valigia e infilaci dentro il costume e il passamontagna perché la destinazione è a sorpresa.
Quindi una volta sarà la Croazia non costiera ma quella meno conosciuta, interna, anonima fatta di monotone ondulazioni di campi di mais e paesini grigi e squadrati, o un'Italia poco narrata tra Ferrara e Ravenna terreni piatti e sterminati con statali diritte che corrono nascoste da nebbie basse e gocciolanti umidità e freddo.
C'è Cipro con il suo turismo balneare, la Spagna degli altipiani interni accecati e riarsi dal sole.
Londra compare in più di un racconto non come suo luogo di elezione ma come baricentro o catalizzatore delle varie esistenze di questi nove uomini, e ciò suona un po immeritato verso.una città, un paese la Gran Bretagna che ha deciso di tornare più isola di quanto già lo fosse geograficamente, ma Szalay scrive prima della Brexit.
Ultima notazione:
Sulla scrittura: bella, moderna curata senza l'essenzialità minimalista di un Carver o di un avaro Hemingway senza la ricerca dell'effetto o di immagini complesse o barocche, ma non meno ricca, incisiva, completa.
Le donne: nonostante il titolo ci sono, non è un universo tutto al maschile (non sono jacuncos).
Come le spalle dei comici: Ollio senza Stanlio non sarebbe esistito, né l'amatissimo Totò senza Peppino de Filippo ci avrebbe fatto ridere così tanto, così senza le donne gli uomini sarebbero più soli e gli scrittori con meno da raccontare.
Riporto tre passaggi emblematici per le tre fasi che scandiscono la vita, ma che volendo si possono rimescolare o a seconda del temperamento di ognuno venire invertite o anche, perché no, vissute in simultanea.
GIOVINEZZA
Muore dalla voglia di parlare di lei.
Vorrebbe trascorrere l'intero pomeriggio a parlare di lei, o ad ascoltare il suo nome ripetutamente pronunciato a voce alta, quelle quattro sillabe che sembrano contenere tutto ciò per cui vale la pena di stare al mondo. Invece attacca un discorso sull' impossibilità di fare esperienze gratificanti quando si è turisti.
MATURITÀ
Da qualche tempo, saranno uno o due anni, lo ha preso la sensazione deprimente di vedere quel che lo aspetta da qui alla fine dei suoi giorni, di sapere già tutto quello che gli succederà, che tutto sia ormai completamente prevedibile. Era questo che intendeva quando parlava con Paulette di destino.
E quante altre occasioni ci saranno, dopo questo, di eluderlo? Non molte. Forse nessuna. Ammesso che di occasione si tratti. Perché potrebbe anche non esserlo.
VECCHIAIA
Sono due ore che se ne sta sveglio a pensare.
L'idea che un giorno dovrà morire lo lascia ancora incredulo. Che tutto debba finire. Tutto. Lui. Gli sembra sempre una cosa che succede agli altri e naturalmente amici e conoscenti. hanno già cominciato a cadere. Gente che frequentava da anni e anni. Sono già morti in diversi. È andato ai loro funerali, la cerchia comincia ad assottigliarsi. Cercare di immaginare il mondo quando lui non ci sarà più è stranissimo. Una stranezza, pensa sdraiato nel letto, legata al fatto che l'unico mondo che conosce è quello che percepisce, ma quel mondo morirà con lui, non gli sopravvivera'
Scusate sono stata prolississima, è l'ultima recensione del 2017, buon 2018 a tutti :)
La ricchezza e la variabilità dell'animo maschile non può, non deve essere ricondotta a dei casi, e solo la letteratura di genere, che so un thriller con l'uomo sempre impavidamente sprezzante del pericolo o la letteratura pornografico con i suoi maschi perennemente vigorosi e pronti si arroga un così presuntuoso obiettivo che invece Szalay non si prefigge.
Sono storie molto individuali e poco generalizzabili, fotografie di vite maschili catturate nelle diverse età: un po' più che adolescenti, di mezza età, viranti al declino.
Sono racconti molto lunghi che ci fanno seguire per veramente tante pagine i protagonisti, come se fossimo ogni volta in un romanzo per poi arrivare a degli epiloghi che lasciano un po' interdetti, racconti che non finiscono, semplicemente si fermano.
Ormai sono abituata e so che la conclusione di un racconto può essere deludente.
E quando l'autore decide di troncare senza spiegazioni lasciando lì tutto in sospeso, come se un terremoto avesse sorpreso un chirurgo in sala operatoria e lui alla faccia dei migliori piani di evacuazione abbandonasse defilato e noncurante il suo paziente nudo e sdraiato sul tavolo operatorio a cuore aperto e sanguinante, non me la prendo più.
Il racconto non è se lo conosco lo evito, è se lo conosco lo comprendo e lo accetto così come è altrimenti mi rivolgo altrove.
La collocazione geografica di queste nove storie è un'altra dei punti a favore della raccolta.
David Szalay è un po' cittadino del mondo: nato canedese, madre ungherese vive a Budapest, scrive in inglese, primo libro pubblicato in Italia.
Saltella qua e là in lungo e in largo nel caro nostro vecchio continente ed è bello perché ogni volta non sappiamo dove ci porterà; come quando ti dicono: prendi la valigia e infilaci dentro il costume e il passamontagna perché la destinazione è a sorpresa.
Quindi una volta sarà la Croazia non costiera ma quella meno conosciuta, interna, anonima fatta di monotone ondulazioni di campi di mais e paesini grigi e squadrati, o un'Italia poco narrata tra Ferrara e Ravenna terreni piatti e sterminati con statali diritte che corrono nascoste da nebbie basse e gocciolanti umidità e freddo.
C'è Cipro con il suo turismo balneare, la Spagna degli altipiani interni accecati e riarsi dal sole.
Londra compare in più di un racconto non come suo luogo di elezione ma come baricentro o catalizzatore delle varie esistenze di questi nove uomini, e ciò suona un po immeritato verso.una città, un paese la Gran Bretagna che ha deciso di tornare più isola di quanto già lo fosse geograficamente, ma Szalay scrive prima della Brexit.
Ultima notazione:
Sulla scrittura: bella, moderna curata senza l'essenzialità minimalista di un Carver o di un avaro Hemingway senza la ricerca dell'effetto o di immagini complesse o barocche, ma non meno ricca, incisiva, completa.
Le donne: nonostante il titolo ci sono, non è un universo tutto al maschile (non sono jacuncos).
Come le spalle dei comici: Ollio senza Stanlio non sarebbe esistito, né l'amatissimo Totò senza Peppino de Filippo ci avrebbe fatto ridere così tanto, così senza le donne gli uomini sarebbero più soli e gli scrittori con meno da raccontare.
Riporto tre passaggi emblematici per le tre fasi che scandiscono la vita, ma che volendo si possono rimescolare o a seconda del temperamento di ognuno venire invertite o anche, perché no, vissute in simultanea.
GIOVINEZZA
Muore dalla voglia di parlare di lei.
Vorrebbe trascorrere l'intero pomeriggio a parlare di lei, o ad ascoltare il suo nome ripetutamente pronunciato a voce alta, quelle quattro sillabe che sembrano contenere tutto ciò per cui vale la pena di stare al mondo. Invece attacca un discorso sull' impossibilità di fare esperienze gratificanti quando si è turisti.
MATURITÀ
Da qualche tempo, saranno uno o due anni, lo ha preso la sensazione deprimente di vedere quel che lo aspetta da qui alla fine dei suoi giorni, di sapere già tutto quello che gli succederà, che tutto sia ormai completamente prevedibile. Era questo che intendeva quando parlava con Paulette di destino.
E quante altre occasioni ci saranno, dopo questo, di eluderlo? Non molte. Forse nessuna. Ammesso che di occasione si tratti. Perché potrebbe anche non esserlo.
VECCHIAIA
Sono due ore che se ne sta sveglio a pensare.
L'idea che un giorno dovrà morire lo lascia ancora incredulo. Che tutto debba finire. Tutto. Lui. Gli sembra sempre una cosa che succede agli altri e naturalmente amici e conoscenti. hanno già cominciato a cadere. Gente che frequentava da anni e anni. Sono già morti in diversi. È andato ai loro funerali, la cerchia comincia ad assottigliarsi. Cercare di immaginare il mondo quando lui non ci sarà più è stranissimo. Una stranezza, pensa sdraiato nel letto, legata al fatto che l'unico mondo che conosce è quello che percepisce, ma quel mondo morirà con lui, non gli sopravvivera'
Scusate sono stata prolississima, è l'ultima recensione del 2017, buon 2018 a tutti :)
March 8, 2018
I read, and loved, ‘London and the South-East’, an earlier book by David Szalay - click here to read my review. The day after I finished it, this, David Szalay’s latest book ‘All That Man Is’, made the 2016 Booker Prize Shortlist, a development that made me even keener to read it. My expectations were high.
Just like ‘London and the South-East’, ‘All That Man Is’ is a melancholic, downbeat novel. I say novel but this is a tad contentious as the book contains nine short stories about nine different men - starting with a teenager and ending with a man in the final stages of his life. There are thematic links between the stories and I think its reasonable to describe this as a novel however I quite understand why others might disagree.
The characters are a diverse bunch, different nationalities in various locations across Europe, but they are to varying degrees flawed, lonely individuals, frequently bordering on pathetic. It’s a damning indictment of masculinity, specifically an obliviousness to the preciousness and brevity of life, and the protagonists all tend towards a narrow focus on money, career or similar material matters, whilst finding it all but impossible to express emotions.
Despite the consistently downbeat nature of each of these snapshots of different life stages, David Szalay never ridicules these people, something I also noticed in ‘London and the South-East’. Szalay's characters are all treated with a rough compassion despite their all too obvious faults.
If you can tolerate the bleakness at the heart of these stories, and the shortcomings of the characters, then you should find much to appreciate. ‘All That Man Is’ contains yet more evidence that David Szalay is a supremely gifted, subtle writer who renders the complex simple through his intelligence, descriptive details and the clever thematic threads that link each of these snapshots, and which make ‘All That Man Is’ a coherent and compelling read.
In short, it's wonderful. I now intend to prioritise reading the rest of his books.
Just like ‘London and the South-East’, ‘All That Man Is’ is a melancholic, downbeat novel. I say novel but this is a tad contentious as the book contains nine short stories about nine different men - starting with a teenager and ending with a man in the final stages of his life. There are thematic links between the stories and I think its reasonable to describe this as a novel however I quite understand why others might disagree.
The characters are a diverse bunch, different nationalities in various locations across Europe, but they are to varying degrees flawed, lonely individuals, frequently bordering on pathetic. It’s a damning indictment of masculinity, specifically an obliviousness to the preciousness and brevity of life, and the protagonists all tend towards a narrow focus on money, career or similar material matters, whilst finding it all but impossible to express emotions.
