December 5, 2025
The Booker prize for 2025 went to David Szalay for his book Flesh. Szalay’s father is Hungarian, and his mother is Canadian. He was born in Montreal, but the family moved to London when he was one year old. Szalay studied at Oxford and lived in Hungary before settling in Vienna.
As a Canadian of Hungarian origin, I felt an ethnic kinship with Szalay and decided to read his book. And the book did not disappoint; I could not put it down and finished it in one day.
The book is the story of a hapless Hungarian, Istvan, who goes with the flow, lacks agency, and shows no emotion. He is someone whose life is shaped more by unexpected, random events than by himself.
For example, Istvan is seduced by a woman his mother’s age when he is fifteen years old. The woman ends the affair when Istvan falls in love with her. Istvan does not want to end the relationship, and while pursuing the woman, he ends up knocking down the woman’s husband, resulting in his death. As a consequence, Istvan is sent to a juvenile detention facility for three years.
Not knowing what to do when coming out of the detention center, a friend asks him to help import drugs from Croatia. When that adventure dries up, he joins the military and serves in Iraq. Coming home from the war with PTSD for which he receives treatment, he is only able to secure a job as a bouncer at a nightclub.
And random events continue to buffet him and shape his life. At the pub he frequents after work, he becomes friendly with the bartender and ends up in a relationship with her. She is married and stopped the affair in a year, afraid that her husband might discover the relationship. Istvan takes the end of the relationship nonchalantly; he seems unmoved by the experience.
In the next phase of his life, Istvan moves to London and becomes a driver for a wealthy family. The pattern of married women taking up with Istvan follows him wherever he goes. The industrialist’s young wife starts an affair with the obliging Istvan. When the industrialist, conveniently, gets cancer and dies, Istvan marries the widow, whose son dislikes him, for having an affair with his mother and subsequently marrying her.
Following the industrialist’s death, I thought the storyline became a bit unrealistic when Istvan takes over the company and starts making real estate deals with no education or experience in the field.
But then the plot begins to close: when Istvan’s son and his mother have a car accident that takes the boy’s life and cripples his mother. The mother dies later without ever regaining consciousness.
Istvan becomes lonely but continues to lead the life of the moneyed class until the industrialist’s son, Istvan’s stepson, inherits control of the family company at age 25 and ousts Istvan. Losing his upper-crust existence in England, Istvan returns to Hungary and moves back in with his mother, living in the same apartment where he grew up. The story ends with his mother dying.
I thought the author could have added some essential details. For example, is Istvan a handsome, athletic individual attractive to women? I do not know, since the author never describes him in terms of his physical appearance.
Or perhaps Istvan is a charming conversationalist? No, the conversations are monosyllabic, with “yeah,” “what do you mean,” and “yeah, OK.” Istvan is unable to put together a sentence, an expression, or an opinion. The conversations are in the third-person present tense, which propels the action quickly and that is why I kept reading the book until I finished it.
Instead of describing Istvan’s physical appearance, however, the author does describe his behavior in detail: he smokes incessantly and uses alcohol and drugs for relaxation, habits he shares with his numerous women friends. And the sex encounters are described graphicslly.
There are also gaps in the story; for example, there is no description of Istvan’s tour in Iraq or of his stay in the juvenile detention center. The reader learns about Istvan’s experiences during those periods in subsequent chapters.
I also wondered what the message is in the story. Is it about Istvan’s masculinity in bedding numerous women? Is it about the emotionally detached life that Istvan leads, perhaps resulting from his PTSD? Is it about the quality of current life, focusing on sex, smoking, alcohol and drugs?
Some reviewers found the book boring, others exciting. The plot and the sparse writing style appealed to me, but I did not find the protagonist appealing. Is Istvan a typical Hungarian, and does his lifestyle reflect everyday life today? The book did not provide an answer for me. But the jurors for the Booker prize clearly thought that the book is a meaningful reflection of life today.
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