This week, a new and very interesting book, dear friends, Yang Shuang-zi’s 2020 novel, Taiwan Travelogue. Originally published in Taiwan,   this book has been short-listed for the 2026 International Booker Prize and was translated to English by Lin King in 2024. What the heck is very interesting about this novel? you say. Well, on the surface, it appears to be a reprint of an old travel book about a Japanese woman visiting Taiwan in the late 1930s. The publisher has taken pains to encourage this idea with the book’s cover design and layout. The cover of the English edition I’m reading quotes the first page of the purported “travelogue” which begins, “Hold on. What’s going on here?” The quoted text presents the narrator describing a parade of magicians she once saw, and this description of magic and sleight-of-hand is a wry commentary on the whole book. The text itself has a generous sampling of descriptions of Taiwanese cuisine and shows the protagonist/narrator, and her companion visiting numerous tourist sites—features common to many tourist guides, or travelogues. However, below the surface, we have a novel. By way of background—which does help in one’s enjoyment—" From 1895 to 1945, Japan  colonized Taiwan, transforming it into a "model colony" to support its imperial expansion . While implementing strict, often brutal, authoritarian rule and cultural assimilation (Japanization), Japan concurrently built extensive infrastructure—railways, sanitation, and education systems—that modernized the island's economy, particularly in agriculture and industry.”    Japan was forced to give up Taiwan after WWII, and currently, Taiwan is a sovereign nation (China is not pleased). Today, let’s consider the book’s introduction that seems to be separate from the story. In fact, I began reading the book by skipping this section, thinking I’d get at it later, that it was exactly what it purports to be, an introduction written by someone else. It’s entitled, Introduction to Taiwan Travelogue , New Mandarin Chinese Edition, 2020. Then we have, A Truncated Dream, A Foreign Splendorland and the author’s name, Hiyoshi Sagako. (I wonder if this name has some meaning in Japanese culture—or Taiwanese). “My affiliation with this new translation of Taiwan Travelogue  began in 2015, when I heard via word of mouth that Ms. Yang Jo-hui, a translator, was seeking a copy of the first Mandarin translation, published in 1977. I found this an unusual quest, considering that the book had been out of print in Taiwan for many years…” ‘Kay, what’s going on here? (To echo the text’s first line). On the publication page, we’re told simply that Ms. Yang wrote the book in 2020, so how could it now be said to have been written much earlier, in 1954? The writer claims that in 1938, a Japanese woman, Aoyama Chizoku, a famous novelist, was asked by the Japanese government to travel to Taiwan and write a series of dispatches describing the island. She did so amid the build-up to WWII, publishing the dispatches first as a travelogue. Then in 1954, she published a novel based on her experiences. A nice story, but—you guessed it—a fiction. The novel, Taiwan Travelogue , was indeed written by Yan Shuang-zi in 2020, and the translation is now nominated for a Booker Prize. Why do these literary acrobatics? you ask. The concept of time travel comes to mind, as well as the work of magicians. As does that old idea of a text’s implied author. The introduction continues with a summary of one of the main themes of the book, that Taiwanese—including those born of Japanese families living on the island—were looked down on by people in Japan as inferior and, in the case of ethnic Japanese inhabitants, not “really” Japanese. Here we have another theme—authenticity vs. inauthenticity. Fiction vs. non-fiction. Ms. Aoyama’s being invited to Taiwan to write a Travelogue is characterized as an attempt by the Japanese government to further their expansionist ambitions (think Pearl Harbor). In a very curious passage, the authenticity of Ms. Aoyama’s interpreter, Ms. Wang Chien-ho, is questioned: “I will admit that, back when I first read Aoyama-sensei’s serialized essays, I had assumed that Ms. Wang must have been a fictional character…I therefore deduced that Ms. Wang must have been a clever metaphor, a vessel through which Aoyama could imply her true views under the veil of patriotic writing.” This passage of course is based on the fictional idea that Ms. Aoyama is a “real” person, instead of a fictional character. The introduction continues: “Today, there is no longer any doubt that Ms. Wang was very real indeed; those who attended Ms. Aoyama’s lectured testified to seeing Ms. Wang at her side. But while Aoyama’s motives for publishing the book were rooted in her relationship with the real Ms. Wang, she ultimately chose to present the work as fiction, and the novel’s very premise rests on the fictionality of Ms. Wang as a character. For better or worse, Ms. Wang has  become a metaphor—one without which the novel Taiwan Travelogue  cannot stand as a work of literature.” ‘Kay. Once again, on the surface, this seems quite plausible, but when you consider that Taiwan Travelogue is a work of fiction published in 2020, the introduction becomes a hall of mirrors. Ms. Yang is real/not real. The book is fiction/not fiction. Why does the novel’s very premise rest on the fictionality of Ms. Wang? The author (implied author) is saying that the character of Ms. Wang is symbolic of the racism and oppression that Japanese people inflicted on the Taiwanese. The introduction then comments on the insertion of a key chapter after the first publication of the novel. We’ll get into that later. As a preliminary step toward making sense of this story, let’s say that it’s form—here, the introduction—conveys a lot of information. Let’s stop there and continue next time. Till then. #TaiwanTravelogue #YangShuang-Zi #AlanBray

This just in— The Wax Child  did not make the cut for the International Booker Prize short list. Oh, oh, the wax child isn’t going to like that. The Wax Child  by Olga Ravn is a story set in historic time—early 17 th  century Denmark. However, there is no statement of this in the beginning of the text. Of course, due to a phenomenon we have previously noted, the reader who comes to this book no doubt has some preconceptions that may include the story’s historic setting. Indeed, the Amazon page for the book leads off by saying, “In seventeenth-century Denmark…” thereby providing information that Ms. Ravn herself provides at the book's end in a sort of author’s notes section. In the New Directions edition of the book (the only English translation I’m aware of) the cover gives no clue as to the time of the story, (it does foretell the storie's end) nor does the back. But the inner sleeve does; in fact it appears to be the source for the Amazon page write up. However, Amazon does not categorize The Wax Child  as an historic novel. It marks it as Literature, Genre Fiction, Horror, and Occult and Supernatural. These distinctions are important, as someone searching Amazon for let’s say, novels in the Horror category, would come upon The Wax Child  and might therefore buy it. I must say, I think these categories are terribly misleading and could lead to rage and despondency. Even refunds. I like that there’s no statement up front explaining the time period. The reader is left to discover this in an open way. In any case, The Wax Child  is a story that occurs in historic time but doesn’t make a fuss about it. In the text, how is this communicated to the reader? In the second paragraph, we do have the wax child saying, “There