Despite the consistently downbeat nature of each of these snapshots of different life stages, David Szalay never ridicules these people, something I also noticed in ‘London and the South-East’. Szalay's characters are all treated with a rough compassion despite their all too obvious faults.
If you can tolerate the bleakness at the heart of these stories, and the shortcomings of the characters, then you should find much to appreciate. ‘All That Man Is’ contains yet more evidence that David Szalay is a supremely gifted, subtle writer who renders the complex simple through his intelligence, descriptive details and the clever thematic threads that link each of these snapshots, and which make ‘All That Man Is’ a coherent and compelling read.
In short, it's wonderful. I now intend to prioritise reading the rest of his books.
August 30, 2016
Average writer writes average fiction about average men and is nominated for an award bc he captures the average man.
If i wanted to read this sort of stuff I'd read one of those focus pieces in esquire or gq.
If i wanted to read this sort of stuff I'd read one of those focus pieces in esquire or gq.
July 21, 2018
À la guerre
Si può viaggiare restando fermi, si può stare fermi anche viaggiando.
Si può restare inchiodati alle proprie inadeguatezze, mancare di accorgersi di essere a un punto di svolta, a un incrocio importante della propria esistenza.
Mancare di ascoltare, mancare di guardare, mancare di esserci e così, in assenza di determinatezza e di definizione, non accorgersi di aver mancato quella svolta, di aver lasciato che la propria esistenza corresse per proprio conto.
Sono nove vite minuscole, quelle che Szalay ci narra, nove vite vissute al limite del nichilismo, talvolta, del disinteresse, dell'atarassia.
Nove vite che, in viaggio, perlopiù fuori dal paese di origine o di permanenza, scorrono senza un vero punto focale.
Sono nove vite in cui, in maniera differente, a fare da collante, da denominatore comune, non è solo il fatto di essere fisicamente altrove, ma anche quello di essere - in qualche modo comune a tutti e nove - assenti alla propria vita, concentrati su altro: che sia il lavoro, che sia la delusione, che siano le proprie ambizioni; sono nove uomini che si perdono il presente, distratti da altro.
La vita non è un gioco, ci dice Szlaby, ma succede.
Con una scrittura minima, ma non minimalista, di cui colpiscono la cura e il nitore che emana, questo autore misconosciuto qui da noi, canadese ma anche ungherese, che scrive in inglese e vive a Londra, ci prenota un viaggio intorno all’universo uomo in giro per il nostro emisfero: da Londra a Berlino, da Praga a Budapest, da Lilla a Cipro, da Copenaghen alla Spagna, dalla Croazia a Venezia, o anche in un luogo non precisato della campagna emiliana, dove le suggestioni di nebbia e foschia mi hanno ricordato paesaggi fotografici a me cari, ci sentiremo spaesati insieme a loro, combatteremo con loro la loro vita, penseremo di aver sprecato le nostre ore, guarderemo al passato e al futuro nel tempo impercettibile ed eterno di un battito di ciglia. Ed è subito sera.
Cos’è un essere umano, in fondo, se non il suo destino?
«È proprio così che funziona, col destino, capisci cos’ha in serbo per te quando è troppo tardi per rimediare. Per quello è il tuo destino – perché è troppo tardi per rimediare».
«Il trascorrere del tempo. Ecco che cosa è eterno, che cosa non ha fine. E si palesa soltanto nell’effetto che esercita su tutto il resto, sicché, nella propria impermanenza, tutto il resto incarna l’unica cosa che non finisce mai.»
«Time will say nothing but I told
you so,
Time only knows the price we
have to pay;
If I could tell you I would let you
know.»
[Il tempo non dirà nulla tranne te l’avevo detto, / il tempo sa solo il prezzo da pagare; / se potessi dirlo io, te lo farei sapere.
da W.H. Auden, If I Could Tell You)]
I versi di Auden, in esergo all’ultimo racconto, inchiodano di fronte all’ineluttabilità degli eventi e al proprio destino del quale, da spettatore impassibile, ci fornirà solo il prezzo da pagare.
Del tempo ho una opinione più romantica, forse, e gli preferisco (nel contenuto, non nella forma, perché i versi di Auden sono sublimi) gli anni sanno cose che i giorni non conoscono, parole attribuite a Ralph Waldo Emerson, lette chissà dove, che da oltre trent’anni mi fanno compagnia e mi promettono, un giorno e ogni giorno, di spiegarmi il presente.
Si può viaggiare restando fermi, si può stare fermi anche viaggiando.
Si può restare inchiodati alle proprie inadeguatezze, mancare di accorgersi di essere a un punto di svolta, a un incrocio importante della propria esistenza.
Mancare di ascoltare, mancare di guardare, mancare di esserci e così, in assenza di determinatezza e di definizione, non accorgersi di aver mancato quella svolta, di aver lasciato che la propria esistenza corresse per proprio conto.
Sono nove vite minuscole, quelle che Szalay ci narra, nove vite vissute al limite del nichilismo, talvolta, del disinteresse, dell'atarassia.
Nove vite che, in viaggio, perlopiù fuori dal paese di origine o di permanenza, scorrono senza un vero punto focale.
Sono nove vite in cui, in maniera differente, a fare da collante, da denominatore comune, non è solo il fatto di essere fisicamente altrove, ma anche quello di essere - in qualche modo comune a tutti e nove - assenti alla propria vita, concentrati su altro: che sia il lavoro, che sia la delusione, che siano le proprie ambizioni; sono nove uomini che si perdono il presente, distratti da altro.
La vita non è un gioco, ci dice Szlaby, ma succede.
Con una scrittura minima, ma non minimalista, di cui colpiscono la cura e il nitore che emana, questo autore misconosciuto qui da noi, canadese ma anche ungherese, che scrive in inglese e vive a Londra, ci prenota un viaggio intorno all’universo uomo in giro per il nostro emisfero: da Londra a Berlino, da Praga a Budapest, da Lilla a Cipro, da Copenaghen alla Spagna, dalla Croazia a Venezia, o anche in un luogo non precisato della campagna emiliana, dove le suggestioni di nebbia e foschia mi hanno ricordato paesaggi fotografici a me cari, ci sentiremo spaesati insieme a loro, combatteremo con loro la loro vita, penseremo di aver sprecato le nostre ore, guarderemo al passato e al futuro nel tempo impercettibile ed eterno di un battito di ciglia. Ed è subito sera.
Cos’è un essere umano, in fondo, se non il suo destino?
«È proprio così che funziona, col destino, capisci cos’ha in serbo per te quando è troppo tardi per rimediare. Per quello è il tuo destino – perché è troppo tardi per rimediare».
«Il trascorrere del tempo. Ecco che cosa è eterno, che cosa non ha fine. E si palesa soltanto nell’effetto che esercita su tutto il resto, sicché, nella propria impermanenza, tutto il resto incarna l’unica cosa che non finisce mai.»
«Time will say nothing but I told
you so,
Time only knows the price we
have to pay;
If I could tell you I would let you
know.»
[Il tempo non dirà nulla tranne te l’avevo detto, / il tempo sa solo il prezzo da pagare; / se potessi dirlo io, te lo farei sapere.
da W.H. Auden, If I Could Tell You)]
I versi di Auden, in esergo all’ultimo racconto, inchiodano di fronte all’ineluttabilità degli eventi e al proprio destino del quale, da spettatore impassibile, ci fornirà solo il prezzo da pagare.
Del tempo ho una opinione più romantica, forse, e gli preferisco (nel contenuto, non nella forma, perché i versi di Auden sono sublimi) gli anni sanno cose che i giorni non conoscono, parole attribuite a Ralph Waldo Emerson, lette chissà dove, che da oltre trent’anni mi fanno compagnia e mi promettono, un giorno e ogni giorno, di spiegarmi il presente.
September 27, 2016
In a riff on the Ages of Man (four, five or seven, depending on which classical source you turn to), Szalay gives nine vignettes of men trying to figure out what life is all about. His antiheroes range from age 17 to 73. Each section has several chapters and follows a similar pattern: a man from one European country travels to another European country; there are lots of scenes set at airports or otherwise in transit, and part of the overall atmosphere of dislocation is simply the effort of having to adjust to foreignness.
These trips are made for various reasons: feckless French twentysomething Bérnard has been fired by his uncle so goes ahead with a vacation to Cyprus; tabloid journalist Kristian flies from Denmark to Spain to confirm rumors of a government minister’s involvement in a scandal; former oligarch Aleksandr takes his yacht for a farewell Adriatic cruise as he reflects on where his millions went. Predictably, sex is a major theme: reluctant hook-ups, fantasy lovers, affairs regretted, wild oats never sown. At times (especially during #2), I was ready to follow up the title phrase in my best Cockney accent with “All That Man Is…is a bloody wanker.”
As individual stories, there’s nothing particularly wrong with these. Inevitably, though, some are more interesting than others, and they don’t quite succeed in feeding into an overarching message, unless to confirm a mood of hedonism and angst. Life is short and pointless; enjoy its moments while you can, eh? My favorite protagonists were Interrailing teenager Simon (#1) and Kristian (#5); several of the ones in the middle I’ve now forgotten.
I did like how the final story offered a slightly different sexual dynamic and an unforeseen connection back with the first story. But overall, I didn’t find this to be the philosophical and elegiac experience I might have expected. The prose is great, though; I’d certainly read a more straightforward novel by Szalay.
Favorite lines:
“There’s this feeling he sometimes has that he’s a long way from home. That nobody’s there for him if it all goes wrong.”
“How little we understand about life as it is actually happening. The moments fly past, like trackside pylons seen from a train window.”
These trips are made for various reasons: feckless French twentysomething Bérnard has been fired by his uncle so goes ahead with a vacation to Cyprus; tabloid journalist Kristian flies from Denmark to Spain to confirm rumors of a government minister’s involvement in a scandal; former oligarch Aleksandr takes his yacht for a farewell Adriatic cruise as he reflects on where his millions went. Predictably, sex is a major theme: reluctant hook-ups, fantasy lovers, affairs regretted, wild oats never sown. At times (especially during #2), I was ready to follow up the title phrase in my best Cockney accent with “All That Man Is…is a bloody wanker.”
As individual stories, there’s nothing particularly wrong with these. Inevitably, though, some are more interesting than others, and they don’t quite succeed in feeding into an overarching message, unless to confirm a mood of hedonism and angst. Life is short and pointless; enjoy its moments while you can, eh? My favorite protagonists were Interrailing teenager Simon (#1) and Kristian (#5); several of the ones in the middle I’ve now forgotten.
