The Dinner By Herman Koch

On Thursday, October 8^th, Fixed on Fiction met to discuss The Dinner by Herman Koch. Here is a summary of the novel courtesy of Goodreads-

A summer's evening in Amsterdam and two couples meet at a fashionable restaurant. Between mouthfuls of food and over the delicate scraping of cutlery, the conversation remains a gentle hum of politeness - the banality of work, the triviality of holidays. But the empty words hide a terrible conflict and, with every forced smile and every new course, the knives are being sharpened... Each couple has a fifteen-year-old son. Together, the boys have committed a horrifying act, caught on camera, and their grainy images have been beamed into living rooms across the nation; despite a police manhunt, the boys remain unidentified - by everyone except their parents. As the dinner reaches its culinary climax, the conversation finally touches on their children and, as civility and friendship disintegrate, each couple shows just how far they are prepared to go to protect those they love.

The Dinner received very mixed reviews in our group with six thumbs-up votes, five so-so votes, and three thumbs-down. Here are some of the initial comments readers made while explaining their vote-

• This was a thumbs-up for me, although I was anticipating this would not be the majority vote. This was well-crafted and well-written. I wasn’t really into the high-end dining but I enjoyed the Amsterdam setting.
• I heard this is a Gone Girl read-alike, which I liked, but this was a thumbs-down. It left me with too many questions and that could be due to the translation…
• I think if I had read this before Gone Girl I would have liked it better. I thought it was a good translation but I hate closing a book and feeling depressed.
• Very well-written. I like the fine dining experience but all of those details about food took away from the story. A dark satire about high-end society.
• Well-structured and super creepy. You couldn’t help but consider what you would do if Michel was your kid.
• This was a thumbs up because I absolutely had to talk about these characters. I really enjoyed the slow unveiling of Paul, Claire, Serge…
• I thought the set-up of the story over the course of the meal was ingenious. Reflecting on murder in relation to courses in a meal was original.
• I thought it was an interesting discussion of the lengths parents will go to to protect their children. I felt like this could happen anywhere- not far-fetched at all.
• I couldn’t handle more than reading a little bit at a time because the characters were so repulsive.

On Paul-

• I thought that it was amusing that Claire liked Paul more when he was off his meds.
• My allegiance kept bopping back and forth throughout the book. By the end of it Serge was the most sane!
• How could Paul’s illness have been kept secret during Serge’s campaign?
• This whole story was horrific…it’s like a psych ward but Koch writes it as very sensible. Paul was written as a normal protagonist, which is a testament to the skill of the writer.
• The scene where Paul is fired was fascinating because in his mind his behavior was all very sensible.
• Paul ends up betraying himself in the book, but the sociopath can learn how to mimic normal behavior.
• Why didn’t Serge turn Claire in? Maybe he realized just how crazy Paul is and was too afraid to press charges.

On the teens-

• These boys believed they can influence each other. Michel, especially, is learning he can get away with anything. There is a great sense of entitlement here.
• The beating of the homeless woman was unfortunately believable, although I didn’t think the fire was very realistic.
• At first you think they were just misguided…but Michel was the instigator and Beau was the blackmailer. Beau isn’t innocent either.
• Michel was raised by folks who believed you could stomp on people. Parents who will have their kid’s back whenever they do something wrong.
• Claire is the enabler. Michel is clingy with Claire because he knew she would protect him.
• This raises a big discussion of the element of being upper class and entitled.

This is just a small sampling of the comments made at our discussion. If you would like to share additional thoughts on The Dinner, please feel free to do so in the comments section below.