"The Dinner" takes place during dinner at a fashionable restaurant, and is centered around a meeting between two brothers and their wives. Each couple has a 15-year-old son, and the pair of cousins have gotten into trouble together.
The two families at dinner are Paul Lohman and his brother Serge. Paul, the novel's narrator, is a former history teacher who has recently been laid off. Serge Lohman is a popular politician with great ambition. Paul is resentful of his brother, as well as the choice to dine at such a pretentious restaurant.
The book doesn't have chapters, it is instead broken into courses. As the dinner progresses, more and more of the past comes out between the brothers. Throughout the meal, writer Herman Koch slowly reveals details and issues that make the drama between the brothers grow even more intense.
It turns out there are not only issues with their teenage sons, but also growing issues from the past that begin to bubble to the surface. Long-hidden dissatisfaction and frustration slowly seep into the conversation at first, and then they begin to pour forth.
From the aperitif and appetizer, Paul discusses his judgment of his brother as fake and sexist. Paul seems to care little about his brother at the beginning, and his resentment is evident. It is hard, at least at the beginning, not to understand his point of view, though.
As dinner continues, you begin to see just what family means to each of the brothers. This includes both their sibling relationship and the families they have built with their wives. Paul, particularly, cherishes his son Michel and his wife Claire. He struggles, however, with anger management although he is self-aware enough to recognize the issues this can cause.
Herman Koch is a Dutch writer who is known for his short stories and novels, as well as his acting work on shows such as Borát and Jiskefet. The Dinner: A Novel was his sixth novel, released in 2009. As of 2013, it has sold more than one million copies in Europe and has been translated into more than 20 languages.
"We listen to the monologue of a husband and father, beginning at a (very) pleasant dinner and culminating in devastating revelations. As a book, this makes an excellent thriller. As an audiobook, I have slight (and very personal) reservations: I tend to miss details when I listen to a book, be it that I fall asleep, be it that I am distracted. This makes listening to thrillers problematic, as missing a detail can mean missing the entire point. If that's not an issue for you, I can recommend the book highly. Translation and reading are well done. If you suffer under the same condition, be prepared to listen to it twice. Which is not a bad thing at all."
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Matthias (4 out of 5 stars)