Flesh

A tale of a man from 15 to an adult that seems to be drifting through life with very simple interactions. Many big life events surround him but in the end it starts like how it began. He’s left with nothing.

The characters are empty of any feeling. I felt annoyed by the protagonist’s lack of desire or anger or any feeling. This is true for all the characters. I am mad at myself for spending mo eu on this plotless “work” of fiction. The 2 stars is generous! Don’t bother with this book and scroll to something worth reading.

The way his life unfolded is extraordinary. It’s not a book that I would normally read but must say it was brilliant.

Let down Simplistic writing Too linear

Worth every second

A story that slowly seduces and tough to put down.

I would not recommend this book other than to puzzle with someone else who suffered through finishing this vapid book. The characters , especially the main character, fail to emerge as real people who might matter to the reader. The terse dialogue is boring and overly dramatic as a device to characterize the main character. Out of 153 selected books, this was the very best? I’m disappointed.

Story telling is immature sexmongering and becomes predictable whenever a female is encountered in the tale. A bleak livelihood hangs around like a stormy cloud and makes me feel like an umbrella is required to finish reading the book. I was glad when the book was finished.

A book that immerses you in the story of a profoundly disaffected man who is swept into a life he seldom understands or controls. The spare writing and use of the present tense are skillfully used. A fast rewarding read and worth a reread.

David Szalay’s Flesh is a stark, haunting novel that traces the life of István, a Hungarian man whose adolescence is marked by trauma and whose adulthood is shaped by the lingering aftermath of those early events. Szalay’s spare, almost clinical prose style propels the narrative forward, often leaving the most violent or dramatic moments off the page and instead focusing on the silences and gaps that trauma creates. This technique, compared to a horror film’s cutaway, forces readers to fill in the emotional and psychological blanks, intensifying the impact of what remains unsaid but leaving large gaps in the plotline. The story opens in 1980s Hungary, with 15-year-old István living in a new apartment complex with his mother. He becomes entangled with an older neighbor, leading to a sexual relationship that is both exploitative and confusing for the inarticulate, withdrawn teenager. When a confrontation with the neighbor’s husband ends in the man’s death, István’s life is irrevocably altered. Szalay moves quickly past the violence and its immediate aftermath, mirroring István’s own emotional detachment and inability to process what has happened. As the novel progresses, István’s journey takes him through a young offenders’ institution, military service, and eventually to London, where he works as a doorman and driver and bodyguard becoming involved with his wealthy employer’s wife. The narrative structure is episodic, with each chapter self-contained, allowing readers to step in and out of István’s life as he drifts through decades, relationships, and countries. Throughout, Szalay resists melodrama, instead offering a portrait of a man shaped more by what happens to him than by his own choices—a life that seems to unfold by chance rather than design. A recurring theme in Flesh is the uneasy relationship between body and self, desire and agency. The title itself evokes both physicality and vulnerability, and Szalay explores how István’s experiences with sex, violence, and power are inextricably linked to his sense of identity—or lack thereof. István is portrayed as passive, almost blank, a vessel for the actions and desires of others, which some critics have noted raises questions about masculinity and agency in Szalay’s writing. While some readers may find the novel’s minimalism and emotional distance challenging, Szalay’s approach is deliberate and effective, creating a narrative that is both unsettling and deeply affecting. The result is a wise, unflinching examination of trauma, survival, and the ways in which the past continues to shape the present. Flesh is not an easy read, but it is a powerful one—an exploration of the spaces between violence and recovery, agency and passivity, flesh and self. A man’s hapless and passive search for his soul.

Heart wrenching….