The book follows Saul Adler over 3 decades of his life from beautiful young bisexual man in the late 80's to paunchy middle age in the present day, jumping backwards and forwards in time. after he is knocked down on the famous Abbey Road zebra crossing. This book felt like style over substance for me. I didn't like it and I'm not sure my perservernce was worth it. None of the characters behaved in a rational way, nor were they likeable, no one questioned things or behaved towards one another in a coherent way. The narrative and plot were. like "Luna", one of the characters (short for lunatic) , all a bit crazy. As the plot develops you can see why everything feels a bit off and disjointed (and I won't say how as I don't want to spoiler) but it still didn't make things pay off for me. Saul, sleeps with anyone at the drop of a hat and at the most inappropriate junctions with seemingly no feelings of remorse , the comment that Saul "doesn't care for his own life so has no care for the lives of others" doesn't really explain it. It all seems dreamy and meandering (this is explained later) and the puzzle pieces start to fit) but it felt like a bad 1970's free love "trip"novel. I feel it was an experiment in writing that had a good premise but hasn't quite worked. Still, it is on the Booker long list and the Guardian have just given it a long stellar review.

I received an ARC of this novel in exchange for an honest review. Thank you to NetGalley, Penguin Books, and the author Deborah Levy.
The pervasive feeling of this novel is one of confusion. Our narrator, Saul, is a self-obsessed, questioning, and unreliable narrator, and you are never really sure of what is real and what is imagined.
However, the novel is engaging and intriguing, in a new style which I enjoyed. An experience for sure. 3.5 stars rounded up.

The Man Who Saw Everything is a novel about the fluidity of time and the imperfection of memory. It spans three decades, from 1988 to 2016 (precisely, the date Britain voted to leave the European Union). As a young man, in 1988, the protagonist Saul Adler gets hit by a car on the Abbey Road in London, and then travels to the German Democratic Republic while the Berlin Wall is still up. The first half of the book has a dreamlike quality, the reason for which eventually becomes clear (and which is impossible to divulge in a review without spoilers). The eccentricity of the book's characters is striking, as its meditations on borders, the lenses through which we view the world (framed by physical cameras and unreliable narrators, for example) and pivotal moments of historic change.

I read this book in the context of an overview of the Booker shortlist and have to admit I may not have finished it otherwise. Levy is a brilliant writer and I love her characters, descriptions and sense of place but I have to admit I found the structure confusing and felt the explanation, when it arrived was too late for comfort

"The Man who saw Everything" begins in 1988 as Saul Adler, a historian of the Iron Curtain, is hit by a car while crossing Abbey Road. Saul emerges with only a few cuts and bruises but something is off - why, for example, does the driver seem to have a smart phone? Levy's novel moves from 1980s London to East Berlin a year before the fall of the Berlin Wall and back to England post-Brexit vote. All these worlds are vividly realized and I could picture perfectly the places Levy describes. I love Levy's prose which carries you along on its rhythms creating a wry dreamy atmosphere which seems to be slightly at an angle with reality. "The Man who saw Everything" is a moving portrait of a flawed man and the currents of history which flow through him.

Thanks to NetGalley and the published for this ARC.

This is not a book for the faint of heart, and is definitely not a beach read - it takes a lot of concentration to keep track of the meandering narrative and figure out which parts of the story you can trust. Because of this, it is an intriguing read. Short and sweet, the narrative sweeps you up and refuses to let you go. Elements of magical realism are entwined with historical fiction to tell the story of Saul, seemingly the 'man' from the title, although it becomes increasingly apparent that he does not see everything at all. It's also a much needed story of bisexuality in a time and place where such a thing was not accepted, and the fact that the character's sexuality is almost incidental to the plot is refreshing and timely. Having never read any of Levy's other works I didn't know what to expect, but this was a pleasant surprise.

What a strange and unsettling book, constantly playing with the reader and the notion of different viewpoints, the lies we tell ourselves and how our bad behaviour impacts on others.

Definitely a worthy contender on the 2109 Booker Long List.

Particularly interesting was the telling of the story from the viewpoint of a man who was so beautiful it coloured people's reactions to him and how age reduces beauty, a perspective often used on women. How the death of a mother destroyed a family. How love can be so one sided.

For me the most interesting character was Jennifer, the mother of his child, the internationally regarded photographer. The woman who walks away from his beauty recognising his narcissism and that she will only every possess part of him through her photographs. That he lacks integrity.

This novel did intrigue and impress me. Deborah Levy is an amazing writer, however at times it felt a little experimental and mechanistic, I was never really moved by it. Will I read this again ? No, but I will certainly suggest it as a novel worth reading.

Bloody brilliant. It is at time claustrophobic but you feel yourself being swept along with the narrative. It is a joyous read.

This is an intriguing book. I think knowing less about the actual content is probably the best way to go into it. However, if you want something plot driven and propulsive this probably isn't the book for you.

