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    The Dinner
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    The Dinner
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    The Dinner
    Audiobook8 hours

    The Dinner

    Written by Herman Koch

    Narrated by Clive Mantle

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    It's a summer's evening in Amsterdam, and two couples meet at a fashionable restaurant for dinner. Between mouthfuls of food and over the polite scrapings of cutlery, the conversation remains a gentle hum of polite discourse—the banality of work, the triviality of the holidays. But behind the empty words, terrible things need to be said, and with every forced smile and every new course, the knives are being sharpened. Each couple has a fifteen-year-old son. The two boys are united by their accountability for a single horrific act; an act that has triggered a police investigation and shattered the comfortable, insulated worlds of their families. As the dinner reaches its culinary climax, the conversation finally touches on their children. As civility and friendship disintegrate, each couple shows just how far they are prepared to go to protect those they love. Tautly written, incredibly gripping, and told by an unforgettable narrator, The Dinner promises to be the topic of countless dinner party debates. Skewering everything from parenting values to pretentious menus to political convictions, this novel reveals the dark side of genteel society and asks what each of us would do in the face of unimaginable tragedy.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherBlackstone Audio
    Release dateFeb 13, 2013
    ISBN9781620645925
    Unavailable
    The Dinner
    Author

    Herman Koch

    Herman Koch was born in 1953. He is the author of a number of novels - including The Dinner, Dear Mr. M and Summer House with Swimming Pool - short stories, has acted for radio, television, and film, and was a co-creator of the long-running Dutch TV comedy series Jiskefet (1990-2005). The Dinner has sold over 2.5 million copies worldwide and spent a year on the New York Times bestseller list. Richard Gere, Steve Coogan, Laura Linney, and Chloë Sevigny also star in the film adaptation.

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    Reviews for The Dinner

    3.5/5

    1,271 ratings188 reviews

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    • 4/5
      The Dinner by Herman Koch, translated from the Dutch by Sam Garret, is best read or listened to without having too much information about it beforehand. (This review is spoiler-free!) The book is written in sections named for meal courses, and takes place over a lengthy meal at an exclusive restaurants. Watch out for reviews that will have you knowing too much by the end of the Apéritif section if you want to get the full impact of the story.Put it this way, this is one family dinner you may not want to attend if you’re not in the mood for one tense moment after another, from trivial complaints about the restaurant service to the deadly serious. I would recommend this to audiobook listeners who liked The Reluctant Fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid, narrated by Satya Bhabha, another excellent audiobook production from AudioGO.Read full review on Bay State Reader's Advisory blog.
    • 2/5
      Though it was billed as being disturbing, I thought the subject matter of this book was stuff you’d typically hear on the news. I wished it was more shocking, but it was interesting to have to think of what you would do as a parent to give your kid the life you think they should have.
    • 3/5
      The description asks what each of us would do in the face of tragedy? I sure don't believe that I would do what these stupid people did. To start with all of the characters were so loathsome that it actually made the story rather unpalatable...to continue on the dinner theme. I can't believe these adults actually reacted the way they did to what these kids did. These little 15 year old "angels" saw nothing wrong...and had no remorse what so ever...except they got caught on camera...with setting fire to a homeless woman for the "fun" of it just to see what would happen. I don' see how these parents could possibly eat dinner after viewing this. The one interesting "twist" that got this 3 stars instead of 2...was that one of the fathers turned out to show some common sense. He actually wanted to take some sort of action to the situation...while the other one was actually a psychopath whose "little apple" didn't fall far from the tree. I will say I don't believe I've ever read anything quiet like it... and I have read some gruesome ones.
    • 4/5
      Our book club read this month was Herman Koch's The Dinner. I had seen Goodreads friends who had read it and enjoyed it. I didn't realize it was a dark 'thriller'.The novel begins slow, and well, is actually boring, the narrative voice telling how he and his wife are getting ready to meet another couple at an upscale restaurant. They are not looking forward to it.We learn that the other couple is the narrator's brother and sister-in-law, and the brother is going to run for Prime Minister. The brothers have a strained history and relationship. The narrator had a 'meltdown' in the classroom when he was teaching and was on medication. There is a scene before the dinner where the narrator looks at his son's cell phone and is not pleased with what he discovers. How would this evening, our dinner at the restaurant, have proceeded, had I indeed quit right then and there? from The Dinner by Herman KochThere is a lot of description of the meal and the staff and how the sister-in-law is wearing dark glasses to hide that she has been crying.And when we discover what it is that brought these parents together, you may wish you were not reading this book. It's too late--you have to keep turning pages. The crime is so horrendous! And the cover-up is even more disturbing.The plotting is masterful. But I wish I had not read this book! Did I mention it is DISTURBING? I worried about nightmares! I am not a lover of books that do this to me!What would YOU do if your fifteen-year-old son had committed a crime? How far would YOU go to protect your child?Maybe we don't take that seriously enough...How young they are. To the outside world, they're suddenly adults, because they did something that we, as adults, consider a crime. But I feel that they've responded to it more like children. from The Dinner by Herman KochWould you rationalize your child's behavior? Hide the crime? Smooth the way without repercussions? Or make the child own up to his error, support their turning themselves over to the authorities? Would consider bribery or threats or violence? Or set a standard of morality and law?So be forewarned--you will encounter some nasty folk, and if you pick the book up, be prepared for a slow simmer that comes to a roiling boil!
    • 3/5
      Brief Summary:Two couples come together at a dinner to discuss the morally disconcerting actions of their children, and end up tasting the darkness of their own souls in the process.The Tsondoku Scale:Middle of the Pile, 4 out of 10. The blurb of this book gives it more substance than it actually contains, as Herman Koch crosses the fine line between ‘shocking’ and absurdity.The Good:The Dinner has a great voice. Paul, the narrator, is perfect for the role with his dark, wry humor. What’s more, the story is quick-paced and not hard to read at all, which is especially hard to do since the whole story takes place within this one dinner between the Lohman couples. Perhaps, most surprising of all, are the developments of Paul and his wife Claire throughout the novel–for while the focus of The Dinner is on the children, we learn quite a lot about their parents, and their own troubling history.The Bad:It’s contradictory, how the novel strives for anonymity by refusing to name hospitals, streets, etc., and yet it puts Serge Lohman, the famous Prime Minister candidate, as the brother of the narrator. What’s the point of anonymity in a story if one of your characters is famous! Further, for a novel marketed to be a psychologically unsettling thriller, The Dinner lacks the in-depth back story, or the graphic descriptions such a book needs to make it so. When we find out what the children have done, it is like watching the news on TV–yes the crime is terrible, but without really knowing the people involved or seeing graphic images, it is hard to be gut-wrenchingly disturbed. And speaking of watching the news, would you really believe that a husband and wife who are on good terms with one another would: sit on a couch, watch a crime on the news, realize from watching that crime that their son and his cousin were the perpetrators, and then proceed to keep that knowledge to themselves for weeks unsure whether the other knows about the crime, instead of immediately talking about the crime with one another? Well, that’s exactly what happens in The Dinner, a book that is disturbingly absurd.Please check out TsundokuReviews.wordpress.com for more reviews!
    • 4/5
      Reading this book was like eating an orange gone bad, very bad. As you reveal the fruit inside, you find out it is rotten through and through. I began getting an uneasy feeling at the halfway point and it never went away. Your initial perceptions are proven wrong. Clever, very clever. I'm sure if this isn't already optioned for a film, it will be soon.