were carriages and horses and soldiers.” This might cue the attentive reader that we are in a pre-gasoline engine world. Maybe. There is mention of the “town’s religious processions.” Could be dated. Then, the wax child mentions lying for a long time in the earth and seeing, “steam locomotives, the smallest particle split and exploded.” ‘Kay, again, the attentive reader might note these references are to modern times and/or references to the passage of great amounts of time. What is not mentioned is as important as what is. The characters in the story do not use cell phones or computers. They do not drive cars or go grocery shopping at Whole Foods. It is not till page sixteen that the King of Denmark, Christian IV, is named as a contemporary in the story, and to the student of history, this places the story in time. Christian IV was king of Denmark and Norway from 1588 to 1648. A long reign, no? All right, you say, but aren’t there less explicit cues in the text about time? The language that the wax child uses, the style of its speech carries meaning, letting the reader know this is not a contemporary story. Again, here’s the first paragraph: “I am a child shaped in beeswax. I am made like a doll the size of a human forearm. They have given me hair and fingernail parings from the person who is to suffer. I was born by my mistress for forty weeks under her right arm as if I was a proper child and my wax was softened by her warmth. After this time, she took me to a pastor; it was night, the church was dark and still, and he christened me, the wax child. I was an instrument. This was at Nakkebolle Manor, in southern Funen. My wax mouth cannot be opened.” This does not have a contemporary feel. There are no contractions—although this could be due to translation, but I don’t think so. Actually, the use of contractions has been around for a long time—certainly before the 1600s. However, their lack tends to give speech a formal and archaic tone. The use of the word “mistress” is anachronistic and refers more to earlier centuries when people relied on hierarchical distinctions to carry meaning. As mentioned, it is at the end of the book that Olga Raven directly addresses the reader about the time of the story in a section entitled: Note. Here the author explains she drew on Nordic folklore as well as letters and court documents to write the novel. She states clearly that the events in the story really occurred between 1596 and 1621. Then comes an acknowledgments section where the author thanks various people for their help. So, is The Wax Child  a novel or not? At the end, we learn that the events really happened but of course, much of the text consists of the testimony of the wax child who is apparently the creation of the author. It is, as I’ve said, a literary device to tell a tale in a creative way. There is no need to create a “real” human witness and justify how she/he could be omnipresent. So, a fiction based on an account of real events and people. The way the story is punctuated is in story fashion, with a beginning, middle and end. A precipitating event—Christenze’s being exposed to the community as a witch—leads to progressive complications that conclude in her tragic death. The book asks a question: will Christenze be spared death as sentence for her behavior? The question could be answered yes, no, or I don’t know, but it is no. Is this because Ms. Ravn was trying to stick close to a real story? I don’t know, my friends, I don’t know. She did stick to it in fine fashion. Till next time. #TheWaxChil #OlgaRavn #AlanBray

Last time, I proposed discussing the effect of utilizing an inanimate narrator in Olga Ravn’s The Wax Child . Here goes: This is not the first story to have an inanimate narrator. Orhan Pamuk’s My Name Is Red features narration by the color red; a fig tree does the job in Elif Shafak's  The Island of Missing Trees . (‘Kay, a tree is alive, but you get the idea). Indeed, we could say that many novels feature an omniscient narrator with no identifying information provided about this entity—it is a voice which seems to be human, but is not identified as to gender, age, or ethnicity. A famous example: Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina : “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Who is speaking here? Is it the author, Leo Tolstoy? To some extent yes, but it’s a particular version of Tolstoy, an omniscient narrator who is not just a gifted Russian aristocrat of the late nineteenth-century. Is there a difference between this kind of narrator and the wax child? There is a fascinating passage in the story that clearly shows the inanimate narrator speaking: “But then I’ve already told you, I am not a child, only something that looks like one. Something that longs to be one. I’m an internal event…condemned to anticipation.” An intriguing comment, no? “I’m an internal event.” Who is speaking here, or writing? A narrator entity who, as we discussed last time, has human thoughts and feelings but who now says of itself, I’m an internal event. Is this the real human author writing? Disclosing that her narrative tool is an expression of herself? Using a narrational sleight-of-hand to express something as the author of a book? Again, on one level, the answer is yes. No one but the human author of The Wax Child  is responsible for its content, just as no one but Tolstoy is responsible for Anna Karenina . Ms. Ravn created the text. What is expressed? What if the wax child were a fictional representation of an adult Norwegian woman named Olga Ravn? A woman who made no pretense of distance from the characters? —because that’s what we’re talking about here, best B. Despite the wax child’s never commenting on it, the narrational device of having an inanimate, omniscient narrator creates distance between the author and the story/characters. And that distance contributes mightily to a particular mood in the writing—mysterious, oracular, eerie at times. There is irony here, my friends. As we read, we are asked to believe that this doll of wax “talks” to us, and because of the magical rules of fiction, we accept this impossibility. I doubt if anyone who takes the time to read this book goes along, thinking “Oh, well, this voice is really Ms. Ravn. How clever.” No, we accept this “rule” of the story, that a wax doll is the narrator, and it is outside of time and space. There is irony; however, the doll is not ironic. It claims no awareness of being a character in a book. It sticks to a rather self-absorbed script, relating the tragic events of the story but never expressing any personal emotion about them. The wax child lacks awareness. “I talk all the time but no one listens.” One of the ways this is expressed is that the fact that the story occurs in historical time—early seventeenth-century—is not made explicit by the narrator, which gives the effect of the narrator just assuming the reader knows. We’ll delve into this next time. The structure of the book, with the wax child as narrator and Christenze as protagonist, creates a nice tension in that the wax child knows Christenze’s fate; Christenze remains stubbornly in denial about it. The omniscient narrator cannot warn the protagonist of the danger that approaches because as it tells we the readers again and again, it has no mouth. But more seriously, the wax child is distinct from Christenze and the other characters. It witnesses the events of the story; by the rules of the novel, it cannot alter them. ‘Kay. Let’s wrap up today and continue next time. Till then. #TheWaxDoll #OlgaRavn #AlanBray

