The Longest Dinner Ever

Recently I read another book that's been hitting the hardcover bestseller charts, Herman Koch's international hit The Dinner. Presented as a Dutch Gone Girl (which maybe I should read now), the story takes place over the course of a single evening between Paul Lohman, his brother Serge, and their wives--with plenty of flashbacks throughout to full in the reader on the backstory. The story starts out wonderfully cryptic and tense, but once we get to the main course, it loses a bit of steam, kicking up again for the payoff in "Digestif."

The two couples have met, primarily, to discuss their biological sons and how best to deal with what they have done--which was quite a deplorable act, even if the end result was an accident. A lot is on the line, as Serge is running for prime minister and his brother suffers what appears at first to be a mean temper. As the story and the dinner moves forward, Paul reveals some shady motivations and dark past, almost each chapter ending upon a cliff and pressing you to go forward. It's more of a meditative tale than an action-packed one, with most of the plot having happened well before this dinner is taking place.

Each character in the story is devious and self-centered to a degree, and each member of the dinner party is looking out for themselves and/or their immediate families, to hell with anyone else. All Serge cares about is preserving his reputation, no matter how much he says that he only cares about his son's future. On the other hand, his wife, Babette, wants him to keep quiet about the incident and stay in the running for Prime Minister to protect their son. Claire's final desperate act at the end of the evening was a last-ditch effort to protect her son and Paul from prison and public scrutiny. Even Paul, our protagonist, reveals an unnamed mental illness that makes him prone to rage and see the worst in everyone--especially anyone who is not his wife or son. None seem to think that they boys should confess and suffer the consequences of their actions because what they did was wrong. In the end, this is what the story is about--the lengths at which people will go to protect themselves and their families (and especially their offspring), no matter the consequences otherwise.

But the plot bogs itself down in backstory during the main course--rather than having such juicy details be revealed through brief scenes that Paul reckons back to at some point in their vacuous diner conversation, we are treated to an uninterrupted succession, which makes it easy to forget at what point in the dinner we're at. By the time we return to the dinner as it's happening, thee story has lost a lot of momentum, failing to pick it up again even with a last-minute twist. After all that buildup I had expected a flashier finish, but considering the fact that they were out to protect their family from scandal, and succeeded, it is not much of a surprise. Another frustrating flaw was Paul's intentionally vague description of his and Claire's illnesses--one can only assume that he is talking about real illnesses, though such vagueness almost always leaves me suspicious of its accuracy.

On the whole, The Dinner is a satisfying read, and an interesting character study, even if it seems like the evening went on for much too long. I give it 3.5 out of 5 stars. Oppression score: 3, for Paul's contrarian and quite prejudiced views on such matters as those of the homeless. On the other hand, Paul is kind of a terrible person, like a lot of them, so it's largely harmless.

Karen Russell is different, but not too different

I have read Karen Russell before--and found her to be a good writer, generally, but in the end Swamplandia! was not what I had expected--in a bad way. Her second collection of short stories, Vampires in the Lemon Grove, shows off her literary prowess and the depth of her imagination, but she still sticks to a rather traditional formula. Even if she does mix that of the literary short story and that of fantasy/horror. 

While the reviewer on NPR rained praise upon Lemon Grove, even calling it "completely original," I have to disagree on this point. Not to knock this individual, but he is obviously not very well-read--at least in the mix-it-up literary genre of magic realism and suspense. Various stories reminded me of some by Joyce Carol Oates, Haruki Murakami, and some Stephen King, and others, and apparently one of her stories bears similarities to Ray Bradbury's "The Illustrated Man." Again, nothing is ever completely original. You just invite this kind of criticism when you say something's completely original.

Most of the stories of this collection are a worthwhile read, even if a lot of them get a bit draggy because Russell wanted to show off all the research she did on these stories--and considering that this collection takes us to Meiji Era Japan, mid-19th century United States, and the Antarctic Circle, among other unexpected places, she obviously did some. I commend Russell for writing such a wide range of characters and settings, as in each story they felt vivid and real to my mind's eye. The title story is definitely the strongest in the collection, but I also liked "Proving Up", and the final two stories in the collection a lot--even if they were, as I've mentioned, a bit meandering and pensive. The "Barn at the End of Our Term" is arguably the most creative and brisk story in the collection: mysterious, absurd, and a bit profound--which all of the best stories in this collection seem to have in common.

The weakest story was, by far, "Antarctic Tailgating." The entire story was built upon a gimmicky, nonsensical premise, and I couldn't get past the illogistics of it to glean any sort of significant message from the story. "Reeling For the Empire" is quite good, too, even if the visual of the women working there is unclear--as well as their fates. Finally, "Seagulls," for its clever concept and excellent thematic explorations, falls flat with the most stereotypical teenage obsession of sex and losing virginity--just about everything else in the story was very well-done.

Overall, I do not regret purchasing this collection, and will certainly read some of these stories again in the future. I admire Karen Russell's skill and imagination, but she is hardly a trailblazer in the realm of the literary weird. Worth it if you like something a little bit different, but not too diferent.

I rate the book overall a 3.5. out of 5 stars. And though the collection displayed few instances of oppression and stereotyping, I am disappointed that only two of the stories featured female protagonists--a nitpicky comment, I know. At least in one story it was a horse.