I did like how the final story offered a slightly different sexual dynamic and an unforeseen connection back with the first story. But overall, I didn’t find this to be the philosophical and elegiac experience I might have expected. The prose is great, though; I’d certainly read a more straightforward novel by Szalay.
Favorite lines:
“There’s this feeling he sometimes has that he’s a long way from home. That nobody’s there for him if it all goes wrong.”
“How little we understand about life as it is actually happening. The moments fly past, like trackside pylons seen from a train window.”
December 9, 2019
Man, ...really, is that all man is? What a soulless prose Szalay offers, and what an all pervading sadness! Already from page one men (that is: males) are presented with an empty gaze into life, cardboard figures adorned with all the typical clichés. And it continues like that for 8 chapters, each time with other male protagonists, starting with 17-years old boys and gradually climbing up in age. Written in prose that is barely worth that name. Only the last, ninth chapter shows a bit of writing talent, and perhaps even the key to reading this work: “How little we understand about life as it is actually happening. The moments fly past, like trackside pylons seen from a train window”. I can't add anything to that; apparently that's really all Szalay is capable of sharing with us, in more than 450 pages. And worst of all: this made the Man Booker Prize shortlist! Man, really..., have I missed something, am I loosing it?
January 21, 2018
"You learn to love what's there, not what's not there. How can you live, otherwise?"
Is it a novel or a loosely-connected collection of short stories? That was the main bone of contention when All That Man Is was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2016. Whatever the classification of this worthy tome, I enjoyed it a great deal (much more than the actual winner, in fact).
Each of the nine stories portrays a man at a different stage in his life, from 17-year-old Simon, backpacking around Europe and still figuring out who he really is, to a retired government minister in his 70s looking back on his life and wondering how much time he has left. Other characters include a Hungarian bodyguard who is love with his boss's girlfriend, a muckraking tabloid editor who has skeletons in his own closet, and a Russian oligarch whose extravagant lifestyle is coming to an untimely end.
The men are all unhappy in their own way, with love and money being the chief reasons for concern. Each story finds the protagonist at a formative experience in his life - lonely, unsure and pondering his reason for existence. Some of them commit despicable acts, others live in pitiable circumstances, but the portraits are all genuine and unflinching in their honesty.
The subject matter is grim for the most part, but the stories are entirely compelling. Szalay writes with tremendous insight, and though the characters are flawed and not always likable, I became completely invested in their fates. My favourite was the tale of Bernard, a shy French boy in his early 20s who goes on a life-changing holiday to Cyprus. But there was something to admire in each of the stories. All in all, I was left hugely impressed by All That Man Is, a thoroughly engaging and intelligent depiction of modern masculinity.
Is it a novel or a loosely-connected collection of short stories? That was the main bone of contention when All That Man Is was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2016. Whatever the classification of this worthy tome, I enjoyed it a great deal (much more than the actual winner, in fact).
Each of the nine stories portrays a man at a different stage in his life, from 17-year-old Simon, backpacking around Europe and still figuring out who he really is, to a retired government minister in his 70s looking back on his life and wondering how much time he has left. Other characters include a Hungarian bodyguard who is love with his boss's girlfriend, a muckraking tabloid editor who has skeletons in his own closet, and a Russian oligarch whose extravagant lifestyle is coming to an untimely end.
The men are all unhappy in their own way, with love and money being the chief reasons for concern. Each story finds the protagonist at a formative experience in his life - lonely, unsure and pondering his reason for existence. Some of them commit despicable acts, others live in pitiable circumstances, but the portraits are all genuine and unflinching in their honesty.
The subject matter is grim for the most part, but the stories are entirely compelling. Szalay writes with tremendous insight, and though the characters are flawed and not always likable, I became completely invested in their fates. My favourite was the tale of Bernard, a shy French boy in his early 20s who goes on a life-changing holiday to Cyprus. But there was something to admire in each of the stories. All in all, I was left hugely impressed by All That Man Is, a thoroughly engaging and intelligent depiction of modern masculinity.
October 21, 2017
Within the eternity of time there is only a mystery-only a sense that there is something that we will never know or understand. An empty, unknowable space. Like, in Sant'Apollinare Nuovo, that mosaic of the curtains opening to show us nothing, only a patch of plain golden tiles.
Nine men at different stages of their lives, portrayed through nine months of one year and nagging in the back of my mind as I read was that question: Really? Is this ALL that man is? For barely one of them is at home in his life. The tone of what to expect is set in the first story of Simon and Ferdinand, rattling round Europe on an Interrail ticket. Never really arriving, only visiting. Tourists. Drifting.
What am I doing here?
The next one, Bernard, seems even more......
...what is the word?.....
Feckless.
Although feckless feels like a moral judgement - maybe that is a shade of meaning that came in with the Victorians, as so many moral judgements did.
Yes: when I look at the etymology of the word it is the right one.
"1590s, from feck, "effect, value, vigor" (late 15c.), Scottish shortened form of effect (n.), + -less. Popularized by Carlyle, who left its opposite, feckful, in dialectal obscurity.
(That's nice isn't it? How do you leave a word in dialectal obscurity?? However you do, it worked.)
So, yes. Lacking in effect, value, vigour. Compliant. A lamb.
It would be easy to condemn these men. Men who are aware of a lack in their lives, but unable to see how to fill the gap. It's often women who have to push their faces up against the ghastly truth that hiding in a corner of the padded cell and hoping that no-one will poke them too hard is not the way to live. The women poke and prod, often with the authority of Fate and Fortune behind them in the form of Tarot cards, or with the authority of Mother Nature behind them. Yes, I'm pregnant. And no, I do not want an abortion. Or the woman arrives in the form of a judge, with all the authority of the law behind her and exposes Aleksander, the Emperor of Iron as a 'fantasist' (She didn't use the word liar).
But, but, but.
It's not the lack of vigour that's the problem. In that same story, the one about Aleksander, he reminisces about his uncle, another Aleksander, a man to be admired? Because he had iron in his soul. He was strong. He refused to be a hypocrite and apologize for doing what he didn't see as wrong.
'It was his enemies who were wrong, he thought. He thought history was on his side. It wasn't. In the end, he took his own life', Aleksander says. 'He killed himself.'
So vigour is not the answer either, it seems. Not that kind of iron in the soul, the kind that makes you intransigeant, unwilling to admit mistakes.
It might be easy to feel sorry for these men. At the mercy of their hormones. Unaware that the adrenalin surge they get from competing in professional life is ephemeral. Unable to enjoy a holiday. Clueless and lost when it comes to 'Enjoying Life' at all - what to do with all that time?
Ah yes, time. It IS all we have.
No. I never condemned, nor pitied either. Szalay has a wonderful gentle way with his characters. His writing never lifts its lip in a scathing sneer, but is tender and attentive, and hilariously funny too. Is that why I felt so safe? Right from the start I felt reassured. And indeed, every one of these stories ends with a vapour trail of hope on the otherwise blue empty sky.
Yes.
This is all that man is.
But he can change.
Nine men at different stages of their lives, portrayed through nine months of one year and nagging in the back of my mind as I read was that question: Really? Is this ALL that man is? For barely one of them is at home in his life. The tone of what to expect is set in the first story of Simon and Ferdinand, rattling round Europe on an Interrail ticket. Never really arriving, only visiting. Tourists. Drifting.
What am I doing here?
The next one, Bernard, seems even more......
...what is the word?.....
Feckless.
Although feckless feels like a moral judgement - maybe that is a shade of meaning that came in with the Victorians, as so many moral judgements did.
Yes: when I look at the etymology of the word it is the right one.
"1590s, from feck, "effect, value, vigor" (late 15c.), Scottish shortened form of effect (n.), + -less. Popularized by Carlyle, who left its opposite, feckful, in dialectal obscurity.
(That's nice isn't it? How do you leave a word in dialectal obscurity?? However you do, it worked.)
So, yes. Lacking in effect, value, vigour. Compliant. A lamb.
It would be easy to condemn these men. Men who are aware of a lack in their lives, but unable to see how to fill the gap. It's often women who have to push their faces up against the ghastly truth that hiding in a corner of the padded cell and hoping that no-one will poke them too hard is not the way to live. The women poke and prod, often with the authority of Fate and Fortune behind them in the form of Tarot cards, or with the authority of Mother Nature behind them. Yes, I'm pregnant. And no, I do not want an abortion. Or the woman arrives in the form of a judge, with all the authority of the law behind her and exposes Aleksander, the Emperor of Iron as a 'fantasist' (She didn't use the word liar).
But, but, but.
It's not the lack of vigour that's the problem. In that same story, the one about Aleksander, he reminisces about his uncle, another Aleksander, a man to be admired? Because he had iron in his soul. He was strong. He refused to be a hypocrite and apologize for doing what he didn't see as wrong.
'It was his enemies who were wrong, he thought. He thought history was on his side. It wasn't. In the end, he took his own life', Aleksander says. 'He killed himself.'
So vigour is not the answer either, it seems. Not that kind of iron in the soul, the kind that makes you intransigeant, unwilling to admit mistakes.
It might be easy to feel sorry for these men. At the mercy of their hormones. Unaware that the adrenalin surge they get from competing in professional life is ephemeral. Unable to enjoy a holiday. Clueless and lost when it comes to 'Enjoying Life' at all - what to do with all that time?
Ah yes, time. It IS all we have.
No. I never condemned, nor pitied either. Szalay has a wonderful gentle way with his characters. His writing never lifts its lip in a scathing sneer, but is tender and attentive, and hilariously funny too. Is that why I felt so safe? Right from the start I felt reassured. And indeed, every one of these stories ends with a vapour trail of hope on the otherwise blue empty sky.
Yes.
This is all that man is.
But he can change.
June 2, 2018
Nove ritratti di uomini di età e condizioni diverse, il cui denominatore comune è la vita o meglio l’improvvisa percezione della vita come entità a sé stante, indipendente dalla loro volontà. È una sorta di folgorazione che li coglie in movimento, lontani dai luoghi abituali. Il silenzio di una notte in una città sconosciuta, il modo in cui la luce colpisce un vetro, i primi rumori in una stanza d’albergo al mattino sembrano innescare un meccanismo per cui il viaggio diventa sguardo interiore, in prospettiva o in retrospettiva. Dall’adolescenza alla vecchiaia, la domanda è sempre la stessa: è questa la vita?
“Ecco. La sua vita è questo, le cose che gli stanno succedendo.
Nient’altro”
“In questi ultimi anni la vita è diventata così densa. Un susseguirsi di accadimenti. Una cosa dopo l’altra. Così poco spazio. Immerso fino al collo nella vita. Troppo vicina per vederla.”
