All That Man Is by David SzalayMy rating: 1 of 5 stars
Another Man Booker longlister! And another great regret. I'm seeing a disconcerting pattern here.
'All That Man Is' good for is painting a cliche of men and narrowing down the idea of man to cis, straight, white and affluent. The author, who has lived in several parts of Europe, ensures us readers know that he is well-travelled and has a grip on a number of European languages. Let us not think him to be ignorant of this great continent, even if he is ignorant of the many different kinds of people who live there.
Broken into 9 disparate short stories, the book charts man's life from teenage-hood to old age. We start with a backpacking pair of seventeen-year-olds and end with an old man edging ever closer to his death. Only the first and last stories have a connection, the others in between might as well be fillers.
The stories take place all over Europe; Belgium, Germany, Italy, etc. There are smatterings of languages thrown in, and at other times it is mentioned that the characters are speaking in another language, even though the dialogue is in English. The speech patterns don't vary that much, only at a couple of places did it take on the sound of a non-native English speaker.
I can't say the writing was bad; it was accomplished, despite the first story trying too hard with its many literary references. Having just read an incomprehensible book, it was refreshing to read a book with complete sentences and explanations provided as way of dialogue or through scenes, rather than by exposition.
The stories, though different, all had to do with one thing - sex. There's a predominance of it in the book. The younger people can't think of anything but, and the older ones regret not having enough. I think only one story stayed away from the subject as it concentrated on an actual life-change for the character.
The most appalling aspect of this book is that, given it is about men and is written by a man, the women fall by the wayside. They are inhuman caricatures of what men expect. They are either superhot and dying to get in the protagonist's pants, or they're disgusting beasts who should not exist. The body-shaming in this book is disgusting and I despise the author for placing such an emphasis on it. You can go to hell, pal!
The women don't have roles unless they're connected with a man. They are wives, lovers, daughters, objects of desire. Never real people who happen to be in the life of the male character. Never competent enough to make independent decisions or think independent thoughts.
In one story, the male protagonist is a journalist working closely with his female colleague. I expected it to be a professional and platonic relationship, which would have been refreshing and realistic, but it turns out they were having an affair and she soon becomes nothing but a punchline for a dirty joke.
And, as mentioned earlier, all the characters are straight and cis. What would it have been like to read one story where the protagonist was transgender - wouldn't that have made for a far more in depth understanding of all that man really is?
I hated the book. At least that's how I started. Hatred turned to a general apathy two stories in, before fizzling into complete indifference. Why should I care about the characters the author has written when he obviously hasn't taken into account the variety of readers who could be picking up this book and reading those characters? If the author is going to live in a little happy bubble of straight, white men then the book should come with a warning so the rest of us don't bother giving it a shot. Whatever happened to the global perspective?
I would have given this book zero stars, but since I can't, I can say that even one star is being too kind to it.
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