In many ways, the book felt like it was about what we choose to see, what we cannot face up to, and what we choose to ignore entirely. The most interesting aspect to me was the use of recurring motifs related to sight and the ways we document the world around us – eyes, lenses, photography, and surveillance. It’s incredibly ambitious to tackle so much in such a slight novel, but things never feel rushed the atmosphere one of such entrancing wonder that you are guided along gently – even when things dip into the nonsensical, and err dangerously close to the it-was-all-a-dream trope.

There are lots of interesting ideas to dive into, including commentary on the nature of memory, time, history, politics, gender, sexuality, and identity (both personal and national). We might not always know what she’s doing, but she certainly does repeated clues, patterns, and motifs tying the seemingly disparate threads together with skill.

There’s no denying that Levy is in full control here. Firstly, because much of its success hinges on the delivery of a structural ‘twist’ half-way through the narrative, and secondly, because it offers so few answers in response to its many questions that it’s almost entirely open to interpretation on a thematic level. It’s a book that is difficult to talk about. This was a far more bizarre and disorientating reading experience than I had anticipated, and I concede that I probably wasn’t in the right frame of mind to grant it the attention it demands. The Man Who Saw Everything by Deborah Levy

The man who saw everything deborah levy