Anche le reazioni non cambiano molto, c’è quasi un senso di rassegnazione: la vita è così, “la vita non è un gioco”. C’è chi non vuole cambiare, come il ricercatore di filologia germanica, che si rifugia nel passato rassicurante delle origini delle lingue anglosassoni e del medioevo, suscettibili di analisi minuziose che non influiscono sul suo presente.
“Il fascino degli studi medioevali – le lingue, la letteratura, la storia, l’arte e l’architettura –, immergersi in quel mondo. In quel mondo altro. Altro in modo rassicurante”
C’è insoddisfazione, il più delle volte, ma anche incapacità di dare una svolta all’esistenza.
“C’è uno strano senso di spreco, un senso di spreco senza un oggetto chiaro.”
C’è rimpianto e, soprattutto, la convinzione che tutto sia guidato dal destino, che incombe inevitabile pronto a rendere vani aspirazioni e desideri:
“è proprio così che funziona, col destino, capisci cos’ha in serbo per te quando è troppo tardi per rimediare. Per quello è il tuo destino – perché è troppo tardi per rimediare”
C’è la vecchiaia, che scopriamo nel modo in cui gli altri ci guardano, arrivata da un giorno all’altro, così silenziosa da sorprenderci. E c’è la morte, la fine di tutto, cui è difficile abituarsi, per cui cerchiamo di esorcizzarla inventando qualcosa che la neutralizzi:
“Sono la paura e la tristezza a costringerlo a inventarsi qualcosa. Qualcosa con cui alleviare l’incubo dell’invecchiamento e della morte. Questi pensieri sull’eternità del tempo. Nell’eternità del tempo si cela solo un mistero – l’idea che contenga qualcosa che non conosceremo né comprenderemo mai. Uno spazio vuoto, inconoscibile”.
La vita passa, passano le persone che abbiamo conosciuto, si fanno vaghi i ricordi. Ci sopravvive il tempo, che continuerà a scorrere anche dopo di noi.
“Il trascorrere del tempo. Ecco che cosa è eterno, che cosa non ha fine. E si palesa soltanto nell’effetto che esercita su tutto il resto, sicché, nella propria impermanenza, tutto il resto incarna l’unica cosa che non finisce mai.”
Risuonano, ricordati dall’autore, i versi di Auden:
“Time will say nothing but I told you so,
Time only knows the price we have to pay;
If I could tell you I would let you know”
“Ecco. La sua vita è questo, le cose che gli stanno succedendo.
Nient’altro”
“In questi ultimi anni la vita è diventata così densa. Un susseguirsi di accadimenti. Una cosa dopo l’altra. Così poco spazio. Immerso fino al collo nella vita. Troppo vicina per vederla.”
Anche le reazioni non cambiano molto, c’è quasi un senso di rassegnazione: la vita è così, “la vita non è un gioco”. C’è chi non vuole cambiare, come il ricercatore di filologia germanica, che si rifugia nel passato rassicurante delle origini delle lingue anglosassoni e del medioevo, suscettibili di analisi minuziose che non influiscono sul suo presente.
“Il fascino degli studi medioevali – le lingue, la letteratura, la storia, l’arte e l’architettura –, immergersi in quel mondo. In quel mondo altro. Altro in modo rassicurante”
C’è insoddisfazione, il più delle volte, ma anche incapacità di dare una svolta all’esistenza.
“C’è uno strano senso di spreco, un senso di spreco senza un oggetto chiaro.”
C’è rimpianto e, soprattutto, la convinzione che tutto sia guidato dal destino, che incombe inevitabile pronto a rendere vani aspirazioni e desideri:
“è proprio così che funziona, col destino, capisci cos’ha in serbo per te quando è troppo tardi per rimediare. Per quello è il tuo destino – perché è troppo tardi per rimediare”
C’è la vecchiaia, che scopriamo nel modo in cui gli altri ci guardano, arrivata da un giorno all’altro, così silenziosa da sorprenderci. E c’è la morte, la fine di tutto, cui è difficile abituarsi, per cui cerchiamo di esorcizzarla inventando qualcosa che la neutralizzi:
“Sono la paura e la tristezza a costringerlo a inventarsi qualcosa. Qualcosa con cui alleviare l’incubo dell’invecchiamento e della morte. Questi pensieri sull’eternità del tempo. Nell’eternità del tempo si cela solo un mistero – l’idea che contenga qualcosa che non conosceremo né comprenderemo mai. Uno spazio vuoto, inconoscibile”.
La vita passa, passano le persone che abbiamo conosciuto, si fanno vaghi i ricordi. Ci sopravvive il tempo, che continuerà a scorrere anche dopo di noi.
“Il trascorrere del tempo. Ecco che cosa è eterno, che cosa non ha fine. E si palesa soltanto nell’effetto che esercita su tutto il resto, sicché, nella propria impermanenza, tutto il resto incarna l’unica cosa che non finisce mai.”
Risuonano, ricordati dall’autore, i versi di Auden:
“Time will say nothing but I told you so,
Time only knows the price we have to pay;
If I could tell you I would let you know”
May 9, 2018
“C’è una stagione per ogni cosa, e un tempo per ogni faccenda sotto il cielo".
E il tempo, come pure i luoghi, segnano la differenza tra le storie dei nove personaggi maschili che compongono l’eccellente narrazione di Szalay in questo libro. Il tempo (e un luogo d’origine, l’ Inghilterra) è anche il filo che unisce i racconti.
Stagioni della vita diverse determinano pensieri, comportamenti, azioni : dell’adolescenza è tipica l’incertezza, della giovinezza la spavalderia, dell’età matura il consolidamento o la messa in discussione delle decisioni prese, e nella vecchiaia infine ritorna l’incertezza, ben diversa da quella giovanile, tuttavia. È la resa dei conti, il bilancio, la domanda sulla morte, la necessità di trovare un senso alla sparizione di sé e dunque del mondo.
Le ambientazioni sono tutte diverse, le tipologie di uomini anche. Il teatro sono paesaggi europei resi percepibili da poche sapienti pennellate descrittive. Il tempo della narrazione è il presente e la chiave della scelta di questo tempo verbale sta nell’ultimo racconto, quello dedicato a Tony, uomo che nell’Inghilterra di Blair ha avuto un ruolo e che ora, settantenne malcerto a causa di un cuore malato, si trova a svernare in villa -una vecchia casa situata nella brumosa campagna del ferrarese- e a riflettere su che cosa significa vivere, essendo destinati a scomparire.
Il senso lo trova nei versi di una poesia composta dal giovane nipote:
...una passeggera
immersione nella trama
dell’esistenza, l’eterno
trascorrere del tempo.
Frammento di un presente eterno, abitante limitato di un infinito trascorrere: ecco tutto quello che è un uomo.
E il tempo, come pure i luoghi, segnano la differenza tra le storie dei nove personaggi maschili che compongono l’eccellente narrazione di Szalay in questo libro. Il tempo (e un luogo d’origine, l’ Inghilterra) è anche il filo che unisce i racconti.
Stagioni della vita diverse determinano pensieri, comportamenti, azioni : dell’adolescenza è tipica l’incertezza, della giovinezza la spavalderia, dell’età matura il consolidamento o la messa in discussione delle decisioni prese, e nella vecchiaia infine ritorna l’incertezza, ben diversa da quella giovanile, tuttavia. È la resa dei conti, il bilancio, la domanda sulla morte, la necessità di trovare un senso alla sparizione di sé e dunque del mondo.
Le ambientazioni sono tutte diverse, le tipologie di uomini anche. Il teatro sono paesaggi europei resi percepibili da poche sapienti pennellate descrittive. Il tempo della narrazione è il presente e la chiave della scelta di questo tempo verbale sta nell’ultimo racconto, quello dedicato a Tony, uomo che nell’Inghilterra di Blair ha avuto un ruolo e che ora, settantenne malcerto a causa di un cuore malato, si trova a svernare in villa -una vecchia casa situata nella brumosa campagna del ferrarese- e a riflettere su che cosa significa vivere, essendo destinati a scomparire.
Il senso lo trova nei versi di una poesia composta dal giovane nipote:
...una passeggera
immersione nella trama
dell’esistenza, l’eterno
trascorrere del tempo.
Frammento di un presente eterno, abitante limitato di un infinito trascorrere: ecco tutto quello che è un uomo.
May 7, 2018
Un gran bel libro (doppie grazie Lorin). Originale soprattutto, per senso e struttura, anche se la cosa migliore è la scrittura. Senza quella, senza quella qualità non avrebbe retto. Un falso minimalismo. Sembra vetro ed è cristallo. Sfaccettature di senso, limpidezza di descrizione, capacità di cogliere e scomporre nel dettaglio la luce delle cose e del modo in cui vendono viste e vissute. Ma anche fragilità. Un meccanismo delicato, in cui il lettore deve entrare e non distrarsi, prestare attenzione ai dettagli. I paesaggi, su e giù per l’Europa, sono importanti e sono resi con grande nitidezza. Fanno pensare all’America di Hopper. Frasi spesso brevi. Aggettivazione precisa. È semplice come stile, ma devi essere molto bravo per essere così semplice. Altro ingrediente importante: la punteggiatura. Non è solo tecnicamente corretta, ma viene usata benissimo per sincopare il ritmo di lettura.
La trama scansa tutte le possibili evoluzioni ad effetto, i colpi di scena. Quando c’è qualcosa che potrebbe somigliargli (un fatto importante, una decisione-chiave) lo si lascia scivolare senza nessuna impennata del ritmo, nessun alzo di tono nella scelta delle parole. Ed è una scelta funzionale al senso complessivo del libro: della normalità drammatica con cui le vite scivolano barcamenandosi nella corrente delle cose, per quanto turbolenta possa farsi.
Sono racconti, come fotogrammi di vite, ma messi insieme secondo me fanno un romanzo. E il filo che li lega non è solo lo scorrere delle stagioni della vita, dall’adolescenza alla vecchiaia. Se Szalay avesse lasciato che in ciascun racconto il personaggio fosse lo stesso fotografato in un momento diverso ne sarebbe venuto fuori un tipo umano con una sua connotazione abbastanza coerente. Limitato e ristretto nella sua individualità, però. Sarebbero saltate le possibili varianti, le differenze, che uomini diversi portano con sè (status, cultura, aspetto fisico ecc). E sarebbe saltato il concetto che al di là di queste differenze, al di là delle nostre individualità, c’è per tutti qualcosa, un modo di farsi sentire della vita che li/ci accomuna davanti al corso delle cose. In questo, lo scrive, ad un certo punto, “Pensiamo di essere speciali, e invece siamo tutti uguali”. Probabilmente lì sta una delle cellule germinali del libro e anche la sua genialità.
