
The Man Who Saw Everything
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Buy Now for £12.99
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Narrated by:
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George Blagden
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By:
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Deborah Levy
About this listen
***LONGLISTED FOR THE BOOKER PRIZE 2019***
Brought to you by Penguin.
Electrifying and audacious, an unmissable new novel about old and new Europe, old and new love, from the twice-Man Booker-shortlisted author of Hot Milk and Swimming Home
'The man who had nearly run me over had touched my hair, as if he were touching a statue or something without a heartbeat...'
In 1988 Saul Adler (a narcissistic, young historian) is hit by a car on the Abbey Road. He is apparently fine; he gets up and goes to see his art student girlfriend, Jennifer Moreau. They have sex then break up, but not before she has photographed Saul crossing the same Abbey Road.
Saul leaves to study in communist East Berlin, two months before the Wall comes down. There he will encounter - significantly - both his assigned translator and his translator's sister, who swears she has seen a jaguar prowling the city. He will fall in love and brood upon his difficult, authoritarian father. And he will befriend a hippy, Rainer, who may or may not be a Stasi agent, but will certainly return to haunt him in middle age.
Slipping slyly between time zones and leaving a spiralling trail, Deborah Levy's electrifying The Man Who Saw Everything examines what we see and what we fail to see, the grave crime of carelessness, the weight of history and our ruinous attempts to shrug it off.
'Levy writes on the high wire, unfalteringly' Marina Warner
This is a beautifully written story, one that ranks in the top twenty of my favourites. It gets confusing near the end, possibly reflecting Adler's morphine induced confusion, but that slightly detracted, hence four rather than five stars.
A very emotional listen
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Twisting, unfolding, lust and illusions.
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Highly recommended
Wonderful story
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Discombobulating, but that's purposeful
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Beautiful exploration of the non-linearity of time
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Perhaps its poetry is lost on me, but the characters lack depth and often are clichés. All the flashbacks and each protagonist observing each other would have been interesting if it wasn’t this heavy handed.
Don’t bother!
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Don’t bother with this.
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Messy and pompous
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Apparently it is a masterpiece and I did enjoy the language beauty and flow. Great narration but can’t say at all what it was about.
Too clever for my simple intellect!
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Dull story, dull voice
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