book forty-six: The Dinner

 The Dinner, translated from the 2009 Dutch novel by Herman Koch.  Critics have compared it with a bookclub favourite, Gone Girl.  They were dreaming.

We met on Sunday 21 July at Nicole's place.  

Scores:

Nicole - 10 - Suffered from high expectations based on reviews. It wasn't bad, just ordinary.

Mari - 9 if I can't give it a 8.5 - Prose was ordinary. Give benefit of doubt re translation. Structure of the dinner didn't work - would have been better to have a conventional linear timeline, which would have allowed the author to set up all the relationships properly and give more understanding of characters.  Seemed superficial and perhaps should have delved deeper into the characters, because  it ended up being that we didn't care about them. It was insulting to the reader to try to get us to buy the faux medical reasons for it all.

Leigha - 11 - I wanted to know what happened so it kept me engaged. Hadn't heard comparisons to Gone Girl and had no expectations. Probably helped. Some redeeming features but it didn't quite work over the courses of a dinner. But quite intrigued by psychological function of a family. Weird message in the end.

Tim - 8 - Just under 50%. Bored. It's better than the Poisonwood Bible. Checked against The Road and Nicole convinced him to stay with this score because at least the road elicited a reaction.

Jim - 10 - Thought it had potential but structural issues and there weer too many elements of suspending belief. Structure created to draw you in but then it began to feel artificial.  Never get to see true character of Beau.

Wendy - declined to score, only 30% in.