Letteratura maschile, senza dubbio, per angolo visuale e sensibilità. Di una tristezza cruda, asciutta. Sono storie di uomini, d’altronde, raccontati nella loro solitudine interiore. Hanno sempre davanti un futuro avvolto nella nebbia e da un certo punto in poi la consapevolezza nuda della fine. Intanto, qualcosa sta per accadere; forse qualcosa o qualcuno sta per dar loro un'opportunità o per far loro del male. Oppure è una turbolenza che chissà dove porta. Sono uomini insomma davanti ad un passaggio stretto, un bivio, un momento in cui forse qualcosa che vale la pena di fotografare si sta determinando. Forse. E questa tensione sottile, questa incertezza corre lungo tutte le pagine. Come una corrente a bassa intensità.
Personaggi che tentano come noi tentiamo, chi più chi meno, di fare le scelte, le possibili correzioni di rotta, le virate di volontà; ma con la forza della corrente delle cose comunque bisogna fare i conti. Si può aver ragione a volte, ma alla fine del gioco è quella che vince. Il senso o, meglio, il dubbio di una incapacità, di non essere all’altezza, permea ogni pagina. A volte c’è il sapore di una sconfitta; che viene per lo più accettata come inevitabile. Fosse anche solo dell’unica sconfitta che a tutti tocca, quella finale, senza rivincita. Poi, occasioni mancate e, magari indossando un sorriso, il triste ripiego dell’accontentarsi: di un’altra donna, di un compromesso, di una nuova città, di un lavoro diverso, di una direzione del destino che non è quella che avevi immaginato e provato a imprimere o che per un attimo pensi di aver intravisto. Della percezione infine che forse una speranza, in qualcosa di misteriosamente nascosto nel tempo infinito che ci precede e ci seguirà si può immaginare di riporla.
Una conclusione delle storie (sono nove) non c’è mai. Le storie, d’altronde (tutte, anche la nostra), scorrono e continuano a scorrere anche dopo che sono finite, in qualche modo: nell’immaginazione, nella memoria che lasciamo, nel tempo dell’universo, appunto. Anche quando abbiamo finito di leggerle e anche quando non ci siamo più. Magari questo, forse, contiene il germe di quella speranza estrema, avvolta nella nebbia. Chissà.
Se fosse una canzone sarebbe questa.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnYwK...
La trama scansa tutte le possibili evoluzioni ad effetto, i colpi di scena. Quando c’è qualcosa che potrebbe somigliargli (un fatto importante, una decisione-chiave) lo si lascia scivolare senza nessuna impennata del ritmo, nessun alzo di tono nella scelta delle parole. Ed è una scelta funzionale al senso complessivo del libro: della normalità drammatica con cui le vite scivolano barcamenandosi nella corrente delle cose, per quanto turbolenta possa farsi.
Sono racconti, come fotogrammi di vite, ma messi insieme secondo me fanno un romanzo. E il filo che li lega non è solo lo scorrere delle stagioni della vita, dall’adolescenza alla vecchiaia. Se Szalay avesse lasciato che in ciascun racconto il personaggio fosse lo stesso fotografato in un momento diverso ne sarebbe venuto fuori un tipo umano con una sua connotazione abbastanza coerente. Limitato e ristretto nella sua individualità, però. Sarebbero saltate le possibili varianti, le differenze, che uomini diversi portano con sè (status, cultura, aspetto fisico ecc). E sarebbe saltato il concetto che al di là di queste differenze, al di là delle nostre individualità, c’è per tutti qualcosa, un modo di farsi sentire della vita che li/ci accomuna davanti al corso delle cose. In questo, lo scrive, ad un certo punto, “Pensiamo di essere speciali, e invece siamo tutti uguali”. Probabilmente lì sta una delle cellule germinali del libro e anche la sua genialità.
Letteratura maschile, senza dubbio, per angolo visuale e sensibilità. Di una tristezza cruda, asciutta. Sono storie di uomini, d’altronde, raccontati nella loro solitudine interiore. Hanno sempre davanti un futuro avvolto nella nebbia e da un certo punto in poi la consapevolezza nuda della fine. Intanto, qualcosa sta per accadere; forse qualcosa o qualcuno sta per dar loro un'opportunità o per far loro del male. Oppure è una turbolenza che chissà dove porta. Sono uomini insomma davanti ad un passaggio stretto, un bivio, un momento in cui forse qualcosa che vale la pena di fotografare si sta determinando. Forse. E questa tensione sottile, questa incertezza corre lungo tutte le pagine. Come una corrente a bassa intensità.
Personaggi che tentano come noi tentiamo, chi più chi meno, di fare le scelte, le possibili correzioni di rotta, le virate di volontà; ma con la forza della corrente delle cose comunque bisogna fare i conti. Si può aver ragione a volte, ma alla fine del gioco è quella che vince. Il senso o, meglio, il dubbio di una incapacità, di non essere all’altezza, permea ogni pagina. A volte c’è il sapore di una sconfitta; che viene per lo più accettata come inevitabile. Fosse anche solo dell’unica sconfitta che a tutti tocca, quella finale, senza rivincita. Poi, occasioni mancate e, magari indossando un sorriso, il triste ripiego dell’accontentarsi: di un’altra donna, di un compromesso, di una nuova città, di un lavoro diverso, di una direzione del destino che non è quella che avevi immaginato e provato a imprimere o che per un attimo pensi di aver intravisto. Della percezione infine che forse una speranza, in qualcosa di misteriosamente nascosto nel tempo infinito che ci precede e ci seguirà si può immaginare di riporla.
Una conclusione delle storie (sono nove) non c’è mai. Le storie, d’altronde (tutte, anche la nostra), scorrono e continuano a scorrere anche dopo che sono finite, in qualche modo: nell’immaginazione, nella memoria che lasciamo, nel tempo dell’universo, appunto. Anche quando abbiamo finito di leggerle e anche quando non ci siamo più. Magari questo, forse, contiene il germe di quella speranza estrema, avvolta nella nebbia. Chissà.
Se fosse una canzone sarebbe questa.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnYwK...
August 21, 2025
"You were nearly a novel my little cherry pip. Yes. Out you popped, out of your author's tumkin, and everyones shouting: “It’s a novel, it’s a novel!” And then someone said: “But it hasn’t got recurrent characters and a story arc!” And then I said: “A novel without recurrent characters and a story arc? God be praised, it’s a miracle. A novel without recurrent characters and a story arc!” And then Sir Thomas More pointed out that a novel without recurrent characters and a story arc is a short story collection. And everyone was really disappointed."
(With due apologies to Blackadder)
Let's get this out of the way first - the only people who think this is a novel are the author himself, and (at least some of) the Man Booker Prize judges. It isn't. It's a short story collection.
Yes there are a few recurring motifs (Iron Man 3, tarot cards, Park Lane) but these seem to have been sprinkled on after the event to give a facade of consistency. And there is even one explicit link: the man in the last story is the grandfather of the backpacker in the first; but there is also at least one character from one of Szalay's earlier novels and no-one would claim this makes the two books one novel.
However, as short story collections go, it's a good one.
The quality of the stories is, it must be said, a little uneven. The Russian tycoon is too closely based on a real-life case (and one where Szalay feels out of his comfort zone), the loner in Croatia seems a little too tragic and the specifics of the Danish setting for the journalist (the only story without any UK link) is unconvincing.
But Szalay writes well and each story succeeds in successfully evoking a distinctive and interesting character and a time and place in their life.
The common theme of the stories - the migratory lives of EU citizens set against a crisis of masculinity - makes the collection come together as a whole. And the stories progress well across the different ages of man, at roughly 5 yearly intervals, and even across the months from April to December (although I wouldn't have noticed the latter if it hadn't been pointed out to me.)
And let me also address the other elephant in the room - the title. Calling the collection "All That Man Is" rather begs the retort that there is a lot more to men than this. While the protagonists lead a wide variety of lives, they all seem very similar at heart - white, European, international, heterosexual(ish), with unsatisfactory love lives (and somewhat troubling attitudes to women) and all frustrated with their life in general. Indeed Szalay himself has argued that this very similarity is what makes this a novel (it doesn't).
But Szalay's point in the title seems rather different - many of the protagonists ponder as to whether this is all their life is, i.e. all that the one man they themselves are is. E.g.:
"His member nodding, his lungs pulling at the air, it seems that there is nothing else to him, that that is all he is."
"This is it. This is his life, these things that are happening. This is all there is."
"When I woke up one morning and realised it was too late to change anything. I mean, the big things."
"That's the thing about fate, the way you only understand what your fate is when it's too late to do anything about it."
The original title of Europa may have been more suitable given the wide geographic scope of the book (albeit all but one of the stories links in some way to the UK).
Every story involves someone travelling from one place in Europe to another, often via the UK, which looks particularly striking in the aftermath of Brexit. Szalay's own comments in interviews that "The movement of people in Europe has become too established a fact of life. Nobody wants to end it." already look to be worryingly complacent, but it is good to read a novel that glories in this ability for people to travel, work and live in different countries.
And the last story pulls the collection together beautifully, particularly when the protagonist, an ex civil servant, thinks wistfully of his own role in creating the enlarged EU within which the characters of the novel roam so freely:
"Even as he says it, though, he is aware of how weightless, how intangible, how even strangely fictitious, his achievements feel - even the ones he is proudest of, like his minor part in negotiating, over many years, the expansion of the European Union in 2004. Something, he is not sure what, seems to nullify them."
And Szalay has him, symbolically, reading The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914, Christopher Clark's excellent history of the origins of the First World War which, inter alia, ascribes this in part to the very sort of crisis of European masculinity from which the men in All That Men Is all seem to be suffering. To me the 1930s are a more relevant, and worrying, benchmark for today's issues in Europe, but the historical link is nevertheless well made.
Recommended and despite the fact that it shouldn't be eligible, one of my favourites from this year's Booker list.
Sources:
http://www.theparisreview.org/intervi...
https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/in...
(With due apologies to Blackadder)
Let's get this out of the way first - the only people who think this is a novel are the author himself, and (at least some of) the Man Booker Prize judges. It isn't. It's a short story collection.
Yes there are a few recurring motifs (Iron Man 3, tarot cards, Park Lane) but these seem to have been sprinkled on after the event to give a facade of consistency. And there is even one explicit link: the man in the last story is the grandfather of the backpacker in the first; but there is also at least one character from one of Szalay's earlier novels and no-one would claim this makes the two books one novel.
However, as short story collections go, it's a good one.
The quality of the stories is, it must be said, a little uneven. The Russian tycoon is too closely based on a real-life case (and one where Szalay feels out of his comfort zone), the loner in Croatia seems a little too tragic and the specifics of the Danish setting for the journalist (the only story without any UK link) is unconvincing.
