Saul Adler is in love. His girlfriend, Jennifer Moreau is about to photograph him on the zebra crossing on Abbey Road, in tribute to the famous The Beatles shot. And then he’s hit by a car.

It’s hard to review this book without plot spoilers. The idea of the novel disorients best when the reader doesn’t know the events of 2016, nearly 30 years after first crossing Abbey Road. Our experience of time, love, pain and identity are all explored in the after effects of Saul’s collision. True recognition, foresight, all play tricks on each other and we wander through the novel seeking a sense of coherence Saul himself lacks.

As Saul travels to East Germany under the GDR, the political nature of division falls under the same surreal scrutiny.

Then there is Jennifer Moreau and her photography, her art. It forms a whole that will outlast them all, whatever that might mean.

The Man Who Saw Everything is a compulsive read. In some ways Saul is a repulsively self-obsessed character and yet this self-obsession seems to mirror our own self-centred interpretation of the time we have on earth.

I enjoyed The Man Who Saw Everything. It is elegant, clever, wistful and just a little bit sentimental. If you wonder about the ever changing interpretive nature of your own autobiography, this might be the novel for you. It didn’t hit me the way Hot Milk did, but it’s an impressively complex novel that has already, unsurprisingly, made its way onto the Man Booker long list for 2019.

In 1988 Saul Adler crosses a road and is hit by a car. He has minor injuries (although else seems very alarmed by the state of him) and goes on with his life, being dumped by Jennifer Moreau and then visiting East Berlin.

Even before he gets to Berlin, oddities start appearing on the page. He references future events he can't know yet, smells a breeze from the future, goes on and on (and on) about pineapple. He's hit by a car again many years later, in the exact same spot, and this time his mind splinters. Friends and family visit as Saul visits the distant and recent past, almost learning something about himself on the way.

This book has been Booker prize longlisted since I picked it up. I can see why. The author expertly drops in clues as to what's going on in Adler's addled mind. Saul is convincing as a self-obsessed historian who doesn't understand love. Splinters of truth shift in and out of place.

As I suggested earlier, it's a book about a man who 'almost' learns about himself. At the end, I'm still not quite convinced that he had learned anything by remembering all his failings.

I liked the book, but not as much as I wanted to. I think others will get more out of it, so this is more on me than the actual book itself. I wasn't won over by Saul, and would've preferred to spend more time with the rest of the cast of characters. I wanted to shake him! It also took til about the halfway point to fully pull me into the story.

Clever, multilayered and extremely well written - this book is exactly what I have come to expect from Deborah Levy. I really did want to savour this - but I couldn't and read it over one long train journey.

Of course neither the characters nor the narrative fit neatly anywhere, but that of course is the joy of Levy. Highly Recommended for those who like to work a little harder for their literary pay off, but perhaps as others have commented not the best place to start if you haven't read Levy before!

2.5 rounded up

I'm a massive fan of Deborah Levy's nonfiction but her fiction seems to miss the mark in terms of what I look for in a novel. The Man Who Saw Everything opens with our protagonist, Saul, at Abbey Road, his girlfriend taking a photo of him at the infamous zebra crossing. The story then jumps around between locations and time frames a lot which I found pretty confusing and disorientating for the first 50%. Levy (just about) pulls it off in the end thanks to her deft way with words, but in future I think I'll stick to her nonfiction offerings.

A surreal and clever novel which is sure to be well loved by Levy fans. However it is not, perhaps, the place to start if you are new to the author.

In effect, this is the same story told twice over. Consequently, the reader is prompted to examine how our perception changes with age and the passing of time. I was intrigued by the protagonist - Saul Adler’s - parental relationships, as much as I was his sexual ones; which involve both men and women.

At times, I found it hard to believe that certain characters even existed beyond Saul’s imagination. This only added to the sense of intrigue evoked by the author. This is certainly a book which left me with more questions than it did answers.

This book is a brief and relatively untaxing read, but one which I feel it is likely I will revisit. It’s prose is more like poetry; rich in terms of imagery and metaphor.