“No one listens to a thing I say. Although I speak all the time.” So says the unnamed, inanimate narrator of Olga Ravn’s The Wax Child . Who hears it then? Someone—more on this later. What we know about this narrator is that it was created by Christenze Crucknow, who carried this wax effigy beneath her right arm as if it was a real human infant in utero. Why, you ask, would someone do this, making an effigy and treating it in this manner?   “Wax effigies in witchcraft are figures representing individuals used in ritual magic to influence them through sympathetic magic. Historically, these dolls—often called poppets—were crafted from wax to cause harm, such as wasting away, by burning or pricking them, but they were also used for healing or protection rituals.”  In The Wax Child , it seems a lot of the witchcraft that Christenze performs has to do with fertility and childbirth. She offers spells and herbal treatments, and we can infer that the Wax Child is a part of these treatments. Sympathetic magic refers to “ a form of ritualistic magic based on the belief that objects or actions can influence target individuals or events through symbolic, mystical connections . Working on the principle that "like produces like," it uses symbols—such as dolls, items belonging to a person, or art—to create, heal, or harm from a distance.” So we can imagine Christenze trying to help someone undergoing a difficult childbirth by performing a ritual involving the Wax Child. There’s no direct mention of this in the story, it's one of the things left out that the reader must imagine.   However the Child says: “Whenever a woman nearby to me was about to give birth, I would lie in the ground and feel almost exalted, as if the arrival of every child was a chance for me to find a place in the world, for my soul to dart into one of those newborn infants, my mouth to open and expel its very fist cry.” Well, this doesn’t seem entirely wholesome. In fact, the Wax Child comes across as rather parasitic and almost bratty, coveting living beings and the way they are cared for. We are told that Christenze attempts to help a woman name Anne Bille, who delivers many babies, only to have them die within days. Christenze is unable to help her and Anne is shown jealously denouncing Christenze as a witch—the first legal problem she has.   This is the inciting event of the story. Christenze is “outed” as a witch, as are her friends and associates. The King of Denmark learns of this and dispatches his lieutenants to eradicate the outbreak of witchery. They arrest and torture the women into confession, and they are, one by one, executed. Christenze, as a noblewoman, believes her life will be spared. She appeals to the King, as they are both aristocrats, but he nonetheless condemns her. This sad tale is, as Ms. Ravn, reveals at the end, based on real events. Ms. Ravn chose to tell the story in a particular way, injecting an unusual narrator in the form of the Wax Child. Here’s a passage from the very end: The narrator writes of her creator, her mistress, Christenze: “…the Beheaded Virgin, is what she later would call herself—after death, of course—her head, separated from her body, told me so from within the flames, when they tossed both it and the body, headless, into the fire. Farewell my child, the lips sighed on seeing me on the arm of another in front of the bonfire…” Indeed, this is the end of the book. Well, almost. The whole story is told from the Wax Child’s position in time and space, and she is deathless and can effortlessly travel great distances and see into other characters’ heads—even beyond their deaths. Here is the end of the story, after Christenza is killed: “Had I eyes that could weep; I would have wept. But I am only a doll, a doll of wax. I cannot move my hands. My wax mouth cannot be opened. And yet I speak…To the dead I mean nothing. I meant little to them when they were alive. To my mistress I was only an instrument. Made for strength, made for harm. I am so stupid. Every evening I tell the same story, and I speak to the soil.” The wax child is the storyteller, telling the story while buried in the soil, a kind of not-so-mute witness outside of time and place. But someone is hearing the wax child’s words and putting them into a book, and this doesn’t have to do with the story but how it’s told. In other words, it’s perfectly fine to just enjoy this fine story—the eerie voice of the Wax Child, the tragic persecution of the basically harmless witches by those in power—without fussing about the implications of having an inanimate narrator who behaves like a child.   Let’s stop here, and next time we’ll have something for the fussers. Till then. #TheWaxChild #OlgaRavn #AlanBray

This week, a new story, Olga Ravn’s 2025 novel, The Wax Child . This book, translated to English from Danish by Matin Aitken, has been nominated for an International Booker Prize. It begins: “I am a child shaped in beeswax. I am made like a doll the size of a human forearm. They have given me hair and nail parings from the person who is to suffer. I was born by my mistress for forty weeks under her right arm as if I was a proper child, and my wax was softened by her warmth. After this time, she took me to a pastor; it was night, the church was dark and still, and he christened me, the wax child. I was an instrument. This was at Nakkebolle Manor, in southern Funen. My wax mouth cannot be opened.” ‘Kay. This is a story about several women who lived in 17 th  century Denmark, although there are initially few references to this so that the story seems untethered to a specific time and place. Unless you’re already familiar with where these places are, you have to look up Funen and Nakkebolle. It is written in present tense and first person, the narrator, the wax child, tells stories about the humans, although as the novel develops, there’s a kind of polyphonic effect as the humans’ speech is shown. We have immediately identified two critical features of this novel, it’s occurrence in historic time, and the fact that the narrator isn’t alive. It’s not dead either, it’s made of wax. We’ll need to examine both of these in depth. I don’t believe I’ve ever read a story where the narrator isn’t a real person. Of course, since narrators are made up in fiction, this is a provocative idea. In this sense, no narrator is real. But the Wax Child is explicitly an image of a human child (is that different from a made-up narrator, made in the image of a human?) Oh, stop it! My point is that there is immediate irony here. The narrator isn’t alive; it is a sort of “mouthpiece” for the author—the implied author, not Ms. Ravn. It is a strong voice in the story, (not the only one though) and the irony is that this is the essential situation of fiction. It’s made-up. Even more provocatively, things start off with this object saying, “I am a child,” and that “the person who is to suffer” contributes nail parings and hair to it. This “child” reports being carried by her “mistress” for forty weeks and then christened at night by a “pastor” as the Wax Child. What’s going on here? We the reader might begin to wonder if these are references to witchcraft. (Bell rings). We have a winner! So, we might conclude that this is a story about witchery, a story with a supernatural bent that involves an object as narrator. Is that what’s going on? This begs the question: what is witchcraft? “Witchcraft involves the use of magic, spells, and rituals to influence, harm, or heal, often utilizing nature-based, pagan, or, in some historical contexts, demonic, beliefs . Modern practitioners often focus on manifestation, spirituality, and nature…Historically, it was defined by persecution and accusations of pacts with the devil.”  