The distant life of a security guard who has won the Booker prize

BarcelonaThere is no more effective way to define István, the protagonist of the novel Carn (Amsterdam / Feltrinelli) by David Szalay (Montreal, 1974), than to say that he is a man of few words. And, against all odds, this laconic and silent man seduced the jury of the Booker Prize, one of the most prestigious literary awards in the world, a year ago with a story of desire, deep-seated trauma, power, and violence. Carn, which has just arrived in bookstores translated by Esther Roig, speaks about how circumstances transform people and portrays a fragile masculinity that protects itself behind a shell of coldness and distance. This is the first of Szalay's novels to be translated and the sixth by the writer, who had already been a finalist for the Booker Prize with All that man is (2016).

István's story is explained, from the start, based on a disturbing experience he lived through as a teenager in 1990s Hungary. He is just discovering his sexuality when one day, a much older neighbor he helps at home seduces him and kisses him. From a consent that is not really consent –István is a minor–, both begin an increasingly intense relationship that shifts between disgust and desire because the protagonist feels "ashamed and horrified" to be aroused by an "old and ugly" person. "Through those events, I knew I wanted to emphasize physicality throughout the novel," explains Szalay. That first sexual contact will mark István forever, even though he will never acknowledge it. It will also condition his destiny, because it will make him responsible for an accident and lead him to spend some years in a reformatory.

His departure from the center will coincide with Hungary's entry into the European Union, and this will determine his fate. "Suddenly, he finds himself immersed by chance in the Iraq War, where he will live a traumatic experience. That is how I wanted to capture his interaction with history, which in the end is something that happens to us all. Hungarian politicians decided to send soldiers to Iraq to win the favor of the Americans and demonstrate that they were part of the Western world, but one Hungarian lost his life there," points out Szalay. He, in fact, was born in Montreal, but grew up mostly in London, although he also has Hungarian roots and has spent time in that country. The writer wanted the novel to have a Hungarian side and an English one, so he imagined István moving to London after his time in the army. "This movement of people from Hungary towards Western Europe is an important phenomenon," he stresses.

How desire impacts life

In London, István will build a career as a security guard and, thanks to a coincidence, will end up dedicating himself to protecting families with a very high economic level. After getting involved with one of his clients, Helen, he will end up pairing up with her and will achieve a status radically distant from his humble origins. Thus, the novel moves through complex moral dilemmas to which the protagonist only responds from instinct, without being perceived as someone vulnerable. "In the case of the neighbor, he does not feel like a victim even though what happened is probably a crime. Later, with Helen, she is in a position of power. I wanted to explore the way these physical experiences and desires can have an enormous impact on one's entire life, how they can directly affect someone's trajectory. The idea that life is made up of a series of rational decisions is not true, and that is how it is perceived in István's story," says Szalay.

When analyzing the novel, the Booker Prize jury also highlighted its portrait of a hegemonic, heterosexual masculinity, based on a canonical and muscular body and almost never externalizing emotions or feelings. However, the writer emphasizes that he never considered writing about masculinity, but that it was intrinsic to the story. "Due to having a male protagonist, being set in the present day and being an intimate and close story, it was inevitable that it would end up dealing with masculinity. But that was never the main theme," he points out. The reader will know very little about what is going on inside István: they will only be able to intuit it through conversations (often sterile) with the psychologist, and will see that something is wrong when the protagonist, all alone in a room, suddenly throws a punch at the wall and breaks the fingers of his hand.

"It is very difficult to write about sex and about violence because they are two things that happen practically without words. These scenes have been quite a challenge. In the case of the sexual episodes, I have tried to write them in a very direct, almost factual way. And, regarding violence, it often happens off the page because capturing its essence was too complicated for me", relates the writer. After practically a year traveling the world with Carn, which has been translated into about thirty languages, now Szalay only hopes to be able to return home and start working on his next book. "I have a story in hand that I started before winning the award –he says–. I will try to forget about all the commotion of the last few months so that it does not affect me when writing. I hope to achieve it".