Flesh (2025)
Why this one?
Continuing with a few selections from the Booker longlist.
David Szalay (1974- ; active 2008-) was born in Montreal, Canada to a Canadian mother and a Hungarian father. He grew up there before moving to England where he studied English at Oxford University. After his studies, he worked in various sales jobs before starting to write. He now lives in Budapest with his wife and two children.
His first collection of short stories, London and the South-East, was published in 2008 and won the Betty Trask Award. He was included in the 2013 edition of Granta’s once-a-decade Best of Young British Novelists list. His 2016 book, All That Man Is, a collection of interlinked stories, won the Gordon Burn Prize and was also Booker shortlisted (in the year that Paul Beatty’s The Sellout took the Prize).
Thoughts, etc.
Flesh is set over most of the life of one man, István, with its main action taking place in his home country of Hungary, and London. We first meet István as a fifteen-year-old, living with his single mother in a new town. In an unsettling first chapter, István is (initially reluctantly) drawn into a sexual relationship by a much older woman, a friend of his mother’s. This relationship ends in tragedy, with István implicated in the death of her husband and subsequently serving time in a juvenile prison. The rest of the novel jumps forward in time for each chapter, often skipping significant moments in his life and focusing instead on their impact on him. Following a stint in the army during the 2003 war in Iraq, he moves to London where several chance developments lead him to a life of luxury. Up to a point, the novel seems like a classic ‘Rags to Riches’ narrative, but in its later chapters, we see István’s life gradually collapsing around him, and his eventual return to a relatively humble life in Hungary.
The book’s first chapter is one of the most uncomfortable reads I’ve come across in a while., kicking things off with essentially a very vivid description of István’s grooming by a much older woman. It sets up several key elements of the novel: its emphasis on physicality, and István’s passivity as a character, but does so in a particularly shocking manner, with little left to the imagination. We learn early on that he is not really one for communication, so his experiences at this formative and likely traumatic phase of his life remain known only to him (as far as we are aware, this remains the case throughout his life). This section of his life ends with him attempting to wrest some sort of control over the scenario (once the older woman decides she has had enough of him), a move that rapidly leads to the death of a man and subsequently to István’s detention in a juvenile prison. From this point on, and perhaps unsurprisingly, István tends to avoid taking big decisions, and instead is carried along by the hands of fate.
Subsequent snippets of his life see him drifting along in an ordinary sort of life in Hungary following his spell in prison: taking a job his mother pushes him towards, getting rejected by a girl he fancies, and ultimately - seemingly for want of anything better to do - joining the army, and requiring relatively little persuasion to do so. We learn that his war experiences have piled on further trauma - in the shape of the death of close comrade for which he partly blames himself - and while he submits to therapy and it seems to help somewhat, we don’t get much sense that he is becoming especially introspective. He eventually finds himself following the flow of many of his compatriots in the 2000s to London, living in overstuffed shared accommodation and working the door at a Soho strip joint. Another random event sees him save a rich man from a mugging late at night, and this man - Mervyn - becomes determined to reward him for his help - setting him up in the world of private security for celebrities and the super-rich.
He ends up working as a driver for one of the latter rich folks, and during one of his many trips away on business is seduced (again, despite his initial lack of interest) by his employer’s wife, Helen. Their relationship deepens, and continues even while her husband is being treated for ultimately terminal cancer in a German clinic. Her son, Thomas, takes an obvious and open dislike to István, describing him as an example of ‘primitive masculinity’, and not worthy of his elevated status. Eventually István and Helen marry and have a son together, Jacob. Years of luxury living follow, alongside some relatively normal issues (we see István developing as a father - notably something he lacked himself - as he deals with Jacob’s unhappiness at school). Just as it seems that things are getting relatively settled (despite the ever-bubbling undercurrent of the feud with Thomas - who we know will eventually inherit all of his father’s fortune), a further shocking twist begins a dramatic downward spiral for István. By this point, his passivity has developed into a kind of stoicism and, despite evident trauma (once more), he is able to take his rapid fall somewhat in its stride, and settle back into a version of his earlier ordinary life in Hungary, moving back in with his mother, drinking in bars and having short-lived relationships.
It’s an interesting read, and one that marries explosively shocking and emotional (for the reader) moments with longer sections in which events are recounted in a sparse, detached manner, mirroring István’s own sense of drifiting through time and place, going where the winds take him. It’s general structure, of a life told through snippets over a long period of time and set against the backdrop of a changing world, is one that I always tend to enjoy, so I did find this inherently very readable. I also enjoyed the way it subverted many of the tropes of this kind of novel. Its protagonist doesn’t really learn much, doesn’t reflect introspectively on the various traumas he experiences, and does not go on a predictable ‘linear’ journey, instead more of a ‘circular’ one, ending in much the same place we imagine he might have done without any of the same major events in his life having taken place. All of this combines to give a kind of nihilistic view of life: ultimately, what has it all been for? The physicality implied by the title and referenced throughout reinforces this - István is less of the complex ‘thinking man’ popularised (/invented?) by modern literature, and more a physical object, acted upon but rarely acting. There’s a counter-take I guess which is that there’s a kind of nobility in the stoicism he displays, and that he represents a kind of pure (rather than as Thomas says ‘primitive’) humanity, not tarnished by venal ambition or overthought. He’s far from a dislikeable character and, unlike many other reviews I read, I actually found his uncomplicated approach to life and those around him to be rather refreshing and charming. ‘Okay’?
Score
9
Another really strong read on this year’s longlist, for me. Uncomfortable at times, for sure, but packed with things to think about. It loses a half point or so for falling into what felt like a more conventional narrative in some of its middle section, but both its introductory and closing sections will remain imprinted on my brain (for better or worse) for some time.
Next up
One or two more from the longlist I think.
