The Dinner
Herman Koch
Overall: 2/5
Plots and Themes: 2/5
Characters: 1/5
Writing Style: 2/5
Attention Grabbing: 1/5
The Dinner is one of those books that's supposed to keep you guessing from start to finish. The only problem was that I wasn't like trying to figure things out cause it was a great mystery, I was trying to figure out how a plot could have so few concrete facts and still get away with calling itself realistic. Everything that could have potentially been a real-world scenario was deliberately obscure which seemed like an easy way to get out of explaining basically anything.
The whole point of the book is that these two couples are at dinner trying to have a difficult conversation about how best to handle a tricky situation. That idea quickly derails itself through convoluted asides designed to provide exposition on how totally unhinged some of the people are. It also took away all my confidence in the Dutch criminal justice system, or that was just another part which was poorly explained and thus hard to truly understand. There were multiple diseases referenced as key pieces of the narratives but we got the author dodging having to do actual research by vaguely mentioning symptoms or having the characters claim that they didn't want to divulge personal information.
The mystery was random and I really didn't care about it either way. I'll give it two stars based almost purely on the shock factor. Some of the stuff that happened was just confusing and graphic enough to be disturbing. But if you're looking for plot or anything with depth I'm going to have to recommend you look elsewhere.
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