Tournament of Books discussion

In another thread, several people have said they'd be interested in talking about the Dinner. I'm curious to hear what everyone thinks of the book. It's been a few months since I read it, but one thing I remember was hearing was a lot of comparisons to "Gone Girl" in reviews. Like Gone Girl, this book certainly has shocks, and I see the similarities in the self-interested narrators and re-revealing of the same events in different lights. But I thought the atmosphere of the two books was very different - this was more of a slow burn if that makes sense.

I didn't think of Gone Girl. I guess I can see it in terms of a certain psychopathic dysfunction. It reminded me more of Defending Jacob by William Landay (not a TOB book but one I read for a reading group.) But I found it much more disturbing than either of those. I would realize he was being satirical and then get sucked into the weirdness of it, over and over.

you know -- it's been several months since i finished reading The Dinner, so my ability to be specific is challenged, but i didn't love it. i didn't feel shocked or filled with suspense while reading it. i also felt that it was. maybe, a story that would have done better as a short story? i felt like it was a lot to draw it out to novel-length. but, then i did wonder if the translation had anything to do with how i felt? i don't read or speak dutch, so couldn't read the original, and i haven't read too much about the translation itself.

'the dinner' just left me annoyed and, actually, so did 'gone girl'. heh! i also did not find 'gone girl' shocking or suspenseful.

i LOVE unreliable narrators and unlikeable characters - i find them so interesting and layered, usually. but i didn't come away feeling like there were a lot of layers to any of the characters in 'the dinner' (or 'gone girl', for that matter). while i don't have to like characters (since this whole conversation has become a *thing* to talk about concerning books, lately) i do need to be captured, as a reader. i felt that, in both cases, the authors may have been purposefully manipulating readers (which, yes - all writers do, to different extents, heh!) - like, i was aware of the writing and what the author was doing, more than i was engaged in the story and with the characters.

sorry - i don't know if i am making sense here. and again, without specific examples, it makes it hard for me to illustrate my points, so apologies for that. (i gave both books away. because i didn't love them, i didn't want them hanging around.) but maybe this was experienced by other readers too, so it's maybe relatable?

i did, too, also wonder how much the hype played into my experiences with both books? i read each book after all the hype had already hit. while i try to avoid reading reviews until after i finish a book, i did hear lots about both novels well before i got to them. so i have also wondered if my low opinion of each book was because of expectations not being met?

Jennifer: About the characters, I didn't like any of them but I don't think we were supposed to. It seems to be a feature of satiric novels that the characters are a bit thin, as though they are examples of the satire rather than fully fleshed out. Same thing happened in How To Get Filthy Rich to an extent. About being aware of the writing, I definitely agree. The way that Paul would go on and on made me feel the author was going on and on and even showing off a bit, like a super annoying guy at a party, but then I wondered if the author did that on purpose to make us know how really off base Paul was. What did you think about the mental illness/hereditary gene thing?

Judy wrote: "Jennifer: About the characters, I didn't like any of them but I don't think we were supposed to. It seems to be a feature of satiric novels that the characters are a bit thin, as though they are ex..."

hi judy. i totally understand that we aren't supposed to like these characters, heh!! i'm cool with that. i am not a reader who gives a hoot about whether a character is likeable. as i mentioned, i am a fan, generally, of both unreliable and unlikeable characters. but i just didn't feel like koch was successful in making them anything beyond unlikeable or unreliable. they just weren't terribly interesting for me. (or i wasn't successful in reading them beyond that.)

you mentioned the moments where paul was going on and on, and that is one way i felt like the one premise for the whole story was stretched beyond its limits, and maybe would have worked better as a short story?

satire can be tough to do well, that's true! while the genetic predisposition bit is certainly fascinating to me, by the time i got there in the book, i was, like w/e. ha! :)

claire messud had an interesting review in the NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/boo...

