It’s Always Darkest Before It Turns Pitch Black

My wife’s book club had read Herman Koch’s The Dinner when it came out in 2013, so when she saw me headed into the living room with her copy of it a while back, she predicted that I’d read through it in a single sitting—and she wasn’t that far off. (About halfway through, I had to get a glass of water.) For those of you not familiar with the novel, it’s essentially a monologue by Paul Lohman, a retired Dutch schoolteacher who, as the story begins, is out with his wife, on their way to a trendy restaurant where they’ll meet Paul’s older brother, Serge, and his wife, to discuss a situation that affects not only their respective children but Serge’s political aspirations.

Now, Paul is an extremely cagey narrator, and the story unfolds in a series of micro-revelations, so—after a few chapters—I went back to my wife, and I asked her, “This video, it’s going to turn out to be [redacted], right?” Oh, no, she assured me, it’s much worse than that. Much, much worse, it would turn out.

And, sure, some of the power of The Dinner lies in the shocking incident at the heart of the story, but only some. The greater strength of the novel is in Paul’s personality and the way it shifts from the time he and his wife leave for the restaurant to the time he returns home. In the beginning, we’re drawn in by his narration; he may be a bit closed off emotionally, but he’s smart and engaging, perhaps especially in his annoyances at the little pretensions of those around him. We may be able to identify with those frustrations, and consequently find ourselves warming up to him, taking his side against Serge’s before the evening has really begun.

It’s safe to say you’ll come to feel very differently about Paul by the end. As a narrator, Paul reminded me a great deal of Lou Ford, the protagonist of Jim Thompson’s noir classic The Killer Inside Me. I was reading The Dinner in preparation for an interview with Herman Koch, part of the “Word for Word” series at Bryant Park in midtown Manhattan, so when we met before the event, I brought this up. (I didn’t want to spring it on him in front of an audience and then find out maybe he wasn’t familiar with Thompson, after all.) As it turned out, he hadn’t read that novel, but (after The Dinner was written), he had looked up another of Thompson’s books, Pop. 1280, and he could see where people would find the common ground.

During the live interview, though, as we started talking about his latest novel, Summer House with Swimming Pool, we pivoted from Jim Thompson to Patricia Highsmith and The Talented Mr. Ripley, and that, I think, turned out to be an even better reference point, especially where the new book is concerned. Paul Lohman, for all the darkness of his personality, has a narrow field of influence; his decisions affect himself and his immediate family. Marc Schlosser, the narrator of Summer House, is a doctor—and as such, he holds the power of life and death over his patients. What, then, would compel him to abuse that power… or, as he would frame the issue, to use that power judiciously even if most others would fail to see it that way?

I’m not giving away much with that question. We learn the broadest strokes of what happens in the opening chapters; one of Marc’s patients, a prominent Dutch actor named Ralph Meier, has died, and Marc has been implicated in the death. The bulk of the novel is Marc’s explanation of why it happened, which requires an obsessive detailing of how he manipulates events to put his family in the same resort town as the Meiers. Disgusted at Ralph’s lechery towards his wife, he’s also making plans to seduce Ralph’s wife, perhaps for no other reason than to prove that he can. His schemes, however, leave his family exposed, and soon the primal urge that drives Marc’s thoughts is no longer lust but revenge.

The Dinner was a big hit with readers in 2013, especially after a plug from Gillian Flynn, whose Gone Girl was frequently invoked for a similar subversion of readers’ expectations. Summer House mines the same territory as Koch’s previous novel, but with much less restraint. It took time for us to realize that Paul Lohman was a “monster,” or a highly focused and strong-willed individual if you prefer. Dr. Schlosser isn’t a cartoonish villain, but he also doesn’t bother hiding his sense of superiority or his disgust with the world. From the opening pages, we know what he is, and though we’re very unlikely to sympathize with him, it’s still possible that we might find ourselves fascinated by his relentless effort to execute his dark vision, adjusting for every obstacle thrown in his path and every personal setback. Fascinated… or repulsed… or an uncomfortable combination of the two.

(NOTE: This post originally appeared on Beacon.)

11 June 2014 | read this |