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| David Szalay TimDuncan, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons |
David Szalay' sixth novel, Flesh, which won the 2025 Booker Prize, is a profound and unflinching examination of contemporary male anxiety, midlife existential dread, and the profound decay of a long-term marriage, all set against the vivid, disorienting backdrop of the Far East.
The novel shares the sharp, minimalist prose and deeply resonant thematic focus on human corporeality, mortality, and the search for authentic connection that defines his celebrated work.
The novel adheres closely to the classical structure of a midlife crisis narrative but elevates it through Szalay’s unflinching gaze and focus on the sheer physicality of existence. It is, at its core, a story about a man who feels himself dissolving into his surroundings and attempts to re-anchor himself through visceral, often desperate, sensory experiences.
Part I: The Exhaustion of Existence (Paul’s London Life)
The protagonist is Paul, a man in his late forties whose life has calcified into a comfortable, yet crushing, routine. He is a documentary filmmaker, though his professional life has stalled into a stagnant period of waiting and minor projects that fail to ignite any passion. Crucially, Paul is defined by his exhaustion—a deep, pervasive mental and physical fatigue that seems to stem not just from overwork but from an overwhelming awareness of his own aging and finitude.
Paul's marriage to Marie is the primary setting for his discontent. They have been together for years, and their relationship has reached a point of strained silence and passive-aggressive coexistence, devoid of genuine intimacy or shared purpose. They occupy the same space but live separate, parallel emotional lives.
Szalay brilliantly captures the atmosphere of a relationship that is neither overtly hostile nor loving—it is simply finished, yet neither partner possesses the cruelty or decisiveness required to end it. Paul observes his own body and the body of his wife with a detached, critical eye, seeing them less as vessels of pleasure or connection and more as biological structures slowly succumbing to entropy. This acute awareness of flesh—its inevitable decline, its fragility, and its persistent, messy demands—is the novel's central motif.
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| David Szalay TimDuncan, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons |
Part II: The Catalyst—The Far East
The plot is set into motion when Marie accepts a short-term but professionally demanding job opportunity in Asia, specifically involving extensive travel across Hong Kong, Singapore, and Thailand. Paul, seeking a desperate change of scenery and perhaps a final, futile attempt to revitalize his marriage or himself, tags along.
This journey acts as a geographic and psychological escape valve, pushing Paul out of the structured, temperate dullness of London and into environments defined by intense, unremitting heat, humidity, and cultural chaos.
The change in environment is initially exciting but quickly becomes a source of extreme disorientation and internal pressure. Szalay uses the setting—the suffocating heat of crowded streets, the impersonal luxury of air-conditioned hotels, the hyper-consumerism of Hong Kong, and the transactional seediness of Thailand—as a mirror for Paul’s own internal state.
The physical world becomes aggressive and demanding. Paul feels the oppressive weight of the atmosphere, the stickiness of his skin, and the general bodily discomfort, which forces his existential crisis into the forefront of his consciousness. He becomes intensely aware of his position as a rich, aging Western tourist, a transient ghost observing but not participating in the vibrant, often precarious, lives unfolding around him.
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| David Szalay TimDuncan, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons |
Part III: The Pursuit of the Visceral
As their marriage continues to unravel—symbolized by Marie becoming totally absorbed in her work and retreating further from Paul—Paul begins a destructive, yet psychologically necessary, quest for genuine sensory experience.
If his life in London was a cerebral, passionless existence, his time in Asia becomes a desperate attempt to feel alive, to feel something other than tired dread. This pursuit manifests almost entirely through sex.
Paul engages in a series of calculatedly meaningless encounters with sex workers. These moments are meticulously detailed, not for titillation, but for their depressing clarity. Szalay strips these encounters of any romantic or even conventionally erotic charge; they are purely transactional exchanges, providing Paul with a fleeting sense of power and a momentary, raw connection to the physical world—to flesh—that his marriage can no longer provide.
These acts of infidelity are not liberating. Instead, they plunge Paul into deeper shame and self-loathing, highlighting the profound loneliness he is trying to escape. In one significant sequence, Paul finds himself involved with a young woman in Thailand, an encounter that briefly promises something more than pure transaction but ultimately collapses under the weight of their cultural chasm and Paul's own emotional paralysis. He uses his body to deny the awareness of his impending decay, but the denial is only temporary.
Part IV: Confronting Marie and The Ambiguous End
The accumulated weight of Paul’s dissatisfaction and infidelity eventually breaks the surface of the marriage. Marie, who had been burying herself in work, is forced to confront the wreckage. Szalay avoids a dramatic explosion; instead, the confrontation is muted, devastatingly sad, and conducted with a weary resignation that speaks volumes about the depth of their marital erosion.
They talk around the core issue, circling the infidelity, the unhappiness, and the mutual sense of failure. The lack of genuine fight is perhaps the final proof that their relationship has died.
The novel does not offer a clear resolution. Paul does not achieve enlightenment, nor does he necessarily choose a definitive path forward. Instead, the book concludes with a sense of ambiguous exhaustion. Paul has chased sensation to the limits of his shame, and while he is momentarily shaken out of his London routine, he remains fundamentally the same man: conscious of mortality, alienated, and deeply lonely.
The journey has acted as a diagnostic tool, revealing the terminal nature of his marriage and his psychological crisis, but it has not provided the cure.
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| David Szalay TimDuncan, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons |
Thematic Resonance: Mortality and the Modern Man
Flesh is a masterclass in thematic compression. The novel’s title is key, linking Paul's psychological state to the biological reality of the body. Themes explored include:
Corporeality and Decay: The constant exposure to heat, illness, sweat, and sex emphasizes the body as a vulnerable, finite object rather than an instrument of will or desire. Paul’s self-awareness of his own aging body is the true antagonist.
Alienation and Consumerism: The Far East settings—especially the globalized, sterile zones of airports and five-star hotels—highlight Paul’s total alienation, both from the local cultures and from his own life. The transactional sex mirrors the cold consumerism of modern life, reducing human connection to a purchasable commodity.
The Crisis of Masculinity: Paul represents the modern, post-achievement man: professionally stalled, emotionally impotent, and unable to perform the traditional roles of husband or protector. His crisis is one of purpose in a world that no longer clearly defines him.
By the time Paul returns home (or contemplates his return), the physical journey has ended, but the existential journey remains open-ended. Flesh is a powerful, melancholic novel that uses a travel narrative to explore the interior landscape of a man grappling with the harsh, humbling realities of his own biology and his failure to sustain a meaningful life.
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