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The Man Who Saw Everything
- Narrated by: George Blagden
- Length: 6 hrs and 5 mins
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The Man Who Saw Everything
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Summary
Longlisted for the Booker Prize 2019
Brought to you by Penguin
Electrifying and audacious, an unmissable new novel about old and new Europe, old and new love, from the twice-Man Booker-shortlisted author of Hot Milk and Swimming Home.
'The man who had nearly run me over had touched my hair, as if he were touching a statue or something without a heartbeat....'
In 1989, Saul is hit by a car on the Abbey Rd crossing. He is fine; he gets up and goes to see his girlfriend, Jennifer. They have sex and then break up. He leaves for the GDR, where he will have more sex (with several members of the same family), harvest mushrooms in the rain, bury his dead father in a matchbox, and get on the wrong side of the Stasi.
In 2016, Saul is hit by a car on the Abbey Rd crossing. He is not fine at all; he is rushed to hospital and spends the following days in and out of consciousness, in and out of history. Jennifer is sitting by his bedside. His very-much-not-dead father is sitting by his bedside. Someone important is missing.
Deborah Levy presents an ambitious, playful and totally electrifying novel about what we see and/or fail to see, about carelessness and the harm we do to others, about the weight of history and our ruinous attempts to shrug it off.
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What listeners say about The Man Who Saw Everything
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Miss B. March
- 05-04-22
Twisting, unfolding, lust and illusions.
I couldn't stop listening. I enjoyed the history, the story of a troubled life, his beauty, his innocence, his distance all peppered with stolen lyrics. It's magical and still so real, morphine twisted and photographs in an exhibition.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Sharon Barron
- 31-10-19
A very emotional listen
Saul Adler flits between his time as young historian in London and East Berlin and the present day as he slowly succumbs to his injuries from an RTA. He tells of his loves, his losses and his regrets.
This is a beautifully written story, one that ranks in the top twenty of my favourites. It gets confusing near the end, possibly reflecting Adler's morphine induced confusion, but that slightly detracted, hence four rather than five stars.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Ke Donn
- 29-02-20
Wonderful story
This is such a moving story and absolutely beautifully read. it has a dream.like quality and beautiful descriptions throughout
Highly recommended
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story4 out of 5 stars
- Suzanne G.
- 10-05-22
Discombobulating, but that's purposeful
Of all Deborah Levy's books I've read so far, I think this one works the best in terms of her style. The repeated scenes and dialogue, the jumping around temporally and geographically all suit the situation. The main character is mostly quite selfish, but as a reader I came to at least empathise with him to some degree (except that I couldn't figure out why he treated his father so abysmally). The other characters are typically Levy eccentrics, but again, they are each consistent with their own raison d'etres. Levy holds enough information back to keep us guessing what is really going on in each scene, or even if it is going on somewhere other than Saul's mind. But she also gives enough clues to make the whole endeavour a reasonable portrait of Saul's situation. To say that I "enjoyed" the book seems a bit perverse, but I think I did.
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Overall4 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Olivia Norfolk
- 10-03-20
Beautiful exploration of the non-linearity of time
fast paced, but thought provoking. a beautiful exploration of the non-linearity of time. i highly recommend.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance4 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- H_London90
- 10-10-19
Don’t bother!
Sadly there are fewer books I enjoyed less than this one... It is slow to start then becomes mildly interesting before falling back into utter dullness.
Perhaps its poetry is lost on me, but the characters lack depth and often are clichés. All the flashbacks and each protagonist observing each other would have been interesting if it wasn’t this heavy handed.
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Overall1 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- marj
- 05-11-19
Don’t bother with this.
Confusing and very unsatisfying. Great narrator but that is the only positive. Waste of time.
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1 person found this helpful
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story1 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 15-11-23
Messy and pompous
Can’t recommend. Really messy story, some brilliant writing but overall waste of time and effort. Performance was really good, only good thing about this book.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance2 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Adam
- 24-09-19
Dull story, dull voice
I kept waiting for the story to go somewhere more interesting but it never did. The narration is dull and doesn't draw you in. To be fair to the reader I don't think it's his fault I think it was the only way to read this book.
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Overall2 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story2 out of 5 stars
- Manda N
- 09-01-20
Too clever for my simple intellect!
Oh gosh I tried and just as I thought I understood what was happening; I didn’t. A poetic read that confused me no end. I tried to understand why so many Jaguars, the dual time periods, why people were dead and then weren’t....
Apparently it is a masterpiece and I did enjoy the language beauty and flow. Great narration but can’t say at all what it was about.
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