Hello,
Hope everyone is ready for the weekend.
This week’s book is a bit difficult to describe without giving away too much.
If you read and liked Trust Exercise and/or The Sense of an Ending, you might enjoy this book.
Let me know what you think if you end up reading it.
mariana
Why did I read this book?
My friends gave me a book subscription as a birthday gift earlier this year (grazie amici, I love it!). The Man Who Saw Everything by Deborah Levy was one of the first books I received as part of this gift. For no particular reason, I chose it and read it during the summer. At first, I was a bit confused with the story, it didn’t fully make sense. As I got to the second half, I started to get the hang of it. When I finished the book, I realised how clever it was.
What is the book about?
The memories of Saul: Saul, a young Jewish historian specialising on Communist Germany, is the protagonist of this story. He’s about to cross Abbey Road when the story begins. How accurately can he remember what happened to him? The Man Who Saw Everything is a story that will take you on a walk down memory lane, or in this case, down Abbey Road.
The tricks our memories play on us: One of the things that I loved about this book is how cleverly the author showcases the difficulty involved in recalling our past memories without applying filters from the present and vice versa. I will say no more to avoid spoilers.
Self-obsession: It’s difficult to paint a full picture of anything with one single perspective. It’s difficult to see ourselves and others clearly. When we are self-obsessed, having an accurate grasp on past accounts and how it impacted others becomes even more challenging. People that are self-obsessed, by definition struggle to think of others, therefore it’s not surprising that they can be clueless about how their choices impact even the people that are closest to them.
“It was true that I had no idea how to endure being alive and everything that comes with it.”
― Deborah Levy, The Man Who Saw Everything
Why should you read it?
A clever book: If you enjoy ambiguity, you might enjoy this book full of twists and riddles. Things appear to be one thing, and then it becomes clear that they’re something else.
A light read: The Man Who Saw Everything is a short and enjoyable book. I found the writing beautiful and captivating. While the plot is not always straightforward, it’s easy to follow and to keep turning the pages.
“Perhaps I was history itself, flailing around in a number of directions, sometimes all of them at the same time.”
― Deborah Levy, The Man Who Saw Everything
Links to buy the book
Always try to support your local bookshop instead of using Amazon :-) If you’d like me to add any bookshops to the list, let me know.
UK
Amazon UK (Paperback)
Spain
Mexico
Italy
US
//As an Amazon Associate I earn a commission from qualifying purchases via the above links.//
Favourite quotes
//The purpose of this section is to share some of my favourite book bits, so you can come back to them when you finish a book, if you wish to do so. I’ve put in bold my favourite ones, in case you want to read a few (or all) ahead of the book.//
“In his view, freedom of speech and movement were not as important as eliminating inequalities and working for the collective good...”
“The difference between my father and myself, apart from my education and high cheekbones, was that I believed that people had to be convinced and not coerced. But now that he was dead and couldn’t answer back, I missed his certainty.”
“No, they had to be sunflowers. They were the only sort of flower she liked to look in a vase, mostly because of their dark centres, which apparently reminded her of an eclipse, though I’m not sure she has ever seen an eclipse.”
“He was kind and unjudging, as strangers sometimes can be, usually because history has not got in the way.”
“Would I prefer to have my wallet stolen if it meant I felt free to greet a stranger without fear?”
“In his view, if your government is violent to its people at home but preaches peace abroad, something is not right.”
“When he took off his jeans, he actually stood up to fold them and place them on a chair. He did not walk towards me again, he just stood there by the chair, which forced me to walk towards him. I was terrified because it was proof that I wanted him. I wanted this as much as he wanted it, but he kept giving me the opportunity to walk away.”
“My father raised my brother and me in the spirit of socialism and peace. We were to be highly principled and never exploit anyone to make ourselves richer. He was an internationalist, not a nationalist, he declared his solidarity with working people around the world. All the same I think he wanted to purge me from the family.”
“Pearls absorb the heat of the body and become part of it. I had never given much thought to a pearl belonging to a gender. If I had to fight in a war I’d have to take off my pearls, so obviously I was for world peace all round.”
“There were good reasons, he said, why wolves howl at the moon. Raising their heads helps carry sound further. Their howl is a form of long-distance communication and it conveys all kinds of information.”
“It was a question I had not directly asked myself. Not even in English. I was required to answer it in German. Was I sad to lose Jennifer? How did I know if I was sad?”
“Was I okay?
What would the truthful reply to that question be? Yes and No. The Yes and the No existing in parallel, like the black-and-white stripes of the zebra crossing in Abbey Road. But what if the No was bigger than the Yes? A lot bigger. And then I crossed the road?”
“Walter was looking at me. Deep into my eyes. He was always looking at me and I think he could see everything that was good and bad and sad in me. Jennifer was always looking at me too, but I don’t know what she saw because there was always the lens of her camera between us. Walter was laughing, as usual. When Ursula stood up she was laughing too.”
“Walter had said something to me of great importance. It was not exactly a whisper. He had spoken quietly near my ear. A whisper suggests a secret is being transmitted and encourages curiosity in others. He had told me that he loved me. He said it very simply.”
‘I have to speak English in a way that does not give it my personality,’ he replied. ‘All translation is like that. The personality of the translator has to hide.’
“He did not speak spontaneously, certainly not the first thoughts that came to mind. Perhaps he said the third thought that came to mind. It was not a matter of finding a flow but finding a way to stop the flow.”
“When we were alone in the dacha he spoke freely with his body. And that is something I have never done. I have never had a free conversation with my body. I have silenced my lovers with my body and controlled the kind of conversation they wished to have with their own body. I have never been free. I have pretended to be more tender or turned on than I felt, or more aggressive than I felt, and when we came close to something more intimate, I pulled away, interrupted the physical conversation. Yet with Walter, I was free with my body. This was to do with the way we had talked on the first day he met me at the station.It was true that my wings were wounded. It was true that I had no idea how to endure being alive and everything that comes with it. Responsibility. Love. Death. Sex. Loneliness. History. I knew he did not hold my tears against me. That was a big thing to know.”
“The odd thing was that those words, lust, misery, happiness, were the words in a title of one of Jennifer’s portraits of me. I wondered if I was starting to become the man she had seen from behind her lens.”
“He doesn’t care about his own life so he doesn’t care about the lives of others.”
“...but life is more exciting to live with desire in it.”
“When there is too much to feel, it is better to sing.”
“‘Tell me, Saul, what do you think a normal life would be like?’
He started to answer his own question. Housing. Good. Work. Health.
‘Those things were not enough for Luna.’
I was crying and sweating. What was the rest of it? To live without fear. No, that was impossible. To live with less fear, I whispered to Luna. To live with more hope. To not be hopeless all the time. I didn’t know where all the tears were coming from. Life is shocking. But the shock seemed to go back a long time to my mother’s car crash. To America. To East Berlin.”
“I wanted to die of shame but everyone insisted on keeping me alive.”
“There is a spectre inside every photograph.”
“To be so insignificant and yet to be the subject of Jennifer’s show was hard to take. At the same time, I did not understand what kind of significance I was after.”