But Szalay writes well and each story succeeds in successfully evoking a distinctive and interesting character and a time and place in their life.
The common theme of the stories - the migratory lives of EU citizens set against a crisis of masculinity - makes the collection come together as a whole. And the stories progress well across the different ages of man, at roughly 5 yearly intervals, and even across the months from April to December (although I wouldn't have noticed the latter if it hadn't been pointed out to me.)
And let me also address the other elephant in the room - the title. Calling the collection "All That Man Is" rather begs the retort that there is a lot more to men than this. While the protagonists lead a wide variety of lives, they all seem very similar at heart - white, European, international, heterosexual(ish), with unsatisfactory love lives (and somewhat troubling attitudes to women) and all frustrated with their life in general. Indeed Szalay himself has argued that this very similarity is what makes this a novel (it doesn't).
But Szalay's point in the title seems rather different - many of the protagonists ponder as to whether this is all their life is, i.e. all that the one man they themselves are is. E.g.:
"His member nodding, his lungs pulling at the air, it seems that there is nothing else to him, that that is all he is."
"This is it. This is his life, these things that are happening. This is all there is."
"When I woke up one morning and realised it was too late to change anything. I mean, the big things."
"That's the thing about fate, the way you only understand what your fate is when it's too late to do anything about it."
The original title of Europa may have been more suitable given the wide geographic scope of the book (albeit all but one of the stories links in some way to the UK).
Every story involves someone travelling from one place in Europe to another, often via the UK, which looks particularly striking in the aftermath of Brexit. Szalay's own comments in interviews that "The movement of people in Europe has become too established a fact of life. Nobody wants to end it." already look to be worryingly complacent, but it is good to read a novel that glories in this ability for people to travel, work and live in different countries.
And the last story pulls the collection together beautifully, particularly when the protagonist, an ex civil servant, thinks wistfully of his own role in creating the enlarged EU within which the characters of the novel roam so freely:
"Even as he says it, though, he is aware of how weightless, how intangible, how even strangely fictitious, his achievements feel - even the ones he is proudest of, like his minor part in negotiating, over many years, the expansion of the European Union in 2004. Something, he is not sure what, seems to nullify them."
And Szalay has him, symbolically, reading The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914, Christopher Clark's excellent history of the origins of the First World War which, inter alia, ascribes this in part to the very sort of crisis of European masculinity from which the men in All That Men Is all seem to be suffering. To me the 1930s are a more relevant, and worrying, benchmark for today's issues in Europe, but the historical link is nevertheless well made.
Recommended and despite the fact that it shouldn't be eligible, one of my favourites from this year's Booker list.
Sources:
http://www.theparisreview.org/intervi...
https://www.penguin.co.uk/articles/in...
February 2, 2018
Series of 9 novellas – the main protagonist of which is always male and which progress obviously through ages (from gap year to retirement).
The stories in turn feature:
Two gap-year travellers staying with a Czech (absent) husband and wife, who possibly wants to seduce the main character but to his disappointment seduces his friend instead when the main character does not respond;
A Frenchman on a very cheap holiday in a terrible hotel in Cyprus whose search for hedonism fails but who instead sleeps with a very overweight English girl and then her mother;
A Hungarian fitness instructor acting as security for a high-class prostitute visiting London who becomes obsessed with her;
A Belgian (but British based) academic in Germanic philology who finds his casual but regular lover is both pregnant and determined to keep the child;
The ambitious deputy-editor of a Danish tabloid who finds that one of his key political contacts is having an affair with a married woman and decides to break the story to promote his paper and career (after flying to Spain to confront him);
An English estate agent trying to establish his own business by persuading a owner of a low-budget chalet development in an obscure part of the French alps to partner with him to go into more up market and ambitious developments;
An alcoholic Scot drifting in Croatia – having originally gone there to live some type of playboy/beach lifestyle; a suicidal Russian oligarch who has just lost a major London court case and now faces ruin particularly as his wife sues for divorce;
A retired ex-diplomat, estranged from his ambitious wife not least due to his unfulfilled attraction to young men, having a melancholy stay in his Italian villa in an obscure part of Italy.
The third and fourth last are characters from the author’s other novels and the last character is the grandfather of the first – the novellas are otherwise unlinked other than in theme.
Other recurring motives include: the three ages of men; tarot cards representing past, present and future; brand names and cars, rain, travel and transition.
Key themes are:
Modern masculinity and a crisis of masculinity – the last character is reading Christopher Clark’s The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 where he argues that such a Europe wide crisis of masculinity was a key factor in the key protagonists in the outbreak of war being unable to depart from what were clearly bad decisions One hundred years later the author’s characters are cut adrift by the modern world seeking but not finding sex, status and significance;
Travel across Europe (the book nearly being called Europa) – ironically (given the book's publication in the year of Brexit) the last character mentions that “he is aware of how weightless …. even strangely fictitious his achievements feel, even the ones he is proudest of like his minor part in negotiating … the expansion of the EU. Something, he is not sure what, seems to nullify them”;
A sense of life on the periphery , both physically – the chalets, the Cyprus holiday, the Croatian town, the non-Tuscan villa are all away from the centre of the action and metaphorically a sense of missed opportunity – the student missing out on the available sex, the bodyguard only able to watch the incredibly attractive girl, the Scot upset that the local kebab shop owners will acknowledge others in the town but ignore him even though he is there most regular customer, the pensioner now cut off from society and his family, the Russian oligarch losing his London establishment contacts – this theme is introduced early on with a quote from The Ambassadorsabout not making the mistake of losing the illusion of freedom.
An enjoyable and though provoking book – if not strictly a novel (hence stretching the rules of the Booker Prize).
The stories in turn feature:
Two gap-year travellers staying with a Czech (absent) husband and wife, who possibly wants to seduce the main character but to his disappointment seduces his friend instead when the main character does not respond;
A Frenchman on a very cheap holiday in a terrible hotel in Cyprus whose search for hedonism fails but who instead sleeps with a very overweight English girl and then her mother;
A Hungarian fitness instructor acting as security for a high-class prostitute visiting London who becomes obsessed with her;
A Belgian (but British based) academic in Germanic philology who finds his casual but regular lover is both pregnant and determined to keep the child;
The ambitious deputy-editor of a Danish tabloid who finds that one of his key political contacts is having an affair with a married woman and decides to break the story to promote his paper and career (after flying to Spain to confront him);
An English estate agent trying to establish his own business by persuading a owner of a low-budget chalet development in an obscure part of the French alps to partner with him to go into more up market and ambitious developments;
An alcoholic Scot drifting in Croatia – having originally gone there to live some type of playboy/beach lifestyle; a suicidal Russian oligarch who has just lost a major London court case and now faces ruin particularly as his wife sues for divorce;
A retired ex-diplomat, estranged from his ambitious wife not least due to his unfulfilled attraction to young men, having a melancholy stay in his Italian villa in an obscure part of Italy.
The third and fourth last are characters from the author’s other novels and the last character is the grandfather of the first – the novellas are otherwise unlinked other than in theme.
Other recurring motives include: the three ages of men; tarot cards representing past, present and future; brand names and cars, rain, travel and transition.
Key themes are:
Modern masculinity and a crisis of masculinity – the last character is reading Christopher Clark’s The Sleepwalkers: How Europe Went to War in 1914 where he argues that such a Europe wide crisis of masculinity was a key factor in the key protagonists in the outbreak of war being unable to depart from what were clearly bad decisions One hundred years later the author’s characters are cut adrift by the modern world seeking but not finding sex, status and significance;
Travel across Europe (the book nearly being called Europa) – ironically (given the book's publication in the year of Brexit) the last character mentions that “he is aware of how weightless …. even strangely fictitious his achievements feel, even the ones he is proudest of like his minor part in negotiating … the expansion of the EU. Something, he is not sure what, seems to nullify them”;
A sense of life on the periphery , both physically – the chalets, the Cyprus holiday, the Croatian town, the non-Tuscan villa are all away from the centre of the action and metaphorically a sense of missed opportunity – the student missing out on the available sex, the bodyguard only able to watch the incredibly attractive girl, the Scot upset that the local kebab shop owners will acknowledge others in the town but ignore him even though he is there most regular customer, the pensioner now cut off from society and his family, the Russian oligarch losing his London establishment contacts – this theme is introduced early on with a quote from The Ambassadorsabout not making the mistake of losing the illusion of freedom.
An enjoyable and though provoking book – if not strictly a novel (hence stretching the rules of the Booker Prize).
May 28, 2018
Quanti si ricordano come il sottoscritto dei fumetti di Nick Carter? Alla fine quasi sempre il protagonista, scoperto il malfattore, precisava che non si trattava di XYZ, bensì di Stanislao Moulinski, in uno dei suoi più riusciti travestimenti. Ecco, letta questa raccolta di racconti mi sono trovato a domandarmi se dietro le sembianze mascoline di David Szalay non si celi per caso una qualche menade del femminismo androfobo e oltranzista, una sorta di Solanas rediviva (e ciarliera, visto che si dilunga per quattrocento pagine): ché, siccome gli uomini di questi racconti sono tutti maschi, il termine va inteso nel senso ristretto del latino vir; solo che gli uomini qua fanno, quando va meglio, decisamente pena, e quando va peggio, cioè quasi sempre, meriterebbero una raffica di schiaffoni: e proclamare dunque in capite libri che qua dentro ci sarebbe “tutto quello che è un uomo” suona o temerario o decisamente sconfortante. Oltretutto questi uomini, anzi omiciattoli, risultano così malmessi, avviliti, meschini e piovorni che, più che d’un paio d’ali e stimoli eccezionali, avrebbero bisogno d’una bella curetta: ma roba forte, e in dosi massicce. Però il disastro non deriva tanto dalla dappocaggine di codesti viri, bensì dalla scrittura, che diventa plumbea sebbene graficamente e sintatticamente si presenti affannosa e spezzata, e dalle vicende rappresentate, d’un grigiore imbarazzante. Sarà pur vero che, come dice un cantante di casa nostra, Eppure non partiamo mai,/ ci allontaniamo solo un po’, ma c’è modo e modo di narrare l’incubo d’un mondo in cui, non ostanti gli spostamenti continui di uomini e cose e i voli intercontinentali, per molte persone la vita è una vertigine di fallimenti claustrofobici; Szalay s’è avvalso d’un sostanziale minimalismo da cui già dopo qualche pagina viene a formarsi una nebbia di noia: i personaggi sono antipatici e privi di attrattive, lo stile è piatto e monocorde, le vicende sono tristi e triviali. Quanto allo stile, inutile dire che l’atticismo è roba per penne fini: altrimenti sembra soltanto sciatteria. Si salva in parte, forse, l’ultimo racconto, il cui protagonista è il nonno del protagonista del primo: può darsi che la depressione senile sia più nelle corde di Szalay, che pur vecchio non è. Come l’atticismo nella scrittura, in ogni caso, sfruttare la semplicità della materia è insidioso: quanti poeti hanno saputo creare con pochi versi quelle sottili visioni d’incanto che schizza Iacopo Vittorelli in certe sue canzonette, la quali appaiono intessute d’aria fresca e di luce come paesaggi di Claudio Lorenese? Poco prima di scrivere queste righe ascoltavo alcuni Lieder di Richard Strauss cantati da Lisa Dalla Casa; fra essi anche Ich wollt’ein Sträußlein binden: c’è quel momento miracoloso in cui sui versi di Clemens Brentano Mein Schatz ist ausgeblieben,/ ich bin so ganz allein la melodia si stende con una semplicità disarmante, trasognata, piena d’una tristezza e d’uno smarrimento che ti prendono alla gola. Ecco, mi sono detto, magari fra queste pagine su piccoli uomini e piccole storie ci fosse un momento in cui la semplicità e lo stile umile sapessero dire qualcosa di bello e di sincero! E invece no. Libri così, di centinaia di pagine, se ne possono scrivere a centinaia; ma in quella piccola poesia di Brentano, in quel minuscolo Lied di Strauss ci sono molta più verità e molta più bellezza.