Yes, best B, this is a story about witchcraft that uses an inanimate object as narrator, an object that communicates with the reader and that has thoughts and feelings. How can this be? Literally, who is speaking? “I know the humans well, though they don’t know me. I am an image, in the absence of a child. I have this bottomless shaft-like longing for the woman who made me…There were carriages, horses, and soldiers. There was marjoram and thyme and rose hip. There were ships that journeyed far across the sea to lay claim to territory. There were ships filled with living bodies in the darkness of their holds…And through the towns religious processions went, and chorused wonderful song. The year passed, and the years passed. And I was a wax child. I did not age. I lay in the ground and did not age.” ‘Kay, so the Wax Child is an omniscient narrator who “sees’ far beyond Denmark, and far beyond the 17 th century. I have no problem with that. At heart, The Wax Child  is a story about a group of women in 17 th  century Denmark who were witches—they weren’t just accused of being witches, they really were, although this tradition of witchcraft arose out of women healing and solving problems with herbs and spells. And they are gradually discovered by the authorities (all men) and tortured into confession and then condemned and executed. There is some tension over whether the women will actually be killed, as they have trouble believing the authorities will go this far. (Tension which I just destroyed by giving away the ending). There is a meaning within the story of gender conflict, of men believing that women are easily led astray by the Devil. The King of Denmark himself gets involved, believing that this “outbreak” of witches in “his” kingdom, must be rooted out and destroyed. He appears several times, “seen” by the wax child, who reports on his movements and finally shows him in an extended scene at the story’s end. An important theme in the story is about women having babies or not having them. Christenze, who may be seen as the protagonist, is not married and has no children, but fashions wax in the shape of a child which becomes (somewhat) alive. What makes the story distinctive is the gorgeous prose, the poetic style, and the narrator being an inanimate object. Another feature which sets The Wax Child  apart from other stories about women being persecuted as witches is that these ladies really are witches in contrast to a text like The Crucible , where the emphasis is on persecution. By the way, a great cover to this edition, no? Please check out the image above. Next time, we’ll delve deeper. Till then. @TheWaxChild @OlgaRavn @AlanBray

When we left off looking at the fourth story in David Szalay’s All That Man Is,  the protagonist, Balazs, a twenty-eight-year-old Hungarian man on business in London, has just experienced a somewhat enchanted afternoon with Emma, the object of his erotic longing. Emma, who has always seemed unapproachable and distant, shows Balazs a new side, expressing curiosity and affection toward him, which he finds stunning. Her questions force him to confront his lonely and meaningless existence. But Emma must get ready for a night’s work, and the two return to the hotel suite they share with Gabor, Emma’s husband and manager, forestalling further intimacy. What happens next was foreshadowed in an earlier scene. Emma sends a distress signal to Balazs and Gabor who are waiting outside the hotel where she is working. They hurry in. The first time this happened, Gabor handled the conflict with Emma’s client(s), while Balazs was only a hulking presence. This time, they burst into the hotel room to find that Emma has locked herself in the bathroom and a naked man is standing by the bed. Gabor goes to talk to Emma, while Balazs stays with the man. “…the man says, ‘You think I hurt her? I didn’t hurt her,’ he tells Balazs’ impassive face. “I just told her she’s a slut, which she is. That’s what I told her, and that’s what she is. Hey gorilla, you fucking ape! I’m talking to Whoosh   There is a noise like a dog enjoying a knuckle of gristle as the nose breaks and fills with blood.”   ‘Kay. Balazs has socked the guy. Please note the use of punctuation and line spacing. “I’m talking to” ends just like that with no emdash or close quote. And then “Whoosh” on the next line, also without punctuation. And then a line space and then the description of the effect of the punch. Other writers might have done it more conventionally. I think Mr. Szalay tries to convey Balazs’ experience here. He doesn’t think; he reacts physically to a guy who is being verbally abusive both to him and to Emma, whom we know Balazs has had a significant encounter with earlier in the day. Indeed, after Gabor and Emma emerge from the bathroom, and express shock at the now bleeding man, Balazs flees the room, feeling a surfeit of adrenaline. He can hardly believe what he’s done, knowing that Gabor and Emma do not approve. He doesn’t believe the man will go to the police but considers just flying home to Hungary. But his passport is in the hotel room. I think at this point, we the readers are rooting for Balazs despite his turn to violence. Emma’s client does seem like an unpleasant sort. But Gabor and Zoli, who have been arranging Emma’s work, are very angry. Zoli wants to have Balazs’ legs broken. They return Emma’s fee to the client, hoping this will mollify him. But Balazs cares only about Emma’s reaction. Gabor tells Balazs she’s angry. “’Is she?’ Balazs says, surprised. ‘Yeah.’” Balazs encounters her coming out of the bathroom. “’Look, I’m sorry,’ he said. Still without looking at him, she nodded. ‘Okay.’ And that was it—he stood aside, and she went past into the damp reek of the bathroom.”   Gabor says Balazs’ services will no longer be needed, and Gabor and Emma leave for her next night’s work. Balazs goes for a walk and decides to eat at a restaurant he’s been to before. “…the girl at the chicken place. She was always there, serving the customers, but he hadn’t really noticed her until tonight. The little smile she gave him when she took his order, it occurred to him, as he sat down to wait for his food, was not the first. Part of the lace edge of her bra showed in the V-shaped neckline of her T-shirt, where a little gold cross lay on the skin. He watched her dealing with the next customer, her earnest manner, her hand tightly gripping the pen with which she wrote the orders down. He wondered what she thought about things. Though she was not smiling now, she had a nice face.” And so this story ends. Is the final scene merely showing Balazs with his muscles and male gaze leering at a young woman? Not merely, Best B. I think it’s showing Balazs changed by his encounter with Emma. He considers the waitress as another human instead of as an object—admittedly one who wears a lacy bra. He wonders what she thinks about things—her existence, her work. Ultimately, he notices her face, that glowing, mobile locus of another person’s reality. Balazs is perhaps the lease introspective of the men shown in this collection. He is no Tony who broods about the end of existence. He is no Simon, who ponders identity. And he is not Karel, who thinks deeply about life and impending fatherhood. Balazs is a physical being who reacts without the intervention of much thought. But Emma’s attention and gentle probing (which maybe was more her raising questions about herself) transform him into, at least briefly, a more reflective person. What is the meaning of life for Balazs? He’s never considered it but becomes aware that there are other people in the world, real people who merit his attention. Finally, why title this post Martin Buber in London , you ask. Pretentious display of my knowledge? Come on, it’s fun. Austrian born Martin Buber was a famous philosopher. One of his important ideas was that the premise of existence is encounter with another person. His concept of “I-Thou” relationships has to do with two people in mutual, holistic experience of one another—not as objects, but in authentic existence. I believe this is where Balazs and the waitress wind up. And they’re in London. Who knows what happens next? Thanks to David Szalay for writing such a fine book. Till next time. #AllThatManIs #DavidSzalay #AlanBray