There is a lot of space for interpretation in the text and someone with a good level of knowledge about the GDR and those times might get more out of it than I did.

I think it's probably a 3.5 star read for me, rounded up as I'm impressed with the concept, but less impressed with the execution.

Thank you to #netgalley for the advanced copy in exchange for an honest review.

This book starts off fragmented and hallucinatory until suddenly pulling back about half way through to reframe everything that you've read up until that point.

I thought this was a brilliantly written and fascinating book and it would be a very deserving winner of the Booker!

‘A light breeze blew into the GDR, but I knew it came from America. A wind from another time. It brought with it the salt scent of seaweed and oysters. And wool. A child’s knitted blanket. Folded over the back of a chair. Time and place all mixed up. Now. Then. There. Here.’

Longlisted for this year’s Booker Prize, Deborah Levy’s new novel is a stunning, challenging meditation on memory and versions of history. The central character, Saul Adler, is wonderfully unlikeable: vain and self-centred, he is a university historian with a focus on Eastern European Communism. The book opens in 1988 when Saul is hit by a car as he is crossing Abbey Road, prior to re-creating the famous Beatles’ album cover when he is photographed by his girlfriend, Jennifer Moreau. Shortly after, he proposes to her, she rejects him, and as he sets off for a research trip to East Berlin things start to get distinctly odd.

From the outset the clues that something strange is happening are there for the reader: his version of the accident differs from the man driving the car; his recreation of the Beatles’ cover is slightly wrong; he sees his landlady, crippled with arthritis, walking at a brisk pace to the shops…

In the GDR Saul meets Walter and falls in love, then meets and beds Walter’s sister Luna. He has brought a matchbox filled with some of his father’s ashes to spread somewhere in Germany. He is constantly worried that he forgot to bring a tin of pineapples with him, a precious luxury for those in the communist east. As events unfold, he has a persistent headache, and worries that he is being spied on by the Stasi. Returning to the UK, he has left a trail of problems behind him. Then, suddenly, we are fast-forwarded to July 2016, and Saul Adler is hit by a car as he is crossing Abbey Road….

Over the second half of the book our grasp of what is real and what is imagined gets looser and looser. What is the truth? As Saul lies in his hospital bed, visited by a stream of people from his past and present, events are replayed, memories are challenged. Mirrors fracture, identities too. Old Europe and New Europe play under the surface of the novel, too, as historian Saul bridges the span of time between the two, re-writing and being a witness to a wider history.

Deborah Levy has an extraordinary craft, and has created a novel that will challenge the reader, facing them with conflicting realities and a truth that remains resolutely elusive. She has a poet’s voice, creating sentences that just catch your breath. And her characters are brilliantly created, and even though Saul is really quite unlikeable, you just find yourself kind of rooting for him. As the story unravels in the second part at its heart is a sadness, but also some memories of happiness and companionship. I fully admit to reading the last few pages with tears rolling down my cheeks, so moving was the conclusion. This is a joy: a literary novel that is worthy of being called a great novel. It may not win the Booker, but it deserves to.

(With thanks to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC of this title).

Beautifully written this book really touched me. At times I felt I was living this story. At other times slightly confused about which timeline I was reading but I think confusion goes with this book. I wasn’t ready for it to end, I just wanted to read on and on. This is a book I know I’ll read again and again and each time I just know I’ll find something I’ve missed.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publishers for the ARC in return for an honest and unbiased opinion. And thanks to the author for an amazing book.

This is a delightful puzzle of a book, beautifully written and styled to make you think about what really makes a person and how one’s experience or recall of it might be very different from others who were also there.

It is a long meditation on the life and experiences of saul adler, from his youth through to what seems to be his ending, Mostly it makes me think of Kierkegaard and his belief that life can only be lived forwards, but only understood backwards.

Through the thoughts, memories and meanderings of Saul Adler and the reactions of his many visitors we are taken from late 80s London, through Eastern Berlin before the wall fell, and back to London and the Brexit vote.

Saul is a character it’s hard to feel sympathy for and there is much sardonic humour about his lack of self-awareness and the alternative view of events from other characters, but ultimately you are left intrigued by the whole story and it’s moving conclusion.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read an early copy in return for an honest review.

If you want a novel that really messes with your head and has the most unreliable narrator ever: buy this book. It is very shrewd; a challenging read told with subtly, humour and downright cleverness. It is beautifully written, evocative and cerebral. I loved it and I think it needs to be read more than once.

