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The Dinner (2009)

by Herman Koch(Favorite Author)

3.21 of 5 Votes: 4

ISBN

0770437850 (ISBN13: 9780770437855)

languge

English

genre

Fiction

publisher

Hogarth

review 1: I admit, I could NOT put this book down! It was dark and intriguing! The reason I only give it 3/5 starts? I did some research and discovered that the author had in mind "something like Autism" when he described the condition the father and son have that make them do cruel things and not care about anyone else besides themself. I found that offensive. The author said he ended up not naming the condition in the book because he didn't want to have to deal with talking about it. Uh...if you're giving a character a mental illness you should be prepared to talk about it??? So the book was great, not impressed with the author. DEFINITELY a page turner!
review 2: An interesting book. When I first started reading it, I was intrigued by the concept and interested by the... more p.o.v. I like unreliable narrators and thought that that was one of the book's strengths. When you think about all the different angles the story could have been written from - e.g. the adopted son's p.o.v., the biological son's p.o.v., the politician's or his wife's, even the actual narrator's wife's p.o.v. All of these would have given the story a different angle and a different focus. It might have been a whodunit or a coming of age story. Instead it was a cynical look at how far some parents' will go to protect their children. As I said, that was the book's strength. What I didn't like about the story was the fact that Koch gave his narrator, and by inference, the narrator's son, Michel, a way out: they had a neurological disorder, a biological lack of empathy which basically excused (or at least explained) their anti-social behaviour. It was too much of a cop out for me. I would have preferred a deeper exploration into the moral conflict of the situation. But still an interesting read. less

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