I think you hit the nail on the head. Satire can be tough to do well. Koch is good at being satirical but the book ultimately fails as satire. Like Paul, Koch goes on and on, he bludgeons us with his satirical views, he made me keep turning the pages but left me as unsatisfied as the meals at the dinner. I was so glad to get away from those people at the end.

To me, the book gave a new twist on the unreliable narrator that made me think more than I've thought about a lot of books -- certainly more than I thought about Gone Girl, which pretty much just made me shrug. The concept that the character who was presented as the most reprehensible -- the brother -- was, in the end, the only truly moral one, not to mention that he was a politician, of all things! -- was to me the height of manipulative satire.

Now that I've read at least 3/4 of the books on the shortlist, I'm hoping this book gets its due; it certainly has stayed with me longer and made me think more than books that have been much better reviewed and liked.

That's an interesting point, Ellen, about the switch between who seems most immoral. I got that feeling a bit about the wife because the narrator for a while acts like she must be in the dark, too, when in fact she's known the truth longer than he has. It's been a while now since I read it, so the details are murky, but that's correct?

I love unreliable narrators, too! They can be such fun to puzzle out, and try to see through. I did get a feeling similar to what you mentioned, Jennifer, that I felt like I could see too much of how the sausage was made while I was reading, though.

Judy wrote: "I think you hit the nail on the head. Satire can be tough to do well. Koch is good at being satirical but the book ultimately fails as satire. Like Paul, Koch goes on and on, he bludgeons us with h..."

I was wondering if there is ever a sense in the book of a broader application of the critique Koch was making about the narrator and his family. I can't recall now, but my sense was that it was more about this particular man & his family, and not really an indictment of the broader culture as being so self-serving, violent, and callous. Or was there something in there about everyone's disturbing interest in the video?

Now, see, we came to the conclusion that he WAS making a point about larger society, simply because he made the brother a politician. He could have been a doctor, or a garbage man, or an animal trainer, or anything -- but because he was a politician, I think there was a larger society point being made, although I don't know exactly what.

Meagan, not only had the wife known from the outset -- I think the son had called her either during or immediately after the incident -- but she was much more aggressive about what should be done as a result, and seemed to have no compunction at all about the son's moral issues.

Ellen wrote: "Now, see, we came to the conclusion that he WAS making a point about larger society, simply because he made the brother a politician. He could have been a doctor, or a garbage man, or an animal tr..."

That definitely makes sense about the choice of having the brother be a politician. Would his broader point be something like we expect the worst from our politicians? That a moral one is an utter shock?
Something similar would have to be said for his choice to make the narrator a teacher...What do you make of that choice?

I agree with many of y'all's comments - the book has an interesting premise but probably would have been more effective as a short story or even a novella. Either could still allow the reader to form an initial opinion of the characters then change it slowly as the revelations come out, which seems to be the foundation of the book, without as much of the repetition and minutia that dilute the effect.

I haven't thought about the book much since putting it down, and don't feel nearly as chilled as I did after Gone Girl. One thing I've wondered about though is the significance of the test at the end. I realize we should take away that Claire has really been more manipulative/in control of things than Paul (or we) thought. But are we meant to understand the specifics? If so, I'm confused whether the test results mean Claire aborted a child, or decided to have Michel knowing about the mental illness, or something else. Regardless, I thought Koch was making a larger point about how certain behaviors labeled as dysfunctional or sick in one context are seen as unfortunate but justified in another context.

The test results show that Claire had been in control for far longer than Paul ever dreamed. Paul mentions early on that Claire was smarter than him. The story slowly peels back the curtain to show just how aware she is of everything that has taken place and how far she is willing to go to preserve her ideal family. Claire knew about the mental illness and decided to have Michel anyway, all the while keeping it from her husband. Since Paul wasn't diagnosed until Michel was 4 or 5, it seems that Claire kept quiet about the possibility that Paul suffered from that same illness and should seek some sort of help. Instead, he flamed out, lost his job, and sat at home wallowing in his own bitterness for a decade. With breaks to beat the crap out of his brother and the school principal.

