The Man Who Saw Everything

Deborah Levy's eighth novel was longlisted for the 2019 Booker Prize. It is 1988, not long before the fall of the Berlin Wall, and Saul Adler, a young historian, is about to travel to East Berlin to do research on cultural opposition to the rise of fascism in the 1930s. He has asked his photographer girlfriend, Jennifer, to take a photograph of him standing in the zebra crossing on the famous Abbey Road crosswalk as a gift for his host's daughter who is an avid Beatles fan. While waiting for Jennifer to arrive he is struck by a car and sustains minor injuries. Before he leaves for Germany Saul asks Jennifer to marry him and she abruptly breaks off their relationship. While in East Berlin Saul falls in love with his translator, Walter Muller, and also becomes sexually involved with Walter's mentally unbalanced sister, Luna who is desperate to leave the GDR for freedom in the west.

In the second part of the novel Saul is in hospital in London in 2016, apparently having been struck once again by a car in the Abbey Road crossing. He has been in a coma, had surgery, has sepsis and is drifting in and out of a morphine haze. He is trying to piece together what really happened between him and Jennifer and what he experienced in Berlin. He is gravely ill and we realize that we are witnessing Saul's shattered and unreliable memories. Certain images reappear and provide some hints: a tin of pineapple, a pearl necklace, a toy train, Penny Lane and a jaguar.  There are also a few subtle but obvious anachronisms that clue us in.  "Time and place all mixed up. Now. Then. There. Here.”

What did I just read?  The circular timelines challenge the reader's perception and, in other hands, it might be a difficult read but Levy makes it work. This is one of the most thought-provoking, haunting and enjoyable books I have read in 2020. 

My other reviews of books by Deborah Levy: Swimming Home, Hot Milk, The Cost Of Living and Black Vodka (I liked all of them)