Books: The Dinner

A dinner comprising of 5 courses and a story evolving during the course of the dinner. This is how the author Herman Koch has structured his novel. A few months back, I read an interesting novel told in a time span of a few days. Now, here comes an author who has pushed the limits to tell a story in a time span of couple of hours. If this sounds neither interesting nor challenging, then what can? Fortunately, this is interesting for the reader and challenging for the author.

Two couples are meeting for dinner. But the dinner is a pretext to discuss an important topic affecting their lives. This forms the basic premise of the story. In order to make the novel engaging, Herman Koch uses the perspective of one participant to narrate the story. Like a dish which exudes a particular flavor but reveals the different ingredients with each bite, the story unfolds during the progression of different courses revealing the psychological layout of different characters. What appears on the surface is different from what is beneath it.

The main theme of the book is hypocrisy and hatred. The style of writing and how the narrator of the story thinks makes us laugh initially at the various conclusions and then force us to think deeply about our surroundings with society included.

This is a compelling read if you love to read drama.

Tags: Books,Herman Koch




-->

Comments

Post a Comment