Overview
My rating: 3/5 stars
Published: 6th April 2017
Genre: Fiction, Contemporary, Short Stories
Review
Where to begin.
‘All That Man Is’ is not my usual choice of book. It was chosen as the months read by the book club I have started to attend.
Before beginning the book I read a review that suggested the book would be best appreciated by man and I understand why.
The book is made up of 9 short stories. 9 different men each set in a different area of Europe. The 9 men are all at different stages as their lives.
The author is genius in the way he has written this book. The travellers in the 1st story are 17 years young. The narrative and story line behind this is very annoying and appears to be poorly written. As the men in the stories become older the content of the book becomes more interesting. It is as if the author matures in writing as the men in the stories age and mature. I definitely found the last few stories more interesting.
At the beginning of the novel I was extremely frustrated by the way in which the women are perceived in this book. It appears all women are simple, boring and sexualised a lot in the first couple of stories. In the first couple of stories the men are getting their satisfaction and there is prostitution. The author refers to a few of the women in the novel as ‘fat’ and ‘unattractive’ but he is also very clever to not to focus on the physical appearance of “good-looking” women. When there is an attractive women in one of the stories he describes them using one word “wow. Wow.” I do like that he doesn’t describe what makes an unattractive women or an attractive women and leaves that for the readers interpretation.
I didn’t really enjoy the stories themselves but I do appreciate the skill and thought that has be used when writing this book. This is why I gave this book 3 stars. Based on the stories alone my rating would have been 2 stars.
Wonderland Books 