Thoughts on David Szalay's _Flesh_

A protagonist without an internal monologue.

published 1/28/2026

layfiction

I finally finished Flesh! I quite like that we chose this book. This book club focuses on masculinity and male identity, and this was the third book for this club. The first 2 books’ protagonists were of pretty highly educated men in general, professional careers, and those male protagonists were quite in their own heads a lot, analyzing and worrying about stuff and a lot of the problems are enmeshed with that tendency to worry. This book’s protagonist is in some ways the opposite, probably physically very hot, more comfortable in his own body, but doesn’t reflect a lot, doesn’t examine their beliefs, and goes with the flow, has issues communicating their feelings in words, let alone have a good capacity for empathy, so the problems he faces are enmeshed with this. More people I’m around are more like that than the former kind, hence I was glad we read a book like this.