‘Flesh’ by David Szalay

David Szalay’s Flesh won the 2025 Booker Prize. The title Flesh conjures up nihilism or hedonism, neither of which particularly appeals to me. So, it’s taken a while to overcome that barrier and read the novel. Flesh is not nihilist or hedonistic. And much of the commentary about the novel gets it wrong. Reviews have focused on the ‘minimalistic’ prose, the overly ‘passive’ protagonist, and the frequent use of one word dialogue, like ‘okay’ and ‘yeah’.

After reading the novel, I can say that the text does have some elaborate prose, so it’s not as minimalist as people might imagine. And when the flourishes happen they feel slightly incongruous next to the sparse dialogue, but it does provide a contrast. The accusation of the story having a ‘passive’ protagonist is a bit weird. The protagonist is an ordinary man, a ‘regular guy’ with faults. He is unlucky in some ways, lucky in others. He has anger management issues and he doesn’t appear to be in touch with himself. He’s traumatised by life. The one word dialogue does become repetitive, even if it’s there to illustrate human disconnection.

The long time span, aspects of the prose style, and the use of condensed vignettes reminds me of Jon McGregor’s Reservoir 13. The sexual and self-discovery dimension has echoes of Stephen Vizinczey’s novel In Praise of Older Women (which is also about the life of Hungarian man). One final comparison is the human journey in Milan Kundera’s The Unbearable Lightness of Being.

So, what is Flesh? It’s the story of a man’s life, from adolescence to middle age. The narrative provokes questions about life choices and living a meaningful life.