Book Review: Flesh by David Szalay (Hungary)

This book is absurdly gripping, following a young Hungarian man through his life, over a period of some 50 years. David Szalay has written six novels, with the most well-known, All That Man Is, being shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 2016. I read that novel (some people quibbled that it read more like a book of inter-linked short stories), but didn’t love it.

As as result I didn’t have high hopes for Flesh, newly published, but I received a freebie copy from a friend and decided to give it a whirl. The opening pages of Istvan’s life seem uninspiring, as he moves to a bland flat in an unnamed Hungarian town with his mother, going to school, and effectively being groomed by an older woman when his mum enlists him to help with her shopping.

This part of the book, in which Istvan passively enters into his first sexual relationship as a 15-year-old boy, felt a little like the beginning of Bernard Schlink’s The Reader, but I was intrigued to see where it was going. When the affair ends in tragedy, Iszvan eventally ends up in the army in Iraq, and after a brief spell back home in Hungary he moves to England (presumably following Hungary’s accession to the EU). There his fate becomes entangled with that of a wealthy family, as he moves from working in security to entering the world of the super rich, and embarks on an affair with his boss’s wife, who spends large chunks of time on boozy lunches with the girls and private views.

The physicality of Istvan’s existence comes first in this novel, and he is utterly, almost comically, uncommunicative, so there are whole pages of dialogue which run like:

“Where you from?”

“Hungary.”

“What’s that like?”

Istvan isn’t sure what to say. He isn’t sure what sort of answer the man is looking for. He says what he tends to say when people ask him that question – “It’s okay.”

“You go back much?”

“Sometimes.”

“Visit family?”

“Yeah.”

“You must miss it,” the man says.

“Yeah. Sometimes.”

“How long have you been here?”

“London?”

“Yeah.”

“Two years,” Istvan says. “About two years.”

As a result the book, although over 300 pages long, is a quick read, driven by its simple and direct style. Although we are encouraged to picture Istvan as having something of a ‘hard man’ exterior, his vulnerability from the start made my heart break a little (maybe I’m primed for that in having a teenage son). This sort of dialogue also made me feel for Istvan and his awkward inarticulacy, with all the emotion of each exchange hidden in what is not said rather than what is.

Despite his lack of conversational flair, Istvan is clearly attractive, though we’re never told what he looks like. He is certainly noticed by women, and he has plenty of opportunistic encounters that are usually initiated by the other party (echoing his first sexual relationship). Perhaps the title of the novel alludes to this, and to the way the course of his life is driven by the needs of the flesh for Istvan, who lacks introspection and tends to act first and think later. Or perhaps it alludes to the essential physicality of all humans – or the sheer inadequacy of language to capture the human experience.

Often focused on the minutiae of everyday life, the most shocking of incidents are presented with studied neutrality or are not described at all, while frequent time skips mean that some of the most highly charged episodes in the novel take place entirely outside its pages. Nevertheless, as study of the events that can make or break a life, the novel often reads like a thriller.

Film Review: Dahomey (Benin)

Dahomey is the historical name for the present-day West African state of Benin. The documentary film of the same name, released in late 2024, follows the 2021 restitution of 26 Beninois treasures looted by the French in 1892 during their invasion. The film won the Golden Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival.

We follow the treasures, mostly huge anthropomorphic statues, as they are painstakingly relocated from a museum in Paris for display in the presidential palace in Cotonou. It is a quietly reflective film, as we observe the treasures being reverentially wrapped and packaged for transit (I couldn’t help thinking how awful it would be if they dropped one), and carefully unpackaged when they reach their new home in Benin.

Although there is no conventional narrative, at times director Mati Diop, who leaned into the supernatural in her atmospheric film Atlantics (which I reviewed in 2020), chooses to have one of the statues appear to speak to us, providing an otherworldly voiceover in a local language (rather than French, the official language of Benin since it was colonized by France): “everything is so strange, far removed from the country I saw in my dreams”.