We left off last time in our consideration of David Szalay’s fourth story in the collection All That Man Is,  with the protagonist, Balazs, realizing, perhaps belatedly, that the object of his erotic obsession, Emma, is a high-class prostitute. Moreover, he is employed by her husband, Gabor, to provide security for her during a working trip to London. “It is awkward, especially that first night.” This describes Balazs’ experience sitting most of the night in a car with Gabor, waiting for Emma to finish working. ‘Kay. Once the guys retrieve a sleepy Emma, they all go back to the hotel. Balazs handles (no pun intended) his feelings by masturbating in the shower while thinking in erotic terms about Emma. There is really nothing else in the story about his feelings concerning the situation; it is up to the reader to infer them. And this is in keeping with Balazs’ character; he is not an introspective man. The following day, Gabor engages Balasz in conversation—Gabor apparently is introspective. “‘Sometimes I wonder about my attitude to women,’ Gabor says… ‘what would you do in my position?’ … ‘What d’you mean?’ ‘If you and Emma were…whatever,’ Gabor says impatiently. ‘Would you let her do this?’ ‘Would I let her?’ … Balazs is having trouble imagining, with any emotional specificity, the situation Gabor wants him to—a situation in which he and Emma were…whatever. Sex is all he is able to imagine and that of an impossibly lubricious kind. ‘Don’t know,’ he says.” Please note, first of all, the use of the word “lubricious.” This is the narrator’s voice as lubricious is not a word Balazs would use. Second, this is a fine characterization of a character who is male, late twenties, not terribly articulate, and not driven by any career plan. He is horny, best B. After an incident where Balazs is called upon to set limits with one of Emma’s clients, (foreshadowing), he encounters her the next day. Gabor is away. In the context of Balazs waking up on the couch and seeing Emma, we have. “She looks at him, sitting there, up to his waist in the sleeping bag, his tattooed biceps and toaster-like pecs, his small pale eyes obscurely imploring.” An interesting passage, no? It would seem to be from Emma’s perspective, when she has never had one before, always being an object. I don’t know, my friends, this could also be from the narrator’s perspective, but it is a bit jarring. Why? you ask. Because texts teach us to read them by establishing rules of who the protagonist is, which characters enjoy a perspective. If you suddenly break one of these conventions, it’s a shock that needs to be reconciled. Emma has been presented as aloof and unattainable thus far, in this passage, we have evidence of her consciousness checking Balazs out. She is not who we thought she was. The two of them decide to go out for coffee. “They are in the habit of speaking to each other now, up to a point. Still, it feels extremely intimate to pass through the downstairs hall together, to leave the house, and walk down the street.” After coffee, they decide rather clumsily to go to Madame Tussaud’s Waxworks. Balazs suggests this because he thinks Emma would like it. She seems to agree because she thinks he wants to go. She has returned in the story to being an admired object, a “black box,” if you will, mysterious to Balazs. The entrance line is long at the Waxworks, and they decide to go to a park. Emma asks Balazs a series of questions about himself, indicating some interest in him. Finally she says: “…Are you in a relationship?” He says no, and they go to have a drink together. Well, Emma has again emerged from the black box; she surprises Balazs and she surprises us with her interest. Once at the pub, Emma says, “Do you know why I like you? …You don’t judge people.” This flirtation goes on, but finally Emma says she has to return to the apartment to prepare for the night’s work. Balazs is disappointed as he would like to continue being alone with her, but they set off. So far, then, we have a story in which the protagonist, Balazs, seems to be presented with the strong possibility of achieving his goal—bedding the beautiful Emma. Much to his surprise, she seems to be interested in him and is much friendlier than he’d previously experienced. Her questions make him confront his identity or lack there of. Balazs is, I think, on the edge of realizing he is missing something in life. He is late twenties and drifting. I think we the readers get a sense of the story being about two misfits who are lonely and find each other. Let’s stop here and find out what happens next time. Till then. #AllThatanIs #DavidSzalay #AlanBray

I was going to embark on a new story this week, a new book, that is, but I’ve been enjoying the David Szalay book, All That Man Is , so much that I wanted to focus on one more of its stories, the third one, also untitled. As we’ve noted, all the stories in this collection have as their protagonist, a man of a particular age. This story has to do with Balazs, a Hungarian man in his late twenties. So, in keeping with the rest of the book, we would expect this story to explore issues relevant to men in their late twenties. Here is the first line: “It is ten o’clock in the morning and the kitchen is full of standing smoke and the smell of stuffed cabbages.” In short order, we are introduced to an entity known as Emma’s mother, and then to Gabor, who we learn is “off” to London. Halfway down the first page, a third character appears: “She puts a plate with two slices of bread on it on the small square table next to Balazs’ Michaelangelesque elbow. (His mouth working, he acknowledges it with a nod of his head).” I have to confess I had some trouble making sense of this first scene, as far as who is the protagonist—is it Emma’s mother? Gabor? Balazs? (Hint: it’s Balazs) So what questions arise in this beginning? Whose kitchen are they in, and why does it smell of smoke and cabbage? Who are these people? Who and why are they traveling to London? What’s going on with Balazs’ Michaelangelesque elbow? This seems to imply that he’s well-muscled. What of the names? Balazs and Gabor are well…Hungarian sounding names in a story written in the English language. Please remember: there are no coincidences. Nothing is random. A skilled writer like Mr. Szalay doesn’t just name characters because he feels like it; the names have some meaning. In this case, I believe they establish one of the themes of all the stories in this book, that the protagonists are all men who are living in and/or journeying to a country not their own. Finally, thus far, can we detect anything relating to a theme? (we’re on the lookout for something late twenties). Nope. Not yet, best B. As is true with all the stories, the narrative is in present tense and third person. And there is a somewhat hidden narrator who directs our attention and describes people and things. (Please see the first line). In the story’s first scenes, we get a sense of the characters, particularly