I was hoping, given the premise, that we would see things from the perspective of the other dinner participants. Hearing from Claire would have been particularly interesting. I know that much of the work of the novel lies in Paul slowly discovering the machinations of Claire while we discover just how wrong he is about Serge, but I do think the novel could have benefited from multiple voices.

I just finished The Dinner - and I can't quite believe what I just read. I have not read Gone Girl, so I can't compare to that book, but this was not at all what I was expecting when I started.

I think a novella would have been too short. There are so many areas of the family's life that need to be shown before you can understand the ending.

This is the seventh TobX that I have read and it is my least favorite. Although Paul and his family will be making me think for a bit longer.

I agree with much of what's been said, but I disagree that Serge turned out to be better than expected. It's just that, maybe, he was comparatively less reprehensible. All the adults were awful.

Serge wasn't moral, his interests simply conflicted with Paul's and Claire's. Specifically, the best thing for his son was to reveal all and throw Michel under the bus. Perhaps the fact that he chose not to do so is something, but there is no indication that his choice was based on moral reasons.

As with someone upstream, I found it most interesting from a technical standpoint, both what it managed and whether it could have managed better.

I finished The Dinner this week, and for me, it's a hot mess. :-) I was fine with exploring the attitudes and actions of despicable characters, and enjoyed the unreliable narrator and the way the author gradually revealed some of the back story. However, I never bought the idea that Serge would engineer this discussion/announcement to occur in such a public setting, so the whole idea of the dinner and the satirical elements (the waiter's hovering pinky, his descriptions of the cuisine) seemed like they escaped from another novel altogether. Koch's coyness about some of the plot elements kind of irritated me. Nor could I accept that no one else would have recognized the boys (or, for that matter, that if the boys put their video on youtube, they wouldn't also have bragged about it to some of their friends). Maybe it was consistent with Paul's character not to tell us what necessitated Claire's long hospital stay, but I kept wondering if Koch just didn't bother to figure out a reasonable scenario. And did Paul go to jail after beating up the principal? Did I miss that? So, while the novel drew me in and kept me going, I'd view it as a failure overall.

Jan,

You make good points. Overall, it didn't really work for me either. I would point out that Beau posted the videos to Youtube as part of a blackmail scheme. But I completely agree about Serge and the presser and having this conversation in a public restaurant and canceling the announcement after Claire goes ape shit. It just doesn't hang together as more than a thriller of sorts that is too obviously manipulated by the author for fireworks.

Some really good points in all of the above comments. I didn't want to put this book down, and then I finished and I am so happy to put the book down. Unlikable characters is one thing, unbelievable and not quite satirical characters is another. I still liked aspects of it, the fast read especially but the story line felt a bit old (maybe because I just read Defending Jacob) that I can't rave like some people did.

I've enjoyed reading this discussion. For what it's worth, I finished The Dinner weeks ago and, although I can't say I liked it, I'm still thinking about it. I think it would be good bookgroup title.

Yes, my bookgroup that doesn't read the book read it -- and at least 3 of us actually had read it and therefore could discuss it, and discuss it we did; it generated a lot of conversation. To me, it's not the kind of book you can say you LIKED, exactly, and I'd be careful about whom I recommended it to, but I thought it was really well done and totally absorbing and it comes back into my mind again and again -- which, given how many books I do forget afterwards, is saying a lot. Shouldn't literature leave an impression? Shouldn't it make you think, and even, occasionally, make you uncomfortable?

Ellen wrote: "Yes, my bookgroup that doesn't read the book read it -- and at least 3 of us actually had read it and therefore could discuss it, and discuss it we did; it generated a lot of conversation. To me, ..."

Ellen-- you are right on. If we hadn't just read Defending Jacob, I would totally suggest it for a book club. Lots to talk about and a book I will remember.