These items are astoundingly beautiful: there are statues of ancestral kings, including King Behanzin, the king of Dahomey in 1890-94, who is shown in shark armour as he set out to counter the French invasion “shark angered and ocean clouded”, and a richly carved throne depicting a fat king under a sunshade, while on a lower rung are his many maid-servants.

In a discussion with young Beninois students later in the film, one young woman points out that of around 7,000 treasures taken by the French, just 26 have been returned; and there is some cynicism expressed over the motivations of the French government in agreeing to repatriate the items. Another debate is whether these royal treasures, created as sacred objects, should have left one museum only to appear in another. I would say yes – they deserve to be seen.

February 2025 Round-Up and Plans for March

I’m late with this, but I had a good February, and have plenty of plans for the rest of the coming month, some of which involve the three shelves that comprise my current TBR (plus I always have a Kindle book and an audio book on the go).

I’ve already written about my birthday gallery trip and meal. I finished five books in February, and watched a few films. A few of those streamed at home were rewatches, plus the Oscar-winning Anora, which was ok, but only ok, and which I put on as a Friday pizza night movie with my 16-yr-old son and his older sister, and instantly wished I hadn’t. Realistically he’s probably seen more graphic things in his time … but not in my kitchen with me, his dad and his big sis.

At the cinema I saw A Complete Unknown with my eldest daughter (and came out of the movie muttering “what a dick!” as Bob Dylan comes across as such an idiot; great acting by Timothee Chalamet though). It feels like a hundred years ago since I went with my daughters to see grief horror The Presence, which was fine, and set in a glossily beautiful house. And I had a trip with friends to the very gorgeous Everyman cinema in Crystal Palace to see the new Bridget Jones movie, which I absolutely loved, despite the mixed reviews. I overheard my daughter’s 20-year-old friend telling her about her own (separate) experience of seeing the film: “I know I’m not, like, the target audience, but is was as if those people hadn’t heard a joke before, they were literally clutching their sides”, which made me smile to myself, as I think my group was very like that, probably because we were young when Bridget was young, and now that she’s middle-aged so are we, and she feels like an old friend.

TV-wise, highlights in February included the recent BBC comedy Amandaland and catching up on season 2 of The White Lotus. I love Tom Hollander when he plays untrustworthy characters, and he was great in this – in fact the whole series was fantastic.

Book Review: Dormice & Moonshine: Falling for Slovenia by Sam Baldwin

The author sent me a copy of his book on living, travelling and working in Slovenia, which I was happy to accept, as I’ve worked on the politics of the region for many years and have an interest in the country; my bucket list has for a long time included a nebulous plan to visit beautiful and still fairly little-known Slovenia, which is bordered by Austria, Hungary, Croatia and Italy.

The book is somewhere between memoir and travelogue, as the English writer details the events that led to him acquiring a derelict 300-year-old rural sausage-drying cabin in Koroska, close to the Austrian border. He struggles to find the time to dedicate to renovating the house, but after a marriage break-up Baldwin seeks sanctuary in Slovenia to lick his wounds. He decides to see as much of the country as possible, taking a hefty chunk of leave from work and travelling its length and breadth, and becoming increasingly determined to make his home there as he does so.

The book includes accounts of Balwin’s first encounter with the country’s capital Ljubljana, and of a visit to the entrancing Lake Bled (pictured). During his adventures, Baldwin meets plenty of eccentrics, including a dormouse hunter (who prepares a dish of the local delicacy for him to try), climbs the country’s highest mountain with the help of an adrenaline-junkie guide, visits a bizarre cow festival, and at various points both helps to make moonshine and brings in a grape harvest in wine-making country.

It’s not all sunshine, snow and schnapps though, as Baldwin’s efforts to make Slovenia his home lead to confrontations with punishingly intransigent local bureaucracy, while he makes slow but worthwhile efforts to master the language, which has “grammar so complex it can cause brain damage”.

