Holly Hudson reviewed The Dinner by Herman Koch
I hated this book and everyone in it
2 stars
Content warning This review gives away the ending.
I read an easy Dutch version of this book (and quite a bit of the actual Dutch book) for a Dutch language course. I'm sorry I did. The main character is a horrible person who need some serious therapy, and his kid is a chip off the old block. Somehow the whole situation gets even worse when the twist at the end tries to make the wife the motivating factor in all the horribleness. In reality spouses of people like this are usually subject to emotional abuse. And it's (not always but most often) the husband doing the abusing and the wife being blamed for the husband's behavior. Here we have the author playing into this gross trope in the worst possible way. If you need at least one redeemable character in a book, and like to feel that at least the author is a sympathetic person, then take my advice and give this one a miss.
I gave it two stars only because I learned a lot of new Dutch phrases -- I just wish I had learned them elsewhere.