Hello Gentle Reader,
This year’s Booker Winning author is the Canadian born Hungarian-British writer David Szalay with his novel, “Flesh,” which was considered by many to be the dark horse contender on this years Booker Prize, with Andrew Miller with his novel, “The Land of Winter,” and Kiran Desai with her novel, “The Loneliness of Sonia and Sunny,” considered the favourites for this year’s prize.
“Flesh,” has been described as one of the more innovative and compelling novels on this year’s shortlist. In the novel David Szalay traces the arc of one man’s life is made even more compelling by Szalay hollowing out the interiority of the subject. Throughout “Flesh,” readers are never intimately acquainted with the thoughts, feelings, motivations, opinions, or perspectives of the subject, István. Instead, István takes shape only through the reactions, desires, and fears of those in his orbit. “Flesh,” capitalizes on this sense of ‘flatness,’ or minimal dimensional perspective and instead amplifies the physical experience of existence. “Flesh,” is certainly an interesting and compelling novel. Its singularity was often mentioned and discussed by critics and reviewers leading up to the prize, but none were capable of describing the novels originality in full.
The chair of this year’s judges, Roddy Doyle, highlighted David Szalay’s choice of subject matter, as these are individuals who are not always granted the privilege of a literary perspective. But more importantly, Doyle and the other judges were all in agreeance that “Flesh,” was a novel that stuck out for its inventiveness. A testament to Szalay’s literary skill, is the novel’s ability to employee the inherent white space of books and incorporate them into the novels structure. If it is one thing the judges agreed on though with the novel, is it is nothing like they had read prior.
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read
M.
Mary
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