April 7, 2018
Fotografando l’anima del tempo.
Con il nuovo millennio la bussola della letteratura mondiale sembra essersi decisamente spostata verso la Vecchia Europa: Cărtărescu, Volodine, Gospodinov, Énard, Tom McCarthy… scrittori accomunati dal fatto di non appartenere a nessuna corrente letteraria comune ma di seguire ognuno un percorso diverso e personale.
Cărtărescu, Volodine, Gospodinov, Énard, McCarthy… e David Szalay, potremmo dire adesso, anche se in questo caso si tratta di un autore europeo solo per parte di padre (ungherese) e nato a Montréal da madre canadese.
Poco importa, con Tutto quello che è un uomo (il suo quarto libro e il primo tradotto in Italia), Szalay dimostra di essere scrittore vero. Osservatore attento della realtà, che filtra ed elabora con grande capacità di attenzione e poi restituisce con uno stile moderno e scorrevole, un linguaggio attento al parlato comune (lezione salingeriana?) con il quale caratterizza bene i personaggi. Attenzione ai particolari, riferimenti colti alternati ad aspetti del quotidiano, misura perfetta nell’alternanza di dialoghi e riflessioni, protagonisti che vengono fuori un po’ alla volta, personalità non esplicitate ma che emergono da quello che dicono e da come si comportano.
I racconti che compongono questa raccolta sono istantanee di momenti di vita scattate sulla sfondo di un’Europa nella quale i protagonisti sono colti in pieno movimento. Uomini in viaggio, che trovano tanto semplice spostarsi quanto complicato capire la realtà, quello che succede a loro e intorno a loro. Uomini che hanno smarrito le coordinate della vita e non sono più in grado di comprenderla. Il campionario è vario: diciassettenni in cerca di identità e ventenni privi di aspirazioni con un orizzonte che arriva poco oltre il proprio naso, giovani adulti già temprati da cinismo ed arrivismo per i quali esiste solo l’interesse personale. E poi, ancora: vite immolate al dio-lavoro, vite bruciate in caduta libera senza mai essere decollate e vite che crollano rovinosamente dopo essersi arrampicate sulle vette del successo. E vite alla fine: che provano a guardarsi con lucidità alle spalle per cercare un senso in quello che è stato, come quella di Tony, il protagonista dell’ultimo racconto. Un senso che però è destinato a sfuggire, come testimonia una poesia del nipote, Simon, uno dei personaggi del primo racconto della raccolta e che torna qui quasi a dare un senso circolare a tutto il libro:
“una passeggera immersione nella trama
dell’esistenza, l’eterno trascorrere del tempo.”
“Il trascorrere del tempo.” – pensa Tony – “Ecco che cosa è eterno, che cosa non ha fine. E si palesa soltanto nell’effetto che esercita su tutto il resto, sicché nella propria impermanenza, tutto il resto incarna l’unica cosa che non finisce mai.
Sembra quasi un straordinario paradosso.”
Szalay sembra voler fotografare o filmare l’anima del nostro tempo, e ci riesce benissimo. Un tempo contraddittorio, che non sta fermo, che rifiuta di mettersi in posa. Di qui l’abilità del fotografo che riesce a coglierne l’essenza.
Con il nuovo millennio la bussola della letteratura mondiale sembra essersi decisamente spostata verso la Vecchia Europa: Cărtărescu, Volodine, Gospodinov, Énard, Tom McCarthy… scrittori accomunati dal fatto di non appartenere a nessuna corrente letteraria comune ma di seguire ognuno un percorso diverso e personale.
Cărtărescu, Volodine, Gospodinov, Énard, McCarthy… e David Szalay, potremmo dire adesso, anche se in questo caso si tratta di un autore europeo solo per parte di padre (ungherese) e nato a Montréal da madre canadese.
Poco importa, con Tutto quello che è un uomo (il suo quarto libro e il primo tradotto in Italia), Szalay dimostra di essere scrittore vero. Osservatore attento della realtà, che filtra ed elabora con grande capacità di attenzione e poi restituisce con uno stile moderno e scorrevole, un linguaggio attento al parlato comune (lezione salingeriana?) con il quale caratterizza bene i personaggi. Attenzione ai particolari, riferimenti colti alternati ad aspetti del quotidiano, misura perfetta nell’alternanza di dialoghi e riflessioni, protagonisti che vengono fuori un po’ alla volta, personalità non esplicitate ma che emergono da quello che dicono e da come si comportano.
I racconti che compongono questa raccolta sono istantanee di momenti di vita scattate sulla sfondo di un’Europa nella quale i protagonisti sono colti in pieno movimento. Uomini in viaggio, che trovano tanto semplice spostarsi quanto complicato capire la realtà, quello che succede a loro e intorno a loro. Uomini che hanno smarrito le coordinate della vita e non sono più in grado di comprenderla. Il campionario è vario: diciassettenni in cerca di identità e ventenni privi di aspirazioni con un orizzonte che arriva poco oltre il proprio naso, giovani adulti già temprati da cinismo ed arrivismo per i quali esiste solo l’interesse personale. E poi, ancora: vite immolate al dio-lavoro, vite bruciate in caduta libera senza mai essere decollate e vite che crollano rovinosamente dopo essersi arrampicate sulle vette del successo. E vite alla fine: che provano a guardarsi con lucidità alle spalle per cercare un senso in quello che è stato, come quella di Tony, il protagonista dell’ultimo racconto. Un senso che però è destinato a sfuggire, come testimonia una poesia del nipote, Simon, uno dei personaggi del primo racconto della raccolta e che torna qui quasi a dare un senso circolare a tutto il libro:
“una passeggera immersione nella trama
dell’esistenza, l’eterno trascorrere del tempo.”
“Il trascorrere del tempo.” – pensa Tony – “Ecco che cosa è eterno, che cosa non ha fine. E si palesa soltanto nell’effetto che esercita su tutto il resto, sicché nella propria impermanenza, tutto il resto incarna l’unica cosa che non finisce mai.
Sembra quasi un straordinario paradosso.”
Szalay sembra voler fotografare o filmare l’anima del nostro tempo, e ci riesce benissimo. Un tempo contraddittorio, che non sta fermo, che rifiuta di mettersi in posa. Di qui l’abilità del fotografo che riesce a coglierne l’essenza.
August 9, 2017
And That's All?
I considered many possibilities for the title of this review: first The Nine Ages of Man, then Holidays from Hell, then Losers. David Szalay's nine stories feature men at different stages of their lives, they are all set abroad, and they are uniformly depressing. Although there is only one small connection between them (the 73-year-old reired diplomat in the ninth story is the grandfather of the 17-year-old student in the first), the publisher's blurb suggests that they "aggregate into a picture of a single shared existence." And Szalay's title says that this is a composite portrait of what it is to be a man. If so, I'm not buying it. All these characters are losers, none more so than the pathetic Murray in the seventh story, fired from various jobs, a remittance man trying to survive in a dull village in Croatia, but dogged by failure with everything he tries. His is the longest story of the lot, dismally so, but at least it makes some of the others seem upbeat by comparison.
All the same, I stick by my description: Losers. Though, with the younger ones, perhaps not for ever. The sensitive young student in the first story, InterRailing round Europe with a friend who has very different ideas from his, will presumably come into his own as he grows up. And the French college dropout in the second story who goes alone on a package tour to a ramshackle hotel in Cyprus when his friend drops out, will surely not experience anything so horrendous again in his life. The semi-employed Hungarian ex-soldier in the third story, brought along as security for a high-priced call girl's visit to London, appears to have brawn rather than brains, but at least he shows himself to have a heart.
With the exception of the wretched Murray, the later characters, at the prime of their lives or in retirement, have all achieved a high measure of success. In the middle stories, we have a brilliant young medieval philologist, the deputy editor of a Copenhagen newspaper, and an international property developer. They are certainly not losers in the eyes of the world, but there is that matter of the heart…. The philologist behaves abominably when he learns his girlfriend is pregnant, but there is some possibility that he can atone. The editor flies to Spain to assure a high-ranking politician that his paper will be discreet in handling the news of his adulterous affair, but has he any intention of doing so? The developer has greater dreams than selling some jerry-built property in an Alpine village, but has he the courage to succeed?
The last two stories also feature outwardly successful men, but both in their different ways are contemplating the end of life. One is a Russian tycoon facing ruin on both the financial and personal fronts. The other (and to me the only really sympathetic character of the lot), is Sir Anthony Parson, a retired diplomat facing the end of his days and looking back on a life in which he has mainly acted a character not his own.
All the stories take place largely off the character's home turf. The protagonists are Belgian, Danish, English, French, Hungarian, Russian, and Scottish; the settings include Denmark, Germany, Italy, Slovakia, Spain, the French Alps, and a luxury yacht on the Mediterranean. This is a canny strategy on Szalay's part since many of us are tempted to behave differently when away from home. For the most part, though, this is not the glamorous Europe of the travel magazines. Prague is awash with tourists, the hotel in Cyprus is built on waste land a mile from the sea, the Alpine village has been blighted by gimcrack development, and the nearest town to Sir Anthony's Italian villa is famous only for its Museum of the Marshes (really).
