Reviews

Wat een man is by David Szalay

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tomleetang's review against another edition

3.0

Often feels like a slightly relentless slog through the male libido. If this is all that man is, it's rather pathetic, enervation succeeding bilious discontent. Ultimately, the different episodes are variations on a specific white European male archetype done from different angles - perhaps that's rather the point.

Still, nicely done character studies.

iancarpenter's review against another edition

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4.0

All over the place with this. 9 short stories of men at various ages. Some of the younger ones drove me a little nuts, seemingly simplistic and similar. Is that young men? Szalay's simplistic view of them? My feeling tired by moments that felt like Irvine Welsh-lite? Whatever it was those stories felt well trodden (at least by me). And there was a bit of a sameness (straight, introverted, insecure, failing) to many of the men no matter what the situation. But some of the older stories (especially the last one) were surprising and heartbreaking and poignant.

coronaurora's review against another edition

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4.0

Szalay, his bombastic title notwithstanding, has crafted here a very elegant and rather elegiac compendium of nine stories, each with a male protagonist in a different decade of life inhabiting the planet now but never quite meeting each other in person, save for two or three instances where an awareness of each other's existence is hinted at. This is striking because in their contemplation of selves and their "place in the world", they are all in the same zipcode. All of them are adrift, physically they are globe-trotting either to quench the wanderlust of youth or spreading their wings in their business ventures or settling uneasily in their foreign retirement villas; but existentially the melancholic beasts they hide within rage away with more power and speed than their escapes: beasts that emerge in a snap, bringing their attention to the "present", to the "texture of existence, the eternal passing of time" as the youngest of boy-men compiles in a piece of verse.

The concentric stories, each an echo of the former but a better articulated moan as we move from the domains of feckless (but curious) young to the lettered (but jaded) adults, are impressive in conjuring images of philosophical and concerned men. The leaden melancholy is mated to the liberating flight of self-awareness, with Szalay's economical, astute prose gliding between memory, conversation, stream-of-consciousness and quick, sticky construction of the physical world of each character. I have to commend him to try and spread his big promise titled fictional thesis on manhood by giving us a collection of protagonists spread across the economic spectrum, and not just intellectual fuddy-duddies crying wimpily in their silos. From eager capitalists to middle-aged sharks to failed prospectors to retired civil servants who've fallen from the corridors of power: as age and life seems to blur and scrape off their "achievements" in the real world, they unsurprisingly question if they have run after the right things. Frustratingly unloved in the way they desire, but powerless to change the surroundings and people they find themselves in, they retreat inwards and find some solace.

Watching Szalay showing pointed snapshots of each of their ways-of-living and behaving: all the unsaid things, the missed cues, the gulfs of perspective with women around them (women, unflatteringly enough, if not foreign and equipped with their own nefarious agendas goading men and boys into confrontation are native, unsatisfied and have moved on from our protagonists): brings out the tragicomic note in these stories chronicling contemporary manhood in crisis. I liked Szalay's confidence in keeping tons of detail off the page and yet managing to evoke people, place and age so adroitly, tale after tale.

Given the contemplative nature of the work which is mostly about the tone and the mood, I recommend it with caution, and for those patient enough to embark upon these stories connected by their shared meditation on manhood, to be prepared to adjust their biorhythms.

jfaberrit's review against another edition

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2.0

I can't say that I'm surprised there is a pretty strong gender differential in reviews of this book from a quick scan of the Goodreads page... but I don't really see what the male readership saw in this book. As a look at men at various stages of life, it's vision is so narrow and limited that the title seems like an ironic joke. The worst stories are admittedly the ones up front, basically involving young, aimless men who act disaffectedly in foreign countries while either having sex or not having sex with random foreign women to whom they aren't really attracted anyway. This is followed by failures at careers, then failures at life. I think Monty Python showed an deeper and more multi-faceted understanding of the Meaning of Life, and their jokes were infinitely better as well. Overall, a blinkered, narrow view of the world, spanning countries but barely scratching the surface of human feeling.

miasmuts's review against another edition

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5.0

pacing - perfect. gripping
characters - round. insane that he was able to introduce nine vivid protagonists in about 40 pages each.
themes, messages; meaning - the way he was able to bring across such a clear message, without ever making it abundantly "clear". you just know. allows you to feel and let that feeling drive your understanding.
style & imagery - beautiful writing. fraught with elusive metaphors. at times interesting structure contributing to the plot.

a very unique book.
in a sense open to interpretation (while still holding firm on the vulnerability, the humanness of man)

oxnard_montalvo's review against another edition

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Unhappy men go about their lives with varying degrees of self awareness. Loosely connected stories of detatchment and disillusionment, and a certain amount of bleakness, but also humour. Szalay is really skilled at sketching a brief outline that somehow manages to be full of detail and feeling. Characters as well as setting shimmer. Plotwise, not a lot going on. He catches people in the little mundane, in between moments; all the same, the strength of his writing propels things forward.