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All that man is
631 pages
A sharp, unsentimental portrait of modern alienation told through the shifting anxieties of men moving across Europe and through time.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like sitting in a series of sterile European airport lounges and dimly lit hotel bars, watching the lives of strangers briefly intersect with your own. The pace is steady and episodic, carrying you through a mosaic of transient moments that collectively build a profound sense of existential weight. It is steeped in a restless, melancholic mood, capturing the quiet desperation of individuals realizing that life is happening to them rather than being directed by them. The prose is clinical and sharply observant, stripping away romanticism to reveal the raw, often pathetic realities of aging and desire. It will deeply satisfy readers who crave unsentimental, character-driven literary fiction that dissects the illusions of modern masculinity and the relentless, unforgiving passage of time.
- Mood
- melancholic
- restless
- quietly desperate
- transient
- Tone
- unsentimental
- observant
- wry
- detached
- poignant
- Pace
- steady
- Themes
- the crisis of modern masculinity · the relentless passage of time · existential alienation · the illusion of purpose · aging and mortality
- The writing
- The prose is clinical, precise, and unadorned, capturing the mundane and the profound with the same sharp, unsentimental clarity.
- The arc
- The journey shifts from the restless, naive anxieties of youth through the cynical compromises of middle age, settling finally into a stark, quiet confrontation with mortality.
- Who it's for
- Readers who appreciate sharp, character-driven literary fiction that dissects the quiet failures and existential dread of modern life.
Content notes
- sexual content
- suicidal ideation
- existential dread
- aging and illness
About the book
Szalay (London and the South-East) delivers a kaleidoscopic portrayal of nine men at various stages in their lives, each in the throes of extraordinary change. Despite their diverse circumstances, they are all somehow connected, engaged in a search for relevance and-dare they even consider it-meaning. English teenagers Simon and Ferdinand arrive in Berlin with competing ideas of how best to enjoy their time abroad; Bérnard, working halfheartedly in his uncle's window shop outside Lille, France, experiences a life-altering holiday at a Cyprus beach resort; Kristian, a successful Danish tabloid editor, brings down the country's defense minister after an indiscretion; Aleksandr, a disgraced Russian oligarch, contemplates suicide; an aging diplomat considers his mortality while recuperating from a heart operation in an Italian villa and notes, in what could be the book's tagline, "How little we understand about life as it is actually happening. The moments fly past, like trackside pylons seen from a train window." Without exception, the stories-subtle, seductive, poignant, humorous-bear witness to the alienation, self-doubt, and fragmentation of contemporary life; each succeeds on its own while complementing the others.
Description from Open Library.
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