Balazs. He is a veteran of Hungary’s military deployment to Iraq, a time in his life he remembers fondly as “safe, and there were things to do.” Now, he is Gabor’s personal trainer and works for him sometimes to provide security, a role that he assumes in this story. Gabor is a shady businessman who is perhaps involved in making pornographic films. His wife is Emma (Emma Bovary?) a beautiful woman whom Balazs lusts after although she is aloof. Balazs has no lady friend, and his attraction to Emma preoccupies him. “It is extremely stressful, he finds, to be in her presence outside the safely purposeful space of the gym…he would be so intensely aware of her presence, of the miniscule squeaks when she moved on the leather seat” (of the car) “or flipped down the sun visor to tweak an eyebrow in the vanity mirror, that, just to hold himself together, he had to fix his eyes on some object outside the darkened window.” This, then, is Balazs’ state as the story begins—single and well…horny. And he is somewhat adrift, having no career interest. He is nostalgic for his military service when, we can infer, his life was organized by others. Perhaps we see here a presentation of the state of some men in their late twenties. (Aha!) We should contrast this presentation with Karel, the man of the same age as Balazs in story number four, which we looked at a couple of weeks ago. He is deeply immersed in his career as an academic but coming to terms with the needs of his pregnant girlfriend. He is similarly pre-occupied with sex but is a different beastie than Balazs who has no other interest. The precipitating event occurs when Balazs and the reader learn more about the purpose of the trip to London. “Gabor says, ‘Emma’s going to be doing some work in London…And your job…’ He finds a more satisfactory pronoun. (The narrator’s voice) ‘Our job is to look after her. Okay?’” Balazs, Emma, and Gabor journey to London where they meet a man named Zoli and go to a hotel. Balazs learns Emma will be going to work right away—that night. She leaves the guys, disappearing into the bathroom with her make-up bag. When she emerges, standing in the doorway, dressed for the evening, the guys are awestruck by her beautiful appearance. “’Wow,’ Zoli had said…‘ Wow .’” (Italics for emphasis). While it is never explained explicitly, it has become clear to the reader and to Balazs that Emma is a high-class prostitute, and that they have all come to London so she can work. ‘Kay. Let’s stop there and resume next time. Till then. #AllThatManIs #DavidSzalay #AlanBray

Last time, we left off amidst David Szalay’s linked short story collection All That Man Is . We were studying the final story which deals with Tony, a man near the end of his life. Unfortunately for Tony, he has just been in a serious car accident and is recovering. We the readers wonder if this traumatic experience leads to some transformation in a character who is darkly focused on the meaninglessness of his life. Tony’s wife Joanna drives him home from the hospital. “On the drive home, however, his spirits are low. He isn’t sure, now, what he was looking forward to. It is snowing lightly, ineffectually. Small flakes that won’t settle, that melt as they touch anything.” A nice passage, no? The small flakes that won’t settle, that melt as soon as they touch anything—it’s a temporary world Tony is moving through. Impermanent and ineffective. It does seem that Tony is still stuck in dysphoria. However, Joanna tells Tony that although she herself can’t stay, their adult daughter Cordelia will be visiting him for a week. Tony is pleased although he tries not to show it. Joanna proposes they watch a film together. “He notices the full glass of wine in her hand. She’s drinking a lot of wine, he thinks. She’s uneasy, with them here together like this.” Tony and Joanna are estranged, as they say. An amusing scene follows of Joanna suggesting a series of films to watch— Groundhog Day, On Golden Pond, The Bucket List, Driving Miss Daisy, About Schmidt —Tony rejects them all. The films are of note as they all have to do with mortality and ageing—more or less successfully. Here is a nice example of there being nothing random in good fiction. The scene could be a self-indulgent opportunity for the author to show how many cool films he knows. Instead, they all relate to the story’s theme; they amplify it. Tony and Joanna quarrel but reconcile and choose to watch The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel  together. In a new chapter, the story’s mostly invisible narrator addresses us: “One always imagines that there will be some sort of serenity at the end. Some sort of serenity. Not just an awful sordid mess of shit and pain and tears. Some sort of serenity. Whatever that might mean. And what that actually might mean becomes problematic up close. Amemuse eterna e non periterna.  That would seem to be sound advice, if serenity is what one is after.” Of course, this passage reflects Tony’s predicament. We see again the use of repetition here. Joanna leaves, and their daughter Cordelia, who is forty-three, arrives. Tony is happy his daughter is there, although he tries to hide it, remaining kind of grumpy and mopish. He finds her studying a photo of he and Joanna and thinks about the emptiness of the marriage and how Cordelia has suffered.   They go out shopping for a new car for Tony, and at lunch, Tony tries to explain some of the insights he’s recently had. “’It’s important,’ he says, struggling to make sense, he can that on her face, ‘to feel part of something larger, something…something permanent. ‘Yeah,’ she says patiently, pouring herself some more water. She doesn’t see the point of this, he thinks. He’s not sure he does either. It seems so elusive, even to him, when he tries to put it into words—or indeed when he doesn’t. ‘I’m not making much sense,’ he apologizes. ‘No, it’s interesting,’ Cordelia says.” “She has started on the ravioli. ‘Is it okay?’ he asks. ‘Lovely,’ she says. And he is very moved, suddenly, by the sight of her. Overwhelmed. She notices his moist-eyed stare and smiles at him.” Tony returns to dark, empty thoughts about mortality. Then, “Cordelia is talking about Simon (her son, the protagonist of the very first story). Normally she talks about him a lot. This week she has made an effort not to. He is aware of that…She is touching on the aspects of her son that strike other people as odd and admitting, unusually, that she worries about them sometimes. He tries to soothe her…I shouldn’t worry, he tells her, putting his hand over hers. She nods. It’s what she wants to hear. Whether it is true or not, who knows. Only time will tell.” They leave the restaurant. The last lines: “The air is frigid, stings the skin of his face. Via Maggiore is fading away in the dusk.” Well, best B, what I make of this is that Tony has been stuck in feeling sorry for himself, and probably will be stuck again, but for this brief moment in a restaurant, he’s pulled out of it into realizing how important his daughter is to him and he to her. He struggles to offer her sage advice but then really does, very simply, consoling her about her maternal cares. He forgets, however briefly, the everyday cares of his life and immerses himself in the eternal cycle of parent and offspring. He comforts her and is comforted. A beautiful story. Let’s stop there and return next time. Till then. #AllThatManIs #DavidSzalay #AlanBray