I somehow felt disappointed at the end, despite enjoying it so much and feel that this could be because I wasn’t ready to have the window closed on what was unfolding in the lives of the characters.

Very much enjoyed this. Admittedly, the book felt a little bit too neatly drawn together and at times willfully, superficially sombre and worked best as a bit of a romp. That TMWSE hung together at all is a testament to Levy's mastery. Not her best but very few could get away with something this ambitious.

Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Random House for an advance reading copy in exchange for an honest review.

Wow! What an amazing book - totally absorbing and so well written. I'll look out for Deborah Levy in the future..... can't recommend highly enough.

The surveillance state, self reverence, egoism, loyalty- Deborah Levy’s latest novel has plenty to challenge the reader with. Perplexing and intriguing moments abound.

It isn’t as immediate as ‘Hot Milk,’ and isn’t as visceral, but Levy’s prose remains as thought provoking and engrossing as ever.

‘The Man Who Saw Everything’ may not be an obvious choice for a holiday read, but it is as rewarding and invigorating as you will ever find Levy”s writing.

I did not get into ths novel at all because of the way it jumped around. I had to read all the reviews to understand what it was about and to fully appreciate the references. So, yes, it is clever, but I did not like any of the characters and the political references and opinions were too much for me. I skim-read most of it.

The Man Who Saw Everything is one strange novel.

Saul Adler is a history lecturer with a specific interest in East Germany. Prior to a trip to East Berlin he is knocked down while posing for a photograph on the Abbey Road zebra crossing. He seems to be relatively unscathed…

For the first half of the novel, Saul’s story is quite straightforward. He flies off to Berlin (sadly without the tinned apricots he was told to bring), strikes up a friendship with the lecturer who is hosting him, goes off mushrooming in the forest and explores various romantic opportunities.

But in amongst what seems like a straightforward story there are some oddities. For example, Saul seems to anticipate the fall of the Wall – right up to knowing the date and what it might look like. And he seems to have some inkling of the future relationships he will have.

The second half of the novel is just full on weird. This is set in the present day. An older Saul is recovering from a traffic accident and in his fever, he revisits some of the situations from the first half in a different sequence. Some of the characters reappear – but in different roles. It’s a bit Wizard of Oz.

This is all terribly disconcerting and I’m not really sure what Deborah Levy was trying to do with these two narratives. We discover that Saul is quite self-absorbed; we see an emergent East German middle class enjoying a level of luxury that is about to be eclipsed by events. We might be playing around with memory and exploring the idea that one remembered reality is no more or less real than any other.

It’s really difficult to know what to make of it all. It feels well written and the lucid bits capture a sense of time and place very well. On the other hand, there is a feeling that the weird bits might be weirdness for its own sake. Is there any substance behind it?

A couple of weeks now since I finished this and I’m still not quite sure what exactly this was.

I love Deborah Levy's writing. Everything she does is inventive, imaginative and original. The Man Who Saw Everything is an entertaining and challenging novel examining memory and delusion, love and loss, all told with Levy's characteristic precision and economy of style. Recommended.

This was my first Deborah Levy novel (it won’t be my last) and although it is quite short, I found it challenging. At times, it felt detached, great writing but I felt pretty ambivalent about it because I found the main character, Saul Adler incredibly self-absorbed. And then I finished the book in the early hours of the morning and felt very moved by it all. Hence challenging, but in a good way.

In 1988, Jennifer takes a photograph of her boyfriend Saul Adler crossing Abbey Road in the style of The Beatles’ album cover, then breaks up with him. The photograph is a gift for Luna, the daughter of the family Saul will stay with in GDR where he will be working on a research project. While in East Berlin, Saul has an illicit relationship with his translator, Walter and a brief affair with Walter’s sister Luna. In 2016, while crossing Abbey Road, Saul is hit by a car. Waking up in hospital, unsure of where and when he is, Saul drifts in and out of consciousness. As friends and family gather around his hospital bed, the reader is left questioning whether to believe in Saul’s version events. Was he completely oblivious to anything other than himself for most of his life or does he remember events in a certain way in order to protect himself from the pain of loss?

