The Man Who Saw Everything

The first half, an account of a young man whose ambiguous marriage proposal is rejected by his lover, who then departs as planned for the GDR to study in East Berlin, where he falls for the young man assigned to him, is interesting and haunted by the future.
The second half, in which the confused protagonist is in a London hospital but re-experiencing important scenes from his past, smears the previous events with doubts and seems to render the entire exercise pointless. What even is this? Why even is this?

“ I smiled at his careful reconstruction of history, blatantly told in his favour …”

“I’m trying to cross the road …. Yes, she said, you’ve been trying to cross the road for thirty years but stuff happened on the way.”

In 1988, Saul Adler, a young, Jewish historian, is getting photographed, crossing Abbey Road, like the famous Beatles album cover. His girlfriend, who just broke up with him, is taking the photo. He is then struck by a car. This is where the novel gets trippy, and timelines collapse and the narrative shifts to 2016, where Saul also finds himself recovering from an auto accident. He becomes a man in pieces, as he attempts to reconstruct his life and his past. There is a lot going on here and I am sure I have show more missed a metaphor or two, but I think the primary theme here, is how difficult it is examining and understanding our own lives and the lives of the people closest to us. The writing is excellent and Levy gives the reader plenty to chew on here. This is my introduction to her work and I was left quite impressed. show less

A short, quirky book that grabbed me - I couldn't put it down.
The central character is a young academic historian from a working class family and is set in 1988 and 2016. The book tells of some of his romantic relationships, both serious and casual, and thire various outcomes. But nothing in the book is as simple as that last sentence. First, the protagonist is confused by time. In 1988 he 'knows' the fall of the Berlin wall, while for much of the time in 2016, he thinks he's in 1988.
Second, The book is intentionally ambiguous. The ending, like much of the book, leaves the reader to fill in the possible details. This could be annoying, but it isn't. The author is in total control, and brings the reader along. I loved it.

This was a strange, unsettling little novel. Moving back and forth between the GDR/East Berlin and London, back and forth between 1988 and 2016, the story centers around Saul Adler, a "minor historian" whose girlfriend photographs him walking across the zebra crossing of Beatles Abbey Road fame. His plan for the photo: to take it (along with a tin of pineapple) to the younger sister of his German interpreter when he visits East Berlin for his research. There is also an accident at same zebra crossing, many delightful references to elements of Beatles music now permanently imbedded in our culture, and themes of love, death, passion, loneliness, and fear. That may seem like a lot for such a short novel, but it's all there.

Initially show more strange but straightforward, the novel becomes downright weird in the second half. Levy explores time and space and memory, independence and interconnectedness. Still, as weird as it is, it's also absolutely readable and engaging. It just requires a certain mental release, giving the author permission to wander as she sees fit, and allowing the emotional impact to land. I was surprised by the poignancy of the last few chapters. Pleasantly so. show less

7. [23091502::The Man Who Saw Everything] by [[Deborah Levy]]
reader: [[George Blagden]]
published: 2019
format: 6:05 audible audiobook (200 pages in hardcover)
acquired: January
listened: Jan 27 – Feb 5 (and again, Feb 7-13)
rating: 4
locations: London & Berlin
about the author South African born, half of Jewish-Lithuanian descent. Grew up in London since 1968. Born 6 August 1959.

A beautiful, mysterious, and sophisticated little book. Actually, you have to read it twice, so double the length, but you will get two very different books out of it.

I stumbled through the book the first time, carried on by the very odd narrator, historian Saul Addler, who had a very adventurous September 1988. A striking beauty, he, in quick succession, has show more multiple affairs with the different sexes and on different sides of the Iron Curtain. Sensual and quick to fall in love, Saul is also distant, I would guess somehow on the spectrum. He is spectacularly self-centered, to the point he has trouble really understanding or taking in the world around him, making the title a bit of a mockery. Instead he focuses on whatever he is drawn to. And he is most attracted to those obsessed with him, especially his girlfriend, Jennifer Moreau, who makes art out of photographs of him. He'll carry this from London to East Berlin, bringing, in place of requested, hard-to-get canned pineapples, a picture of himself crossing Abbey Road...because the sister of a translator he is working with is a huge Beatles fan.

We readers get a strange language that meshes well with his idea of a Stasi surveillance and his perspective of self-censorship. These worlds are confusing and yet fascinated through Saul's distorted, falsely precise view and absolute confidence. Then the book jumps to 2016 and seems to get more confusing. But, it still drew me because the language is elegant (and the reader is excellent), Saul and all his connections, and his girlfriend from 1988, are curiously fascinating and beautiful in their human flaws. There is a lot of human texture here. But I finished the book without understanding what I read.

So, I started hunting down published reviews - and the ones I found gave nothing away. All I could grasp was that, yes the book all makes sense and all ties together, that it might be a bit tragic, and that all readers, like this one reviewer I came across, should, upon finishing, immediately read it again. After a day I did try starting the audio over again. I immediately picked up many forgotten or overlooked details, but it took a while, and then it finally clicked, the key little aspect I was missing, and suddenly I had a completely different book. Equally beautiful and confounding, but absolutely different. I can't say, like that one reviewer, it all ties together, because I was left with a lot of loose ends. But, the book has left me thinking. It's sad, plays on longing, and leaves the reader wanting to hang around a bit. And details coalesce. There's a lot of oh!...but wait, now that I figured that out, what does it mean?

I hopefully won't give anything away here, because I really enjoyed the state of confusion listening to this book the first time, and that can't be replicated now. Now I'll always see the new picture.

Recommended to anyone this review interests. It's a terrific book, you'll be rewarded, as long as you have the patience to read it twice.

https://www.librarything.com/topic/315313#7067278 show less

"Hello, Saul. How is it going?"
"I'm trying to cross the road."
"Yes," she said, 'you've been trying to cross the road for over thirty years but stuff happened on the way."

Good fiction helps us see that we don't often reach where we are going.

Reality is precarious. Time is relative to our perception of it. We can live the same moment over and over and never work it all out. And the passage of time really doesn't matter in the summation of it. A moment past thirty years ago can keep a hold over us and everything that happened after.

Anything I write about this book is a spoiler. I've not experienced this before. If I say it's in two parts and the second part reveals the first part, I feel it's a spoiler.

Then I had this thought: it reminds show more me of Dennis Potter's "The Singing Detective."
Oh, that's probably a kind of spoiler too. show less

This is not an easy book. The first half appears to be a fairly straightforward telling of young love and loss, careerism, and, of course, a minor accident at the famous Abby Road zebra crossing. But the second half becomes much more unsettling. Things are not what they seem, the timeline shifts back and forth, people come and go, characters you thought had died appear, etc. The reader learns details in snippets and never quite trusts the narrator's grasp of reality. One may be tempted to quit at this point, but that would be a mistake because Levy is masterfully evoking the kind of reality that one experiences in a morphine fog in an ICU. Saul Adler has had a second accident 28 years later and this time it was not minor. Friends and show more family visit, he slips in and out, and especially, his mind wanders, conjuring dreamlike memories in no particular order and with a surreal quality. Through it all, Saul struggles with feelings of guilt and regret.

Levy sets her novel in Europe during the 28 years (1988-2016) following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of Brexit. She brings us from the East German Stasi and the Beatles to digital cameras and alternative lifestyles. Not unlike the Beatles tune, Penny Lane, there is a lot going on here. Much of it is mundane but some is "very strange." show less