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A review by shrike_
The Dinner by Herman Koch
1.0
I picked up 'The Dinner', because multiple people assured me I would just love it. I have terrible news - they were all flat out wrong. I don't think I've had to actually incentivize myself to finish a book until I decided to tackle this one.
It all felt very snooty, like I was being invited to sit at a table with luxurious people by being invited into the story. Except they were all vapid and so horrifically boring that I would have much rather have not sat down at all, so to speak.
While I think anyone can read it and come to the same consensus, coming at it from the point of view of a parent myself, I think made it that much worse. All of that, and it was just people singing praises about a book centered around shitty people raising more shitty people. It felt a lot like Koch was trying to rib you with an elbow to make you feel included by reading some overly sensationalized story about people who have no sense of accountability or 'real' problems. And if I wanted more exposure to that, I could just log onto social media.
Hard pass for me.
It all felt very snooty, like I was being invited to sit at a table with luxurious people by being invited into the story. Except they were all vapid and so horrifically boring that I would have much rather have not sat down at all, so to speak.
While I think anyone can read it and come to the same consensus, coming at it from the point of view of a parent myself, I think made it that much worse. All of that, and it was just people singing praises about a book centered around shitty people raising more shitty people. It felt a lot like Koch was trying to rib you with an elbow to make you feel included by reading some overly sensationalized story about people who have no sense of accountability or 'real' problems. And if I wanted more exposure to that, I could just log onto social media.
Hard pass for me.