The story begins in 1988 and centres on Saul the beautiful, rather than handsome, historian; son of a recently deceased, overbearing, socialist father and boyfriend of the enigmatic photographer, Jennifer. Saul is about to travel to East Germany to research the cultural opposition to the rise of fascism in the 1930s and the benefits of living in a socialist republic. On his way to his girlfriend’s flat he is struck by a car on the famous Abbey Road zebra crossing and has a slightly bizarre conversation with the driver of the car. Jennifer ends their relationship and during his visit to East Germany, Saul has more than one relationship. This all seems quite straightforward, (although, how does Saul know that the Berlin Wall is going to come down in 1989?), but then the narrative shifts to 2016 when Saul wakes up (or does he?) in hospital after, again, being struck by a car on the Abbey Road crossing. He is surrounded by his ‘dead’ father, his brother, Jennifer and the people he met in East Germany.

The reader has to decide which reality is real. Is Saul lying in a hospital bed recalling events in East Germany? Did they really take place or are they all in Saul’s imagination? Is Saul actually still alive? Are realities crossing in time? Intriguing, puzzling and downright perplexing. There is an awful lot to consider in this amazing book.

Thank you to NetGalley and Penguin Books for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

As you read this book -which begins by narrating the story of Saul Adler, a historian who after a break up with his girlfriend is spending time researching in a divided Berlin (shortly before the Wall will fall) -there are moments that start to jar and make you aware that all isn’t as it seems. This disconnect between the story as it happened in contemporary time, and the story being told continues right to the end of the book. While many readers may enjoy this puzzle, I found it discomfiting and off-putting though I was involved enough that I did read to the end and came to understand why it was told this way.
I enjoyed some of the characters and their relationships- Saul and Walter particularly- but overall found the splintered and unreliable narrative difficult to engage with. Definitely not a light read- it maybe that a second read would connect more dots for me, but with so many books about, that’s unlikely to happen. As a Man Booker nominee, it will be widely read, and I hope others find it more rewarding than I did.
Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Books UK for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is a complex puzzle of a book that flits back and forward between London and Germany in the 1980s and the present day. Saul Adler is knocked down by a car on the famous Abbey Road crossing in the 1980s and then again in 2016 - but begins to question what and where he is.

I found this to be a book to be admired rather than enjoyed. The prose is precise, almost dull but the ideas and structure are intriguing. The tone is hard to pinpoint and overall it didn't fully convince for me.

I really enjoyed this. If I'm perfectly honest, I'm not entirely sure I understood it all, but that didn't lessen my pleasure in reading it. I found it quite surreal. I assume that this is because we are experiencing the jumbled memories of a man who is extremely ill in hospital. It took me a while to piece things together and at first it read very much like Andrey Kurkov's Death and the Penguin in terms of tone and style, also some content. This is not a criticism by the way, I enjoy Kurkov's writing very much. I found this very absorbing. I was sad when it ended.

This is a difficult book to review. Some will love it - I am unsure what to make of it.
The book starts when Saul is knocked down by a car in 1988. He is only slightly hurt, and well enough to go ahead with a trip to the GDR, ostensibly for research, in the months just before the fall of the Berlin wall. Having been dumped by his girlfriend just before leaving, he embarks on affairs. The book moves rapidly to 2016, where he is again knocked down by a car, but this time he is seriously hurt, ending up in hospital - the book then continues with him going through a series of flashbacks while ill/delirious in hospital. Confused and rather confusing...

I found this very engaging right from the word go. Despite his faults, I liked Saul, even though I could see the hurt he caused. I loved the twist in the middle, then seeing what happened from a completely different perspective. And I liked the fact that the people stuck by Saul even though he was an utter s**t!

This is such a clever book. Though at times the plot was so elusive I couldn't help find it frustrating. I'm sure I missed certain motifs and allusions but on the whole, it was an enjoyable read.

The story begins in 1988. Saul Adler is our protagonist, a handsome 28-year-old historian. On his way to meet his girlfriend Jennifer, he is hit by a car on Abbey Road, but apparently left unscathed. He proposes to Jennifer - instead she breaks up with him. A little glum, Saul travels to Berlin so that he can research a paper about life in the GDR. There he falls for the enigmatic Walter and they begin a brief relationship. He also spends a night with Walter's unhinged sister Luna. Strangely, Saul seems to know the future - for example he can predict that the Berlin Wall will fall in 1989. When the second half of the book begins, it is 2016, and Walter is in a hospital bed, having been struck by a vehicle on Abbey Road. Curiouser and curiouser...

So what is this novel trying to say? I think it's primarily about perception: how we see ourselves and and how other people see us. Saul is a total narcissist and completely unaware of this. The reason Jennifer breaks up with him is because of how self-absorbed he is. It's also a story about memory. Saul's mind has been fractured by his accident, and his recollections from his hospital bed are becoming completely muddled. He sees people from bygone days in his room and mixes up past events. The few friends and family who attend his bedside are saddened by his shattered mental state.

It's a book that impressed me with its style and intellect. But it never really moved me, and I found it hard to care about any of the characters (I guess that's the problem with having such an egocentric narrator). However, it is a fun novel to analyse and decipher, and I will enjoy reading other people's interpretations of it. I think it deserves its place on the Booker longlist, even though it is competing with novels more deserving of the prize.