This is a novel about history and memory, about identity and perception, how we see ourselves and experience events and how others see us. The novel asks many more questions than it answers and it would be interesting to read it again after publication.

My thanks to Penguin and Netgalley for the opportunity to read The Man Who Saw Everything.

This is an intriguing book. Saul is the main character and is a vain and narcissistic historian about to embark on a research trip to East Germany just before the fall of the Berlin Wall. He gets hit by a car while crossing the famous Abbey Road zebra crossing and sustains minor injuries. His girlfriend breaks up with him and he cannot understand why, even though it's obviously due to his self absorption. He goes to Berlin and falls for his translator, Walter but also manages to have sex with Walter's sister Luna. However there is something off about Saul's narration of his time in Berlin. He seems to know things that haven't yet happened (eg the fall of the Wall). Back in the present day, Saul is hit again on the Abbey Road and the unreliability of his narration becomes more obvious. Several tragic things have happened which are slowly revealed and the utter selfishness of his character becomes apparent.

It's hard to describe what this book is about or indeed what happens. But it is certainly worth reading.

For those readers who need to be on sure and certain ground in their reading, this latest Deborah Levy novel is not for them. Levy makes few compromises here, she raises many questions and more often than not declines to provide any answers, there are nebulous, fragmented, uncertain and unreliable realities, memories and history. In 1988 a young self obsessed Jewish historian, Saul Adler, is hit by a car on the Abbey Road, the iconic Abbey Road that the Beatles are photographed on the famous cover of their 1969 album. Saul suffers no serious injuries, although his art photographer girlfriend, Jennifer Moreau breaks up with him to head to the US, whilst he takes up a research opportunity in East Germany, the GDR, with the Stasi engaged in state surveillance of its people. Saul is to find love with his translator, Walter Muller, and his sister, Luna, obsessed with trying to escape from Berlin.

In 2016, Saul is once again hit by a car on the famous Abbey Road and taken to hospital where he receives visitors at his bedside. Nothing is as it appears in this novel, where everything is disputed, including perceptions of the self and others, and history, is Saul's father the authoritarian he is portrayed as? Whilst there is surveillance, personal, family and state, what is observed and what is not? Is Saul dead or not? This was an emotionally engaging, wide ranging novel, thought provoking, and challenging, of dichotomies, the past and present, the old Europe and the New, fluid sexuality, Brexit, betrayals, conspiracies, identity and what it is to live a life. Many thanks to Penguin UK for an ARC.

I read this book because it’s slightly out my comfort zone and I need to do that more with my reading!

I’m glad I did and I am definitely adding Deborah Levy to my ‘must read author’ list.

The writing is clever and I enjoyed the setting and how she aligns the narrative with the circumstances.

I was gripped and intrigued by the book and although at points the style became slightly repetitive, it wasn’t enough to put me off and I really enjoyed the read!

We have here an unreliable narrator in Saul Adler, a historian, who’s memories meander in a drug induced haze as he recovers from a car accident in hospital.
He believes he is back in 1989 after a trip to Berlin, and he is twenty-three years old, but his memories were tainted with knowledge from the future. How can he know these things?
Saul has time to reflect and relive past events. He claims to be ‘in pieces’ and finds himself crying at points in the story. Is he crying for his lost youth and his rock-star looks, or is this regret at his actions and the loss of people he loved?
I found Saul to be a selfish character. He felt hard-done-by, but did he only have himself to blame? His redemption might lie in the gaps within the narrative – a whole chunk of 30 years is missing when he wakes in hospital, and as the story unfolds, we learn a version of the truth. He must have done some good, judging by the loyalty of those who gather at his bedside.
Fact and fiction become further confused as his recovery progresses. I was unsure which of his bedside visitations actually occurred, particularly Wolfgang, the driver of the fateful car. This is one of those novels which could benefit from a second reading, to pick up on the subtle clues.
The descriptions of life in Berlin before the wall came down were particularly vivid. Saul manages to bed both Walter, his translator, and Walter’s sister Luna. I felt distraught for Walter at the spilt coffee on his one pair of Levis, which Luna then desperately acquired, even though they had to be pinned as they were too big for her. Luna was tragic in her quest to escape Berlin and her desire to come to England to Liverpool and the Beatles. I thought about how much we take for granted in our own lives – and our freedom to live them as we want.
This is a book which asks questions – what will we remember from our life, and what is really important. Appreciate what you have – friends, time, youth, family.
I loved the style of writing, and would recommend this novel to anyone who wants a thought-provoking read. I now want to inhale ylang-ylang and experience Saul’s intoxication of Jennifer, his photographer artist lover.
Thank you to Penguin Random House and Netgalley for an advanced reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review.