Hello. We are in the middle of examining the final, untitled story in David Szalay’s collection All That Man Is . Last time, we noted how things begin with the protagonist, a seventy-three-year-old man named Tony, pre-occupied with thoughts of death and the end of his individual existence which seems to make his life lack meaning. As we continue, Tony talks to the cleaning lady and has breakfast. He checks email and reads one from his daughter Cordelia (King Lear fans take note!). We learn that his grandson is Simon, the protagonist of the first story in the collection. It is a year after the time of that story, and Simon is in his first year at Oxford and has had a poem published in “some magazine.” Here we may note again how poetry is a part of Szalay’s prose. This poem is presented in full. It describes the Turkish (Ottoman) ruler Mehmet II holding a rose, a somewhat incongruous act for a man who was a fierce warrior and ruthless monarch. But the poem talks about how Mehmet is smelling the rose and experiencing:   Just a moment’s immersion in the texture of existence   Tony likes the poem. “The words made him think of the way he spent a minute or two, earlier that morning, staring at the wardrobe upstairs. The sense he had then of losing himself in the act of perception.” This picks out the theme of the story, that someone who’s spent their life dealing with power and commerce relationships can learn to “smell the roses.” It’s a nice feature of Mr. Szalay’s prose to present it this way—using a poem written by the protagonist’s grandson. Alternatives might be to present it in dialogue with another character, perhaps combined with inner reactions, or less successfully, in narrative summary, explaining something that can be shown. Mr. Szalay finds a creative option. Then, a crisis. Tony is restless and journeys out to see some nearby historic sites. He has lunch in a café and observes a little girl who is singing a song to herself. It is a song probably designed to teach the young singer the months of the year and consists of their names and a brief description of what occurs during their time. Thus, “In January it snows, February is masked…November, an extra jumper. December, Jesus.” Tony praises the child’s singing. This certainly continues the theme in the story of the passage of time. Leaving, he has a serious car accident, caused by his misjudgment. Perhaps, this brush with death is transformative. Brushes with death often are, best B. Immediately after the accident, we have a new chapter, very short, presenting a Latin phrase: Amemus eterna e non peritura. Let us love that which is eternal and not what is transient. This is an inscription Tony saw on the ruins he visited. It certainly resonates with the story’s theme. Tony is seriously injured in the crash but recovers. His condition and limited awareness after being in a coma forces him to “lose himself” in the act of perception. Here, he’s lying in the hospital bed. “The door had a panel of frosted glass in it, and figures slide across it sometimes, dark smudges, animating the facets of the panel for a moment.” His wife Joanna visits him, and we learn that the couple is estranged. More on this to come. Tony sees his injured face in the hospital mirror and muses: “So what is eternal? (thinking of the Latin inscription) Nothing, that’s the problem. Nothing on earth. Not the earth itself. Not the sun. Not the stars in the night sky. Everything has an end. Everything. We know that now.” Please note here the structure of the lines, separated as they are, and the repetition (noted last time) of the phrases beginning with “Not.” These poetic devices certainly draw attention to Tony’s inner feelings, a sort of bleakness in which he seems to accept his own mortality amid the persistence of the sensory world. But he tries to find the eternal and isn't done. Is this the transformation? Part of it, I think but there will be more. Thus far, we see Tony feeling he doesn't know what's eternal, that perhaps his death will be the death of everything. A lack of transcendence, as it were. Let’s stop there and plan to tackle the end next time. Till then. #AllThatManIs #DavidSzalay #AlanBray

Hello, we’re back! Today, we’ll examine the final (ninth of nine) story in David Szalay’s book, All That Man Is . To begin this one, there is no title, but we have an epigraph:   Time will say nothing but I told you so, Time only knows the price we have to pay; If I could tell you I would let you know.   This is the beginning of W.H. Auden’s 1940 poem, If I Could Tell You. We’ve noted how Mr. Szalay seems to appreciate the poet Philip Larkin and weave Larkin’s style into his prose. Here we have further evidence of Mr. Szalays’s appreciation of poetry and its expressiveness. Let’s say more about this when we’re farther along. I’m guessing that if you’re not familiar with the story or the poem, this epigraph is mysterious. It refers to the experience of time and age as being difficult to communicate. There is always more time till there isn’t, and at that point of death, a human can’t communicate her/his subjective experience. Here’s the story’s first line: “The next morning he needs to do the shopping.” For those of us keeping track, this opening raises the question, most obviously, who is “he?” Why does he need to do the shopping? This story is about an Englishman, Tony, seventy-three, who has gone from London to stay at a vacation home he and his wife own in Italy. He’s alone—for reasons that will be revealed, and so must do his own shopping. We’ve noted before that each story in this collection has to do with men at different points in their lives, men who are experiencing an emotional crisis over what is truly meaningful. And we must note that this is the final story and that Tony is the oldest subject. As we’ve discussed before, we humans have different experiences of time. There is chronological time, the thing we measure in minutes, days, and years. We say and/or think: It’s gonna take three hours to get where I’m going! And there is experiential time, which is what meaning we make of our perception of chronologic time. Three hours of my precious life! Wasted. The stories in All That Man Is  have to do with experiential time. The first story we looked at, the one about Simon (who will appear in this last one) is about someone making meaning out of being seventeen, that it is an age for adventure and excitement. Last time, we examined Karel, who at thirty apparently concludes it’s time to settle down. Let’s look at Tony’s story. “He arrived last night at Bologna airport…The taxi through the wintry darkness to the house. The house was cold. Entropic forces were gnawing at it. There were mouse droppings on the floor.” Here, we are reassured by the persistence of the author’s style—the short sentences and fragments that impart a jagged choppiness to the story. For a contrast, please read Marcel Proust who writes very long sentences with many clauses and consider what a difference this makes in terms of tone. “He thinks about death quite a lot now. It is hard not to think about it. Obviously, he doesn’t have that much time left. Ten years? In ten years he will be eighty-three. “It still seems incredible to him that he is actually going to die. That this is just going to stop. This. Him. It still seems like something that happens to other people. “There is something very strange about trying to imagine the world without him. The strangeness, he thinks, is to do with the fact that the only world he knows is the one he perceives himself—and that world will die with him…It is the ending of the stream of perception that seems so strange. So unimaginable.” So, Tony is contemplating his demise and finds that it makes his life somewhat disappointing. He fears the fact that the life that he’s cherished so much will end, renders it unimportant. Let’s remind ourselves that, in terms of story structure, this is Tony’s state at the beginning, before any transformation. He worries that his life is meaningless. This scene continues with Tony hearing the cleaning lady arrive. He interacts with her briefly while fixing breakfast and thinks about how she lives with her son and that he sometimes gives her a ride home. “Her son must be thirty. A handsome man. He has met him a few times…” And this introduces a feature of the story that will be developed as we continue, although I don’t think Tony’s noticing handsome men is the story’s “point.” Let’s pick things up next time. Till then. #AllThatManIs #DavidSzalay #AlanBray

