I wanted to like this novel. I'm a big fan of
unreliable narrators, unlikable characters and of plots that gradually unfold,
layer by layer, i.e. “Gone Girl” and “Shutter Island”. So a novel that starts out as the story of a
civilized dinner party at a posh Amsterdam restaurant involving two couples
discussing their sons, but with this underlying feeling that things are not as
they seem, should be right down my alley.
The problem is that what Herman Koch ends up
revealing over the course of the novel is too little too late. Instead of telling the story through one
parents’ perspective, it might have been more effective if Koch had chosen to
come at the plot line from the viewpoint of all four parents. It would have moved along faster, and not
pushed the story so far to the back. Yes,
it's as much or more a story about how two sets of parents deal with (or fail
to find a mutually acceptable way to deal with) some horrific behavior on the
part of their sons as it is about those boys and their actions, but the
ramblings back over time on the part of the narrator, Paul, become so much a
distraction that the conflicts at the heart of the novel end up feeling like
the subplot..
This novel is a great concept that never quite
delivers. There are some fascinating ideas -- such as the way in which
individuals can distort reality and morality -- but the author never lets his
characters’ fend for themselves.
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