The Dinner

by Herman Koch | Literature & Fiction |
ISBN: 0385346859 Global Overview for this book
Registered by over-the-moon of Lausanne, Vaud Switzerland on 11/12/2016
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1 journaler for this copy...
Journal Entry 1 by over-the-moon from Lausanne, Vaud Switzerland on Saturday, November 12, 2016
found in Lausanne bookbox. Front cover says "chilling, nasty, smart, shocking, unputdownable", which made me hesitate a bit. We shall see.

Journal Entry 2 by over-the-moon at Lausanne, Vaud Switzerland on Thursday, March 16, 2017
A posh (pretentious and expensive) restaurant in Amsterdam. Two brothers - Serge, politician, up for election as prime minister no less, and Paul, the narrator, who has been retired from his post as history teacher for an unidentified mental health affliction. Their wives, Babette and Claire, respectively. In the background, three teenage sons, one of them adopted from Burkino Faso. Being a public figure, Serge has not had to book the table three months in advance and is on first-name terms with the manager and maître d'.

The novel is structured around each course of the meal from aperitif to coffee and grappa, giving intimate details about each dish (not as appetizing as one could wish) but gradually a lot of extraneous and distressing happenings weave their way in, explaining why the parents are meeting up and what they have come to discuss.

I was uneasy with this book. First, the awful restaurant where there is more space on each plate than food. Second, the obtrusive maître d' who hovers over each dish explaining every element and provenance, pointing with his little finger (I suppose because it is rude to use the index, but Paul dwells on this a lot). Third, these people who spend more time wandering around the garden in between courses, talking on their phones, confiding in one another, visiting the loo, than actually sitting at the table, eating their food and discussing the issue that has brought them together. Incidentally, the service seems horrendously slow.

Then, is a public restaurant, where one of the protagonists is recognized by all and interrupted by people at other tables for selfies, the right place to talk about something intimate, so devastating and so damaging? In such a restaurant, should one not switch off the phones? Too many text messages, youtube videos, real or faked calls... Oh well, sign of the times.

What I did find interesting is the way Paul's character reveals itself so gradually; at first he seems just ill at ease in this setting, perhaps jealous of his brother. Then he becomes a bit underhand and even creepy, and there's something Claire is holding back - and we start to wonder, who is to blame?





Released 6 yrs ago (5/4/2017 UTC) at Quelque part en Avignon in Avignon, Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur France

WILD RELEASE NOTES:

not sure where I'll leave this, but somewhere to do with food.

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