I am ambivalent about how enjoyable or successful I found this novel. The first half went well enough and I was intrigued by the story, noting the seeming anachronisms hinting at something a little bit off about Saul’s narration. About halfway through, when I caught on to what was going on here, my interest began to falter. The structure started to irritate. The juxtaposition of the same events and themes in different settings - authoritarian rule in the family and in the GDR, the sensation of being scrutinised by watchers and cameras - were laid on just a bit too heavy-handedly for my taste and pointed up in case I might have missed them.

‘At the same time, I heard my father’s voice speak to me in the GDR. His Master’s Voice was loud and harsh. That night, I knocked him to the ground and sat astride his chest, my hands around his throat. I keep pressing until he stopped breathing and his regime was over.’

By the very end of the book, when we hear characters speaking in the present time rather than in Saul’s memory, in their own voices, my interest perked up. Two of them, Jennifer and Matt, who had been presented by Saul as unpleasant personalities earlier, came across as more sympathetic people and I hoped to hear more of how their lives had turned out. Not to be, of course, but I like what the author did there.

An interesting read, dominated by its structure rather than its substance, that I’m glad I read but am not sure I would recommend to friends.

I'm a big fan of Deborah Levy's work but this book didn't quite hit the spot for me. It was abstract, and I understood the feelings that she wanted to evoke within the work, but it felt messy at times, or overly deliberate. It lacked an effortlessness that at mind would otherwise wander with, it felt clunky. It was still a short, concise read that I enjoyed, but not something I could return to in the hope of garnering much feeling or emotion from.

After thinking about The Man Who Saw Everything for a few weeks, I now see it as a posthumous fantasy, in the manner of Tim Robbins in the film Jacob's Ladder. It is the only way to explain Saul's prescience about certain future events. To Saul, all of the events of the book are happening simultaneously. The book made more sense to me after that as a meditation on memory, and what Saul's life has been all about. Four stars.

After her widely appreciated last two novels, Swimming Home and Hot Milk, and the fantastic, autobiographical The Cost of Living (a title which would also have fit this novel), Deborah Levy is definitely in a purple patch. The Man Who Saw Everything shifts between Abbey Road and East Berlin, 1988, 2016 and times between, with identities, sexualities and time periods dissolving and reforming as you read. There's a fluidity which is familiar from the previous novels, but Levy adds a sociopolitical thrust without losing her lightness of touch. The end of the Beatles/the optimism of the 1960s is contrasted with the optimism of the end of the GDR/cold war, which is then set against the negativities of Brexit (the one direct reference to which is rather jarring), rather like the old school, British communism of the Saul's (the narrator's) father opposes the realities of the dying GDR. There's a bit of the TV Life on Mars here and a strong comic streak as Saul attempts to recover from his Abbey Road accidents ("I think I had less sex in social democracies than I did in authoritarian regimes"). None of the characters are particularly likeable, except the conflicted Walter Muller perhaps, but that's the point. I grew a bit tired of Saul's references to his cheekbones, for example, but they captured his self-obsession at least as well as his girlfriend, Jennifer's photographs.

Who is the 'man' of the title? Saul is the obvious candidate but his observational skills seem partial at best and it is telling that he claims at one point that Walter "saw everything there was to see in me". As Jennifer tells him, "It's like this, Saul Adler, the main subject is not always you". This underlines the fact that the novel plays with the notions of subjects, identities and everythings. This makes it a great novel, a state of the nation novel that undermines the notions of nations, states and their histories, and should be widely read. I am grateful for the opportunity to have had an advance copy.