At times Baldwin’s home is so remote and he is so cut off (particularly during the COVID lockdown) that the narrative becomes something of a Robinson Crusoe-style tale of survival and resilience. Writing from the perspective of someone who is still traumatised from a kitchen extension, Baldwin’s experience sounds pretty nightmarish in terms of the amount of work required to make his home properly habitable, which takes place over a period of some years.

Overall though this was an enjoyably informative and inspiring account of someone making an often enviable and very different life on their own terms.

Book Review: The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai (India)

The Inheritance of Loss won the Booker in 2006. It took several years to write, and even longer for me to get round to reading it, but having finally ticked it off my list I’m not a big fan.

The novel is set largely in the mid-1980s in Kalimpong, in West Bengal, India. There orphaned teenager Sai lives with her distant and imposing grandfather, a retired judge who received an elite education in the UK, and his cook, whose son Biju is seeking his fortune as an illegal immigrant in New York. Sai strikes up a relationship with her young tutor, Gyan, but obstacles to romance emerge once he throws in his lot with Nepalese insurgents.

The narrative moves between the impact of increasing ethnic tensions and insecurity in Kalimpong, and Biju’s gruelling situation living hand-to-mouth in the US, despite his upbeat letters home. Biju’s migrant experience, as well as the memories of judge Jemubhai Patel, question the hegemony of Western values. For both men, their very different experiences of trying to assimilate in the West have left them dislocated and alienated from life in India. Despite the material advantages gained by Patel, the account of his abusive marriage to his less ‘sophisticated’ Indian wife was distressing to read, while Biju increasingly questions his decision to leave his loving home.

Although there are some attempts at humour in this story, the overall picture was so unrelentingly bleak that I was glad when it ended.

World Cuisine of the Month: Italian Cooking

I’ve only travelled to Italy twice: once on my honeymoon many moons ago, when we visited the Amalfi coast, and more recently a trip to beautiful Venice. Both times the – generally delicious – menus were based around seafood and meat, with plenty of fresh sun-ripened vegetables, rather than being pasta- and-pizza based, as might be expected in a typical Italian eatery in the UK.

For my recent birthday celebrations I didn’t travel to Italy, but I did try a lovely restaurant called Bancone, winner of the Michelin Bib Gourmand, which can be found just off Borough Market in South London. It has a few branches in London, and an interesting menu based around their fresh, handmade pasta. Another recommended South London mecca for pasta-lovers is the more unassuming Vermicelli, tucked away in Tooting Market.

At home though, I rely on Ursula Ferrigno’s Truly Italian: Quick and Simple Vegetarian Cooking, published in 1999, full of delicious recipes, and inexplicably out of print (she’s ursulaferrigno on Instagram). This recipe for chili and cauliflower pasta has been a family favourite for 20 years now:

Book Review: The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid (Pakistan)

My local library launched a new reading group in January, based on Peter Boxall’s well-known ‘1001 books to read before you die’ list. The library is only a few minutes walk from home, and the group runs on a Tuesday afternoon, once a month. I went along to the inaugural session during my lunch break, and there was a small selection of people there, including a woman with a notebook full of dense notes and ‘WHO AM I’ written in bubble writing over a double spread. Not sure if that was a comment on the book or on her own internal state.

The first book selected by community engagement officer Wes was The Reluctant Fundamentalist, which I’d read on publication but was happy to go back to. I enjoyed it more this time round – maybe because I’m generally more disillusioned nearly 20 yrs on from its 2007 release.

The storyline follows a young, well-educated Pakistani man, Changez (who does indeed change quite a lot during the novel). He travels (as did author Hamid) to the US for an elite education and nets a job for a prestigious but soulless asset-stripping company, where a hefty salary and glittering social life seem to be his for the taking.

However, as time goes on he feels rejected by Erica [(Am)erica?] the glossy but tragic American girl he falls in love with (who is still obsessed with her deceased first love), and, after 911, feels increasingly alienated from the USA’s commodified and intrinsically racist value system. Ultimately, nostalgic for Pakistan, Changez returns home to pursue life as an academic.