Last time, we left off studying the fourth, unnamed story in David Szalay’s All That Man Is , a tale of a man in his early thirties, an English graduate student who is involved in a love affair with a woman named Waleria. The protagonist (whose name is Karel—I forgot that he was named last time) is delivering an expensive, leased car to a man in Poland, a man who happens to be Valeria’s father, and plans to meet Valeria and spend a few days with her at a German resort. We saw how Karel is shown as being caught up in his career as an academic and also relentlessly focused on the present with all its sensuous delights—including Waleria, who, however, warns him that he needs to settle down. (A nice touch of foreshadowing). Karel parks at the airport where he plans to meet Valeria. “He finds a space. And then it happens. There is a loud ugly metallic noise that for a moment he does not understand. The he does and his heart stops. When it starts again, he is sweating heavily.” Of course, he has had what we Americans would call a “fender-bender,” but to him, supposedly delivering a car he does not own, it is a catastrophe. He dreads presenting the problem to Waleria’s father, who happens to be a policeman. He meets Waleria inside, and tells her about the accident, saying he hopes her father won’t be too angry. She seems anxious but is supportive, then says, ‘There’s something I need to tell you, Karel.’ “… The number of things she might have to tell him shrinks, as the silence extends, until there are only one or two left. … She is either about to end their little affair…or ‘You’re pregnant,’ he says… He hopes she will immediately negative this. Instead, the silence just prolongs further. … ‘Are you?’ he asks. Those moments when everything changes. How many in a life? Not more than a few. Here, now, the moment. On this rainswept German motorway. Here and now.” So, we have a touch of dramatic irony in this plot twist. Karel mars the perfection of the luxury vehicle he’s been driving, just as the perfection of his care-free affair with Waleria is about to be damaged by the reality of her being pregnant. It is of interest that Karel has had it in the back of his mind that Waleria either might end their affair or be pregnant. It has occurred to him. In any case, his life changes. “That’s shit.” is his unfortunate, initial response to Waleria’s confirmation of her pregnancy, and she begins crying. We have fairly classic story structure here, folks. A protagonist, enjoying the heck out of his carefree, single life runs into a “scrape.” His girlfriend is pregnant. Next we would expect he would attempt to avoid responsibility but experience complications. Let’s see. Waleria becomes quite upset at his pronouncement and demands that Karel let her out of the car. He does so and eventually finds her walking. She is angry and says she wants to get away from him. “It has been his assumption, from the first moment, that there will be an abortion, that that is what she wants as well. “Now he starts to see, as if it is something still far away, that that may not be so.” “In a sense, this is the true moment of shock. “He fights off a splurge of panic.” They resume their journey to the resort, driving in silence. “Then she said, ‘You don’t understand.’ “Sliding across a mysterious foggy junction, he said, ‘What don’t I understand?’ “That I love you,’ she said drily.” “ Well, she would say that , he thought. Wouldn’t she . Still his hands took a firmer hold on the wheel.” Why are the above thoughts in italics when others are not? I don’t know, my friend. I don’t know. This section is in past tense, because the scene occurs in the past and shows what occurred during their drive to the resort. At the resort, in present tense, “Sex happens, surprisingly…This time, however, he makes no effort to please her. He wants her to dislike him. if she decides she dislikes him, he thinks, she may decide that she does not want this pregnancy.” “And when she is in tears afterwards, he sits on the toilet with his head in his hands.” It is difficult to regard Karel’s character as positive here. Troubled, yes, but kind of a jerk. Karel works to convince Waleria to get an abortion, rationalizing it as being good for her, as she has a successful career as a TV journalist that she wouldn’t want to interrupt. She agrees. “It is like waking up from a nightmare, to find your life still there, as you left it…in fact, there is a trace of sadness now, somewhere inside him—a sort of vapour trail of sadness on the otherwise blue sky of his mind.” This is an interesting comment, showing that Karel isn’t one-dimensional. Of course, Waleria’s hesitant agreement to getting an abortion doesn’t last. Karel desperately tries to re-convince her, repeating all the arguments he’d already presented, but she is adamant. “‘It’s all true what you’re saying,’ she says… ‘And none of it makes any difference. I just can’t.’ “Do you understand?’ she wants to know, in a whisper. “‘No,’ he says. It is not quite true. Not quite. More humanity in Karel. Hurrah! “The situation, anyway, is simpler than he thought. It was always very simple. The last two days have been a sort of illusion. There was always only one possible outcome. He sees that now. “‘Now what?’ he says finally. What he means is: Where does this leave us? Where does this leave our two lives? … He finds it hard to imagine anything. The future, again, seems no longer to be there. “‘Let’s go for a walk,’ she says. “‘Where?’ Having lifted his head, he is looking at the elegantly minimalist room as if he does not know where he is. “‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘Wherever. Why don’t you put some trousers on?’ “Docilely, he does.   “They leave the hotel and start to walk…Traffic sometimes whizzes past. Sometimes there is silence. Sometimes there are trees, or from somewhere the smell of cut grass. It is five kilometers to Konigstein, the sign says. They do not stop…The light will last for hours. They have time to walk it, if they want to.” The text is pretty open, leaving room for other interpretations, however, in keeping with the theme of the book, I believe we have her a beautiful depiction of Karel accepting fatherhood. He struggles hard, pushing for a solution that will allow him to continue his “young man” lifestyle. But in the end “docilely” puts on his trousers, a sign perhaps of not only going along with what Waleria wants but also assuming manly garb. If you will allow me, he “girds his loins” for the next stage of his life as a father. Fathers frequently must wear clothing, best B. A father can’t go around in his knickers. Karel looks around the hotel room longingly, knowing that everything will change. There is no more mention of the “fenderbender” because it’s not necessary to tie up a minor detail. Let’s stop there. Next time, we’ll examine the final story in this collection, a story of a man near the end of his life. Till then. #AllThatManIs #DavidSzalay #AlanBray