What did I miss in David Szalay’s Booker Prize winning novel, Flesh?

I was engaged – the story moved along at a good pace with enough happening to keep me interested. The writing was fine – consistent, accessible, and well-developed characters.

And yet… there was nothing about this book that blew me away. Is it unreasonable to expect something of the ‘breathtaking’ variety when we’re talking Booker Prize winners? Or, if not breathtaking, then something that is arresting, dividing readers into one-star or five-star reviews? (I like books that illicit strong opinions either way.)

The story follows the life of a man named István, opening when he is fifteen-years-old and living with his mother in Hungary. Over the years, István’s fortunes change, highlighting the eternal question – what makes a life worth living?

There were a few passages that stood out – I can’t share them because they would constitute significant spoilers but they occur late in the novel, when István is without many of the things that had provided a buffer (from past trauma, from poor choices, from self-reflection).

What I found most interesting was István’s complete lack of capacity to connect his interior and exterior worlds – Szalay does this very well by giving István just three responses in any dialogue: “Okay”, “I don’t know”, and “Maybe”. Okay, he did occasionally say more than that but these three responses were used so extensively that you couldn’t help but become hyper-aware of them, drawing attention to the flatness and passiveness of István’s presentation.

I was left with questions about István but not enough care about him to pursue convos with other readers.

3/5

When the waiter appears again Helen asks for the grilled chicken with chanterelles and vin jaune while Thomas opts for the artichoke tagliatelle.