The book’s events are portrayed by means of a dramatic monologue in a Lahore café between Changez and a silent, unknown American. This format helps to hold an uncomfortable mirror up to the book’s assumed Western reader. And as the story progresses, the sense of menace and impending violence intensifies, although the ending when it comes is inconclusive, and the book is all the better for that.

A great first choice, though I’m doing less well with February’s choice – Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe.

New Tendencies Art Movement (Croatia)

On my birthday this week I visited the Electric Dreams exhibition at London’s Tate Modern, which focuses on kinetic, optical, programmed and sometimes psychedelic art from the pre-internet era.

Nove Tendencije (New Tendencies) was the name of an international movement that exhibited in Croatia, in the city of Zagreb, between 1961 and 1973, in part launched by the art critic Matko Mestrovic. The movement was influenced by research into the nature of vision and (sometimes pseudo)science, and led to an interest in optical illusion, kinetic art, neo-constructivism and computer-generated art, and influenced the little-known Italian art movement Arte Programmata (Programmed Art).

Key artists involved in the New Tendencies movement included Ivan Picelj (1924-2011), who promoted the clear-as-mud concept of ‘active art [to] direct creative forces to positive social action’), and whose ‘New Tendencies 2’ (screen print and metallic paper on paper, 1963) is shown at the top of this post.

Aleksandar Srnec (1924-2010), meanwhile, was part of Zagreb’s EXAT 51 grouping, who promoted experimental methods in art-making, and took part in the early work of New Tendences. Srnec’ 1965-67 work Luminoplastic projects abstract shapes onto spinning metal wire shapes, using a sewing machine motor. I filmed it in motion at the exhibition, on loan from the Museum of Contemporary Art in Zagreb:

Electric Dreams is an extraordinary exhibition, which includes work by artists worldwide. There’s lots of fascinating stuff to see, although some can seems naive now (ooooh lasers), simply because what was revolutionary then now appears hackneyed, or has been dramatically usurped by modern technologies.

Book Review: Show me the Magic – Travels around Benin by Taxi by Annie Caulfield

I recently enjoyed a travel book by comedy writer and playwright Annie Caulfield. Published in 2002, it details Annie’s journey through the little-known West African state of Benin with Isidore, a driver who is sometimes moody, often a control freak ‘I was an itinerant moron in his care and that was that’, always generous and entertaining, and who ultimately becomes a dear friend. The trip described in the book was made around the turn of the millennium, after Benin had made the transition from military rule to democracy in 1990. (In contrast, during the early post-independence period from 1960 there had been nine coups in the space of 12 years.)

Written with humour, the book is also informative, telling fascinating stories of the history, geography and culture of what was the kingdom of Dahomey, a place where the idea of magic (gri-gri) has played a prominent role in society. Isidore and Annie’s odd couple, sometimes frankly flirtatious, relationship is played for laughs, but can be moving, as when details of Isidore’s personal circumstances are revealed.

With Isidore as her guide and hustler (in the best possible meaning of the term), Annie negotiates her way through hotels and hostelries, experiences a Vodun (often known as Voodoo in the West) ceremony, meets eccentric local kings and takes a boat tour through the stilt village of Ganvie:

“A laughing little girl poled past us on an old door, two tiny sheep behind her on her vessel. ‘Give my sheep money, they’re hungry!’ … Just as I was wondering about the safety of very young children handstanding at the edge of their verandas, ten feet above the water a toddler fell with a wail backwards out of a window. No one batted an eyelid. He splashed upright in the water, spitting and laughing. … Luc [the boatman] smiled at my panic. ‘All children swim here. All!‘”

Elsewhere Annie gets beaten up by a toddler wielding a stick, who is hilariously horrified at the sight of a blonde, white person (yovo). Isidore notes, deadpan, ‘He doesn’t know what you are. You’re like a monster. Like a bad dream’.