So why do I not give this three or even two stars, if it presents such a dismal picture of masculine humanity? Mainly because David Szalay writes so well. Like his characters or not, you do get drawn into their stories. His descriptions are evocative and clear, but he also has a marvelous use of the ellipsis, short phrases that go nowhere definite but suggest much (an effect sometimes heightened by subtle uses of typography). In the same vein, he avoids neat endings; you are left with questions rather than answers; you can draw your own conclusions. In this general atmosphere of failure, I found myself looking for the few positive things I could find: a moment of unexpected companionship, a philosophical resignation, the possibility of change. And I have to say that I recognized most of the bad qualities in his masculine gallery from looking into the mirror of my own life at one time or another.
But I do not accept that this is All That Man Is. Hence my final title, itself a question: And That's All? And my emphatic answer: NO! However true Szalay is, I know we men can be so much more.
I considered many possibilities for the title of this review: first The Nine Ages of Man, then Holidays from Hell, then Losers. David Szalay's nine stories feature men at different stages of their lives, they are all set abroad, and they are uniformly depressing. Although there is only one small connection between them (the 73-year-old reired diplomat in the ninth story is the grandfather of the 17-year-old student in the first), the publisher's blurb suggests that they "aggregate into a picture of a single shared existence." And Szalay's title says that this is a composite portrait of what it is to be a man. If so, I'm not buying it. All these characters are losers, none more so than the pathetic Murray in the seventh story, fired from various jobs, a remittance man trying to survive in a dull village in Croatia, but dogged by failure with everything he tries. His is the longest story of the lot, dismally so, but at least it makes some of the others seem upbeat by comparison.
All the same, I stick by my description: Losers. Though, with the younger ones, perhaps not for ever. The sensitive young student in the first story, InterRailing round Europe with a friend who has very different ideas from his, will presumably come into his own as he grows up. And the French college dropout in the second story who goes alone on a package tour to a ramshackle hotel in Cyprus when his friend drops out, will surely not experience anything so horrendous again in his life. The semi-employed Hungarian ex-soldier in the third story, brought along as security for a high-priced call girl's visit to London, appears to have brawn rather than brains, but at least he shows himself to have a heart.
With the exception of the wretched Murray, the later characters, at the prime of their lives or in retirement, have all achieved a high measure of success. In the middle stories, we have a brilliant young medieval philologist, the deputy editor of a Copenhagen newspaper, and an international property developer. They are certainly not losers in the eyes of the world, but there is that matter of the heart…. The philologist behaves abominably when he learns his girlfriend is pregnant, but there is some possibility that he can atone. The editor flies to Spain to assure a high-ranking politician that his paper will be discreet in handling the news of his adulterous affair, but has he any intention of doing so? The developer has greater dreams than selling some jerry-built property in an Alpine village, but has he the courage to succeed?
The last two stories also feature outwardly successful men, but both in their different ways are contemplating the end of life. One is a Russian tycoon facing ruin on both the financial and personal fronts. The other (and to me the only really sympathetic character of the lot), is Sir Anthony Parson, a retired diplomat facing the end of his days and looking back on a life in which he has mainly acted a character not his own.
All the stories take place largely off the character's home turf. The protagonists are Belgian, Danish, English, French, Hungarian, Russian, and Scottish; the settings include Denmark, Germany, Italy, Slovakia, Spain, the French Alps, and a luxury yacht on the Mediterranean. This is a canny strategy on Szalay's part since many of us are tempted to behave differently when away from home. For the most part, though, this is not the glamorous Europe of the travel magazines. Prague is awash with tourists, the hotel in Cyprus is built on waste land a mile from the sea, the Alpine village has been blighted by gimcrack development, and the nearest town to Sir Anthony's Italian villa is famous only for its Museum of the Marshes (really).
So why do I not give this three or even two stars, if it presents such a dismal picture of masculine humanity? Mainly because David Szalay writes so well. Like his characters or not, you do get drawn into their stories. His descriptions are evocative and clear, but he also has a marvelous use of the ellipsis, short phrases that go nowhere definite but suggest much (an effect sometimes heightened by subtle uses of typography). In the same vein, he avoids neat endings; you are left with questions rather than answers; you can draw your own conclusions. In this general atmosphere of failure, I found myself looking for the few positive things I could find: a moment of unexpected companionship, a philosophical resignation, the possibility of change. And I have to say that I recognized most of the bad qualities in his masculine gallery from looking into the mirror of my own life at one time or another.
But I do not accept that this is All That Man Is. Hence my final title, itself a question: And That's All? And my emphatic answer: NO! However true Szalay is, I know we men can be so much more.
October 21, 2016
Oh thank fuck for that. It's over.
ALL THAT MAN IS is a collection of 9 short stories about 9 men at different stages in their lives who are all isolated and unhappy with life.
I had high expectations for this book. I wanted to love it. And, sure, it's not like it's all bad. Some of Szalay's writing was utterly brilliant. But, sadly for him, his occasional brilliance did not make up for poor stories. I think the only reason I kept reading to the end was in the desperate hope that the next story would be better, and the next, and the next.
This book, supposedly about what it means to be a man in modern society, is definitely a book by a bloke for blokes about blokes (specifically cis, white, straight, European blokes). I mean, it's not as though my being a woman prevented me from enjoying a book about men - far from it, if this had been a nuanced and interesting depiction of what it is like to be a man in the modern world, then I would have been all for it! had any of these 9 stories been at all profound or meaningful or DIVERSE then it would have been brilliant (or at the VERY least held my interest). Unfortunately, the book was rather dull and monotonous. in fact, for the most part, this collection was breathtakingly boring. All of the male protagonists were cis, straight, white, and European - and most at the least middle class. Okay, so there might (possibly) have been one queer character, but if he was indeed queer then he was in the closet for 50+ years.
Meanwhile, the female characters were just...there. they were really just there for the men to covet or have sex with. For the men to comment on their bodies. They weren't treated as people, either by the characters or even the author. They were just pieces of arse. They were depthless, vacuous objects, merely there to covet, to fuck, and if not to fuck then to avoid or mock or despise. I appreciate that this books is supposed to be about what it means to be a MAN, not a woman, but to write female characters like this is lazy, unrealistic, and reductive. if you're going to try to write "real" men then make your female characters realistic too. Otherwise, your writing lacks truth and then what is the point of it, really?
To be perfectly honest, even the portrayal of the male characters was lacking. None of them were at all interesting. Basically all of them were unlikeable and lacking in complexity. The younger ones were sex-obsessed, the middle-aged ones were obsessed with money and power, and the oldest guy was obsessed with death and had nothing to look forward to. They were all very self-obsessed and self-pitying and pathetic and I felt no sympathy for any of them, with the only exception being the very last, oldest one. Tony, 73yo and only too aware that all his achievements were behind him and he wouldn't have too much longer to live, was the only one I felt I could really care about. Characters don't have to be perfect and selfless to be good characters, of course not. but they need to be realistic. Real life men (and people in general) are more nuanced and ambiguous and morally grey and complex and diverse than Szalay gives them credit for.
I was really disappointed. I feel like it was a great idea in theory but in practice it was simply poorly executed, done by the wrong person, in the wrong way. Discussions of gender roles and modern masculinity are endlessly fascinating- I would love to know what it means to be a man - and I think if it had been handled properly (and if there had been any kind of diversity included at all) then this book could have been astonishing, life changing, truly profound and meaningful. But it wasn't. Szalay reduces men to their basest, primitive stereotypes and women to only being there for the pleasure of men. This book professes to discuss what it means to be a man but it really just displays men's mediocrity.
If this is truly "all that man is" then it's a damn shame.
ALL THAT MAN IS is a collection of 9 short stories about 9 men at different stages in their lives who are all isolated and unhappy with life.
I had high expectations for this book. I wanted to love it. And, sure, it's not like it's all bad. Some of Szalay's writing was utterly brilliant. But, sadly for him, his occasional brilliance did not make up for poor stories. I think the only reason I kept reading to the end was in the desperate hope that the next story would be better, and the next, and the next.
This book, supposedly about what it means to be a man in modern society, is definitely a book by a bloke for blokes about blokes (specifically cis, white, straight, European blokes). I mean, it's not as though my being a woman prevented me from enjoying a book about men - far from it, if this had been a nuanced and interesting depiction of what it is like to be a man in the modern world, then I would have been all for it! had any of these 9 stories been at all profound or meaningful or DIVERSE then it would have been brilliant (or at the VERY least held my interest). Unfortunately, the book was rather dull and monotonous. in fact, for the most part, this collection was breathtakingly boring. All of the male protagonists were cis, straight, white, and European - and most at the least middle class. Okay, so there might (possibly) have been one queer character, but if he was indeed queer then he was in the closet for 50+ years.
Meanwhile, the female characters were just...there. they were really just there for the men to covet or have sex with. For the men to comment on their bodies. They weren't treated as people, either by the characters or even the author. They were just pieces of arse. They were depthless, vacuous objects, merely there to covet, to fuck, and if not to fuck then to avoid or mock or despise. I appreciate that this books is supposed to be about what it means to be a MAN, not a woman, but to write female characters like this is lazy, unrealistic, and reductive. if you're going to try to write "real" men then make your female characters realistic too. Otherwise, your writing lacks truth and then what is the point of it, really?
To be perfectly honest, even the portrayal of the male characters was lacking. None of them were at all interesting. Basically all of them were unlikeable and lacking in complexity. The younger ones were sex-obsessed, the middle-aged ones were obsessed with money and power, and the oldest guy was obsessed with death and had nothing to look forward to. They were all very self-obsessed and self-pitying and pathetic and I felt no sympathy for any of them, with the only exception being the very last, oldest one. Tony, 73yo and only too aware that all his achievements were behind him and he wouldn't have too much longer to live, was the only one I felt I could really care about. Characters don't have to be perfect and selfless to be good characters, of course not. but they need to be realistic. Real life men (and people in general) are more nuanced and ambiguous and morally grey and complex and diverse than Szalay gives them credit for.
I was really disappointed. I feel like it was a great idea in theory but in practice it was simply poorly executed, done by the wrong person, in the wrong way. Discussions of gender roles and modern masculinity are endlessly fascinating- I would love to know what it means to be a man - and I think if it had been handled properly (and if there had been any kind of diversity included at all) then this book could have been astonishing, life changing, truly profound and meaningful. But it wasn't. Szalay reduces men to their basest, primitive stereotypes and women to only being there for the pleasure of men. This book professes to discuss what it means to be a man but it really just displays men's mediocrity.
If this is truly "all that man is" then it's a damn shame.
October 17, 2018
Nove racconti con protagonista l'uomo (maschio) costruiti bene e... non finiti: buone storie, cioè, volutamente lasciate in sospeso, con il lettore spinto ad assemblare i vari pezzi, in un collage di umanità varia. Tale scelta stilistica genera qualche perplessità, peraltro in gran parte fugata dall'elevata qualità della scrittura.
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