Flesh by David Szalay

The 2025 Booker Prize Winner ‘Flesh’ by David Szalay is the story of István, a Hungarian who we follow over the course of his life both at home and abroad. It’s written in a sparse, unsentimental manner that can be unsettling but always compelling.

Unsettling

I’ve been struggling to read much in the way of fiction but I always try and make time for the Booker prize winner. As usual, I went in cold and haven’t read any Szalay’s other books. Anyone who has - are they along the same lines as this? Let me know below.

I found myself gripped by this from the start, though it’s unsettling from early on. There’s a sparseness about the prose, and there are long stretches where it’s just short clipped sentences between two characters. I had an uneasy feeling as I was reading it, but found I wanted to continue.

There’s an uncomfortable encounter between István and an older neighbour early on that sets the tone for the rest of the book. Szalay describes this incident without judgement, and it put me in mind of the films of Micheal Hanake. The unblinking gaze, cool and controlled.

Transactional

István leaves Hungary, and we find him first in Iraq and later London. I won’t spoil the storyline, not that there’s much in the way of plot. But the sense continues throughout the book that relationships and life are transactional in nature. I don’t think his physical attributes are ever described, but he proves himself useful in Iraq, and then later as a bodyguard in London. When he does rise up the social mobility ladder, I always got the feeling that he was just trading his physical ‘skills’ to do so.

There’s not much in the way of romance or intimacy. There’s often an imbalance of power in many of the relationships and a sense of people being used, but often the characters are complicit in it.

István

I wondered throughout the book about free will. István reacts, he drifts, and he often makes the most of his circumstances. You don’t get the sense that he has the words to describe his interior life, though he hurts like everyone else does but finds it hard to express it. It’s definitely a book with something to say about many modern men such as István who has been very much shaped by his experiences in this world, and his is a life unexamined. Not that I ever judged him or felt it was his fault, which I think is down to the skill of the author.

Of course he wants more from life, and he makes the most of his opportunity to advance through the social classes. Though at times I wondered how much he had to do with it - did he ever belong in a world that was never really his?

The book is called ‘Flesh’ so of course this is something central to the book. István trades his body as an asset, whether with older women, as a soldier, as a bodyguard. He is valued physically, though not emotionally.

Summary

Hard to say I enjoyed this, not that it matters. I found a lot if it unsettling and clinical (much like the Haneke films I mentioned) but always compelling. It made me think about exploitation, about the transactional nature of relationships, about mobility and the modern male. I liked the writing style, and there’s a sense as you read it of tension tightening, and at times I wanted to look away but couldn’t. I finished it with a mixture of admiration and unease, which I think is exactly what Szalay was aiming for.