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Review
'Clever, witty and entertaining; and very timely in a society increasingly accustomed to living in a blizzard of lies' --The Times
'All Men Are Liars is a remarkable novel richly textured, ingeniously constructed and deeply unsettling' --The Spectator
'[Manguel s fiction] works from the human core outwards, and is in fact elaborately though unpretentiously constructed.' 'If Paul Auster wore a friendly beard and had more of a Latin temperament, he might produce something like this richly hued, melancholy and funny puzzle of a novel.' --The Guardian
'All Men Are Liars is a remarkable novel richly textured, ingeniously constructed and deeply unsettling' --The Spectator
'[Manguel s fiction] works from the human core outwards, and is in fact elaborately though unpretentiously constructed.' 'If Paul Auster wore a friendly beard and had more of a Latin temperament, he might produce something like this richly hued, melancholy and funny puzzle of a novel.' --The Guardian
Product Description
Where can you find truth in a world that is so thoroughly ruled by lies? That is the question tackled by the investigation of a French journalist who endeavours to shed light on the enigma of an unexplained death: that of the brilliant South American writer Alejandro Bevilacqua, found lying on his balcony floor in Madrid in the mid-1970s. The few accounts of those who knew the deceased - including those of his last lover, a former fellow prison inmate, a sworn enemy and even the author Alberto Manguel himself - are contradictory and unreliable. Poor devil and with a troubled childhood, literary genius and irresistible seducer, ordinary bastard masquerading as hero, pure and simple impostor - those are but a few of the roles attributed to a mysterious and captivating figure in this tribute to falsehood, between the lines of which the reader must discover the only worthwhile truth: that of the fascinating homage Alberto Manguel pays to literature and its shapeshifting inventions, in which the objects of our desires are infinitely reincarnated.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
I have enjoyed Alberto Manguel's book about reading for many years now (A History of Reading, A Reader on Reading, The Library at Night and others). It was with some trepidation that I came to my first work of fiction by Manguel - would he be able to create fiction as well as he critiques it? I am pleased to say that All Men are Liars did not disappoint.
In All Men Are Liars, a journalist, Terradillos, is investigating the life of the Argentinian writer, Alejandro Bevilacqua who seems to have jumped off the balcony of his apartment in Madrid. Terradillos interviews four people, their accounts of the events leading up to Bevilacqua's death being compiled into this book with its bluntly stated premise in the title - all men are liars. But are they? Is one account true, or more true than the others? Or are they all incorrect, but in different ways? It is up to the reader to find out, for even Terradillos, who has his say in the last chapter may or may not be able to finally solve this conundrum.
The four accounts build up to make a fascinating picture in themselves. The author himself is the first interviewee - I quite enjoy the concept of authors appearing in their own books! After all, Manguel is a noted Argintinian writer so he would have known Bevilacqua well. Manguel speaks of Bevilacqua's sincerity and explains that after Bevilacqua's death he could no longer live in Madrid and moved to Poitiers to get away from the "ghost" of Alejandro Bevilacqua.
It all sounds so plausible. Manguel's account has a ring of truth, and the reader easily falls into believing it to be accurate. But the second interviewee casts a heavy weight of doubt on Manguel's story - "Whatever he told you about Alejandro Bevilacqua, I'll bet my right arm it's wrong". At this stage I began writing down page references which contradicted Manguel's story. This book is a puzzle and you need to keep cross checking to find the flaws in the four accounts of Bevilacqua's life and death. By the end of the book we have gained a marvellous picture of the literary circle in Madrid of which Bevilacqua was a part, but not one of its members is wholly reliable and perhaps they all have reasons for wanting to twist things their own way.
By the end of the book I think I had drawn my own conclusions about how and why Bevilacqua met his death. But certainty is a difficult thing in a case like this - what would a jury member decide - perhaps we are confronted with the age-old question, "What is Truth?".
In All Men Are Liars, a journalist, Terradillos, is investigating the life of the Argentinian writer, Alejandro Bevilacqua who seems to have jumped off the balcony of his apartment in Madrid. Terradillos interviews four people, their accounts of the events leading up to Bevilacqua's death being compiled into this book with its bluntly stated premise in the title - all men are liars. But are they? Is one account true, or more true than the others? Or are they all incorrect, but in different ways? It is up to the reader to find out, for even Terradillos, who has his say in the last chapter may or may not be able to finally solve this conundrum.
The four accounts build up to make a fascinating picture in themselves. The author himself is the first interviewee - I quite enjoy the concept of authors appearing in their own books! After all, Manguel is a noted Argintinian writer so he would have known Bevilacqua well. Manguel speaks of Bevilacqua's sincerity and explains that after Bevilacqua's death he could no longer live in Madrid and moved to Poitiers to get away from the "ghost" of Alejandro Bevilacqua.
It all sounds so plausible. Manguel's account has a ring of truth, and the reader easily falls into believing it to be accurate. But the second interviewee casts a heavy weight of doubt on Manguel's story - "Whatever he told you about Alejandro Bevilacqua, I'll bet my right arm it's wrong". At this stage I began writing down page references which contradicted Manguel's story. This book is a puzzle and you need to keep cross checking to find the flaws in the four accounts of Bevilacqua's life and death. By the end of the book we have gained a marvellous picture of the literary circle in Madrid of which Bevilacqua was a part, but not one of its members is wholly reliable and perhaps they all have reasons for wanting to twist things their own way.
By the end of the book I think I had drawn my own conclusions about how and why Bevilacqua met his death. But certainty is a difficult thing in a case like this - what would a jury member decide - perhaps we are confronted with the age-old question, "What is Truth?".
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