"David Szalay writes with voluptuous authority. He possesses voice rather than merely style, and you climb into his new novel, All That Man Is , as if into an understated luxury car. The book has a large, hammerlike engine, yet it is content to purr. There''s a sense of enormous power held in reserve. He is an exceedingly gifted [writer] who can move in any direction he wishes. Mr. Szalay''s prose is exacting without being fussy. Mr.
Szalay''s own stream of perception never falters in its sensitivity and probity. This book is a demonstration of uncommon power. It is a bummer, and it is beautiful." -- The New York Times "Szalay''s prose. is frequently brilliant, remarkable for its grace and economy. He has a minimalist''s gift for the quick sketch, whether of landscapes or human relationships. He studs his pages with sometimes startlingly lovely images. [ All That Man Is ] has a new urgency now that the post-Cold War dream of a Europe of open borders and broad, shared identity has come under increasing question.
" --Garth Greenwell, The New York Times Book Review "[David Szalay] has an admirable fearlessness for swiftly entering invented fictional worlds. In canny, broad strokes, full of intelligently managed detail, each story funds its new fictional enterprise, as if he were calling out, each time, ''Where do you want to go? Poland? Copenhagen? Málaga? Berlin? I can do them all. Let''s go.'' . His book is also bracingly unsentimental about male desire and male failure. Intensely readable. After several hundred pages of great brilliance and brutal simplicity, here at last is a deeper picture of all that man is, or all that he might be." --James Wood, The New Yorker "Szalay does so much and so well that we come to view his snapshots of lives as brilliant, captivating dramas.
" -- Star Tribune (Minneapolis) "These closely observed, untitled accounts are unnerving and compelling, and have a haunting cumulative effect. Though we know them each briefly, these men are so authentic -- and, frequently, so hapless -- that they earn our sympathy. In this remarkable book, Szalay pursues an essential truth, important to recognize in our globalizing times: The geographies change, yet the self remains. Whoever and however old a man is, he must face his life. And live it." -- San Francisco Chronicle "Blending the personal, often plainly repressed nature of these men''s experiences with Szalay''s minimalist, red-eyed observations of the textures of 21st-century Europe, the novel reads like what Hemingway might have called In Our Tim e had he written it 90 years later." -- Los Angeles Review of Books "Novels have chapters and stories are gathered into collections, but All That Man Is looks to hover between the two, and blurring or disturbing that distinction is precisely what this book is about. All That Man Is uses its own peculiar shape to define both the variety and unity of its characters'' collective life.
It''s a book to go on with, the kind that makes a career worth watching." -- New York Review of Books "Szalay is a sophisticated, well-travelled writer with a sharp eye for the self-deceived, the ambitious, and the maimed. His gift, as has been noted by many reviewers, is that he can dissect his characters but never lose respect for them. As blind or guilty, callow or brutal as they are, their creator finds their dignity. [Hisess -- that they earn our sympathy. In this remarkable book, Szalay pursues an essential truth, important to recognize in our globalizing times: The geographies change, yet the self remains. Whoever and however old a man is, he must face his life. And live it.
" -- San Francisco Chronicle "Blending the personal, often plainly repressed nature of these men''s experiences with Szalay''s minimalist, red-eyed observations of the textures of 21st-century Europe, the novel reads like what Hemingway might have called In Our Tim e had he written it 90 years later." -- Los Angeles Review of Books "Novels have chapters and stories are gathered into collections, but All That Man Is looks to hover between the two, and blurring or disturbing that distinction is precisely what this book is about. All That Man Is uses its own peculiar shape to define both the variety and unity of its characters'' collective life. It''s a book to go on with, the kind that makes a career worth watching." -- New York Review of Books "Szalay is a sophisticated, well-travelled writer with a sharp eye for the self-deceived, the ambitious, and the maimed. His gift, as has been noted by many reviewers, is that he can dissect his characters but never lose respect for them. As blind or guilty, callow or brutal as they are, their creator finds their dignity. [Hises a career worth watching.
" -- New York Review of Books "Szalay is a sophisticated, well-travelled writer with a sharp eye for the self-deceived, the ambitious, and the maimed. His gift, as has been noted by many reviewers, is that he can dissect his characters but never lose respect for them. As blind or guilty, callow or brutal as they are, their creator finds their dignity. [Hisess -- that they earn our sympathy. In this remarkable book, Szalay pursues an essential truth, important to recognize in our globalizing times: The geographies change, yet the self remains. Whoever and however old a man is, he must face his life. And live it." -- San Francisco Chronicle "Blending the personal, often plainly repressed nature of these men''s experiences with Szalay''s minimalist, red-eyed observations of the textures of 21st-century Europe, the novel reads like what Hemingway might have called In Our Tim e had he written it 90 years later.
" -- Los Angeles Review of Books "Novels have chapters and stories are gathered into collections, but All That Man Is looks to hover between the two, and blurring or disturbing that distinction is precisely what this book is about. All That Man Is uses its own peculiar shape to define both the variety and unity of its characters'' collective life. It''s a book to go on with, the kind that makes a career worth watching." -- New York Review of Books "Szalay is a sophisticated, well-travelled writer with a sharp eye for the self-deceived, the ambitious, and the maimed. His gift, as has been noted by many reviewers, is that he can dissect his characters but never lose respect for them. As blind or guilty, callow or brutal as they are, their creator finds their dignity. [Hisess -- that they earn our sympathy. In this remarkable book, Szalay pursues an essential truth, important to recognize in our globalizing times: The geographies change, yet the self remains.
Whoever and however old a man is, he must face his life. And live it." -- San Francisco Chronicle "Blending the personal, often plainly repressed nature of these men''s experiences with Szalay''s minimalist, red-eyed observations of the textures of 21st-century Europe, the novel reads like what Hemingway might have called In Our Tim e had he written it 90 years later." -- Los Angeles Review of Books "Novels have chapters and stories are gathered into collections, but All That Man Is looks to hover between the two, and blurring or disturbing that distinction is precisely what this book is about. All That Man Is uses its own peculiar shape to define both the variety and unity of its characters'' collective life. It''s a book to go on with, the kind that makes a career worth watching." -- New York Review of Books "Szalay is a sophisticated, well-travelled writer with a sharp eye for the self-deceived, the ambitious, and the maimed. His gift, as has been noted by many reviewers, is that he can dissect his characters but never lose respect for them.
As blind or guilty, callow or brutal as they are, their creator finds their dignity. [Hises a career worth watching." -- New York Review of Books "Szalay is a sophisticated, well-travelled writer with a sharp eye for the self-deceived, the ambitious, and the maimed. His gift, as has been noted by many reviewers, is that he can dissect his characters but never lose respect for them. As blind or guilty, callow or brutal as they are, their creator finds their dignity. [Hises a career worth watching." -- New York Review of Books "Szalay is a sophisticated, well-travelled writer with a sharp eye for the self-deceived, the ambitious, and the maimed. His gift, as has been noted by many reviewers, is that he can dissect his characters but never lose respect for them.
As blind or guilty, callow or brutal as they are, their creator finds their dignity. [Hisess -- that they earn our sympathy. In this remarkable book, Szalay pursues an essential truth, important to recognize in our globalizing times: The geographies change, yet the self remains. Whoever and however old a man is, he must face his life. And live it." -- San Francisco Chronicle "Blending the personal, often plainly repressed nature of these men''s experiences with Szalay''s minimalist, red-eyed observations of the textures of 21st-century Europe, the novel reads like what Hemingway might have called In Our Tim e had he written it 90 years later." -- Los Angeles Review of Books "Novels have chapters and stories are gather.