Monsters. Sometimes even the best meals can be hard to swallow. Herman Koch presents an extended family in his novel, The Dinner, and structures the book to match the stages of dining out in a fine restaurant. This is a dark novel in which Koch reveals the darkness of our worst behavior: inhumanity to each other. The tension in the novel remains taut throughout, and the pacing is slow, allowing for gradual revelation of what has happened that led up to this meal. The tension finally breaks with an ending that is unlikely to satisfy all readers. Some of the characters could be considered monsters, and they are not necessarily the ones you suspect. If you like psychological novels and books that make you keep thinking after you finish them, you should consider reading this one.
Rating: Four-star (I like it)
Click here to purchase The Dinner from amazon.com.
Thursday, March 7, 2013
The Dinner
Monsters. Sometimes even the best meals can be hard to swallow. Herman Koch presents an extended family in his novel, The Dinner, and structures the book to match the stages of dining out in a fine restaurant. This is a dark novel in which Koch reveals the darkness of our worst behavior: inhumanity to each other. The tension in the novel remains taut throughout, and the pacing is slow, allowing for gradual revelation of what has happened that led up to this meal. The tension finally breaks with an ending that is unlikely to satisfy all readers. Some of the characters could be considered monsters, and they are not necessarily the ones you suspect. If you like psychological novels and books that make you keep thinking after you finish them, you should consider reading this one.
Rating: Four-star (I like it)
Click here to purchase The Dinner from amazon.com.
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