The Dinner. Rating: Divine

"Yet there was something else, something different about her this time, like a room where someone has thrown out all the flowers while you were gone: a change in the interior you don’t even notice at first, not until you see the stems sticking out of the garbage."

I once spent a full three nights hiding in a cave during a manhunt. As men in uniforms flattened the grass fifty feet above my head, I learned about darkness. The darkness in the cave was absolute - my brain began sending twinkles of electricity through my optic nerves to entertain itself, and colorful stars blossomed in the incomprehensible blackness. I occasionally stretched out my fingertips and stumbled forward to seek out the walls of the cave, but the darkness was too thick for me to find the boundaries of the cavern I was in.

Reading The Dinner reminded me strongly of my descent into that cave. The darkness in the cave did not envelop me instantly. Instead, the light gradually seemed to leach out of the air, into the stone walls and the dampness on the edges of the cave floor until, without my realization, I was blanketed in that velvety black that frayed the borders of my awareness. I will never forget the cave, and I will never forget The Dinner.

The Dinner by the brilliantly villainous Herman Koch 

...magnificently explores the depths of human monstrosity. Beautifully translated from the original Dutch, the English version of the book (which is the one I read; the Dutch I learned as a child was lost to the fog of forgetting many years ago) follows two couples as they share a five-course meal. The narrator's malevolence increases steadily as the story is revealed, but he begins as a deliciously biting critic of humanity, observing much of the absurdity of sophistication with a crisp, merciless wit. I quite liked him. This is a brilliant maneuver by Koch, drawing the reader in by appealing to her sense of superiority and cleverness before revealing the true and villainous nature of the narrator.

The structure of the novel is exactly as beautiful as the writing demands. Each section is structured as a part of the incredibly high-end meal shared by the main characters, from aperitif to digestif. On reflection, this structure is so brilliant as to feel obvious - I found myself wondering why all stories weren't written this way. A great meal and a great story should be similarly structured to develop a sense of rising action, climax, and denouement. Koch does a lovely job of delicately pairing the development and motion of the story with the flow of the meal; it was not until the digestif that I realized exactly how skillfully this was done.

Now, for Spoilers.

Reader, I almost don't want to spoil this for you. The revelation of the true plot is done with exceeding finesse and I encourage you to skip this part of the review so that you can fully enjoy its development. At first, the story appears to be about the tension between our narrator, Paul, and his high-powered politician brother, Serge. Both are accompanied by their generally wise and patient wives. Soon, however, it becomes incredibly clear that the tension between them is related not to their familial sense of competition, but instead to their sons' mutual participation in an infamous atrocity. The sons have - stop reading, please, don't let me ruin this for you - they have burned a homeless woman alive, and they have been caught on film doing it. Their parents, of course, know that their sons are the monsters in the video; the rest of the world still wonders at the identity of the boys who gleefully light that trapped woman on fire.

All of the characters are invested in doing the right thing, and are willing to make tremendous sacrifices to do so. The narrator is certain that he will stop at nothing to protect his son's identity, but he has no idea how far his wife will go for the same purpose. I won't reveal everything, reader, because I care too deeply about you and the book to do so. It has actually truly pained me to reveal this much. I will tell you this, however: the deepest of evils in these characters lies not in those who are boorish and obtuse, and not in those who have malice in their hearts and blood and bones - it lies in the one who chooses evil because it is the most interesting of choices. In this, the character shares a trait with the reader, who has chosen the book in order to taste it's darkness.

Reader, do not shy away from that darkness. Sink in your teeth.

Rating: Divine.

Possible ratings: Magnificent, Divine, Satisfactory, Tiresome, Lamentable, Execrable. This is a blog about words, what rating system did you expect?