I’d love to travel in West Africa on a trip like this, but no doubt would never have the nerve to make such an adventurous journey (particularly given the area is increasingly unstable around the borders with the military regimes of Burkina Faso and Niger).

Annie Caulfield died in 2016, and I believe the book is now out of print (I read a secondhand copy), but it hasn’t aged badly and is well worth a read if you come across it and if a trip to West Africa isn’t anywhere on the horizon.

January 2025 Round-Up and Plans for February

After a two-month break, I’ve resurrected the blog, and have quite a bit to write up. Upcoming posts include reviews of Annie Caulfield’s Benin travelogue; Booker-winner The Inheritance of Loss by Kiran Desai; a book on living in Slovenia by Sam Baldwin; and The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid. I’ll be reviewing multi-Oscar-nominated French movie Emilia Perez, eating and talking about Italian food, listening to music from France, watching the Colombian Netflix adaptation of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s 100 Years of Solitude, talking about a current London art exhibition and listening to podcasts on the African state of Equatorial Guinea.

Books I have recently read, but for which I won’t be writing full reviews, include: Atomic Habits by James Clear (my conclusion: there’s more to life than maximising productivity, James); The Driver’s Seat by Muriel Spark (strange little book); Intermezzo by Sally Rooney (over-hyped over-thinkers – this from someone who more or less has a degree in over-thinking); and The Satsuma Complex by Bob Mortimer (comedians should probably stick to comedy, though I lolled a couple of times). I’m currently reading Cher’s autobiography, which is certainly colourful.

We bought two kittens in late December (pictured), who are lots of fun and have been causing mayhem all through January and beyond. And after a lovely two-week break from work, it was back to the full-time grind with a bump on 6 January. Nevertheless I had a trip to my mum’s in rural Lincolnshire with my 20 year old daughter one weekend. We stayed for a few nights, doing work (me) and coursework (daughter), while being on hand while mum painted a wall (I half-joked I was only there to call the emergency services if she fell off her ladder) and watching movies with plenty of wine in the evenings. I then had a brief road trip to Brighton to return said daughter to her student house.

For Christmas I bought my husband tickets to see Steve Coogan in Dr Strangelove in the West End, which was really entertaining, with excellent performances, particularly from Giles Terera as Gen. Buck Turgidson and John Hopkins as Gen. Jack Ripper.

I watched or rewatched a bunch of movies in January, and you can follow me on the Letterboxd app (ImGlad) if you’re that way inclined. I enjoyed the newly released Beatles documentary Beatles ’64 on Disney, which covered the year they broke America, with tons of archival footage. I didn’t realize the Beatles were so good on banter.

I also enjoyed a rewatch of the 2020 film Palm Springs, which is like a rebooted Groundhog Day, and very enjoyable. The recent Demi Moore vehicle The Substance was a let down, and very silly to boot, although her performance was good. I watched a few films with one or other of my daughters, including the 2006 Adam Sandler timeslip film Click (I love a timeslip, and this also has a great cameo from the always excellent Christopher Walken) and the coming-of-age Bruce Springsteen-orientated movie Blinded by the Light (2019).

What else have I done? Listened to some semi-forgotten albums on Spotify, notably Depeche Mode’s 1990 release Violator, and the Eurythmics 1983 album Sweet Dreams. Watched the addictive BBC series Traitors (me to my son: ‘I want hair like Claudia’s’; 15 year old son, totally serious: ‘you need to use Head and Shoulders then’. Went out to eat French-ish food with work at Brasserie Blanc on the Southbank, and went to a work friend’s 60th birthday party at a new cocktail bar in Harringey – it used to be a bookies, and I wondered if it was one I had worked in when I had student jobs in the 1990s working in a series of betting shops for two different chains!

Finally, I took a day off work to visit the Van Gogh show at the National Gallery, which was heavily booked up (I’d waited in an online queue for tickets for two hours) and very busy – but full of great pictures, clearly! Rounded it off with lunch at Thai restaurant Busaba on Wardour St.

Back soon with some reviews.