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.