      I recommend it!
    • 4/5
      Pretty disturbing story about the how far parents would go to protect their children. The author does a good job making you dislike all the characters for their behaviour. Interesting to watch the unfolding of the narrator as a psychotic. Well written but a chilling story.
    • 5/5
      Best book I've read this year so far. The writing is tight and sharp and hilarious, and there are plenty of surprises packed into this one little dinner, between these two couples. I asked my friend Francie to bring this book to me because it is not going to be published in the United States until 2013 or 2014. I owe Francie a big one for bringing this from Scotland for me. I can't talk a lot about the plot or anything, because it would give the entire story away, but I will say, a perfectly well deserved five stars.
    • 4/5
      This is one of the ones where I'm giving it four starts because it's objectively good, although I didn't *enjoy* it per se. Reminded me lots of Camus's The Stranger, which I'm going to re-read again now I think. Terrible characters who you come to see are not so much morally questionable as completely morally corrupt. Masterful use of readers' innate instinct to trust/sympathize with a story's narrator, which makes the ending more disturbing. So like... it's good. And I suppose I'd recommend it. But I don't think I'd read it again. Should make for an interesting book club discussion tomorrow night!!
    • 4/5
      "You don't have to know everything about each other. Secrets didn't get in the way of happiness." Different than typical current fiction. About a family that defines their own happiness and takes steps to keep that life. Questions how we define a number of topics, including "normal".
    • 4/5
      The true story in the Dinner comes at you from nowhere. What begins as a normal meal among friends turns into something darker, once what is below the surface slowly reveals itself. Fantastic writing and great pace leads to a wonderful story.
    • 4/5
      The Dinner was a quick, dark read full of terrible people and terrible deeds. There is no point of redemption for any of the characters in this book. As the story reaches its final few pages, it becomes quite clear that redemption was never on the menu. This is about depravity, sickness, and brutality. And in that sense, it's quite satisfying in just how sinister it gets without becoming exploitative or obscene. It's violent, but not gory. Koch has done an excellent job of creating characters who are unreliable and abhorrent on nearly every level.A main complaint I've seen in the reviews is that the characters are unrelateable - well I'd hope so. If you relate to any of the characters in The Dinner then I think you have bigger problems than finding a book you like. Relatability is not a main priority for me, so that didn't keep me from enjoying the book, but if you're a reader who likes to really empathize with your protagonists, you might want to keep looking.
    • 4/5
      Reading about this book before reading it puzzled me at first. Why are these people so hard on the characters? Then it unfolds. It is a bit like The Slap meets We Need to Talk About Kevin and goes psychopathic.
    • 4/5
      In Amsterdam, two brothers and their wives meet for a dinner loaded with undercurrents. It's difficult to say which brother is more self-absorbed and pompous - Serge, the politician or Paul, the former high school history teacher forced into an involuntary "sabbatical" due to mental health issues. Their sons have been involved in a crime of unimaginable cruelty, which they are attempting to justify and absolve. The early background leads quickly to the understanding that Paul's son, Michael, has learned at a very young age that his father will protect him from taking responsibility for any wrongdoing. There is a pervasive sense in this book that once the superficial veneer of "a happy family" collapses, nothing is left but the harsh knowledge of their dysfunction as parents and worthwhile people. For those of us who believe that there are consequences for our actions and for those of our children, this is a difficult book to read.
    • 3/5
      There was an interesting thought behind this book, but it didn't really do it for me. The writing was OK - quite spare, straight prose - but the characters were all hugely unlikeable (albeit purposely so, but still...). There are many books with hugely flawed characters that I love (like Rabbit Angstrom, or many of Franzen's characters) because there is still some endearing frailty about them, but I just found nothing likeable in the characters in this novel, so it was hard to fall for the book itself.I also quickly grew tired of the setting of the dinner itself in the restaurant. It became very repetitive, and I was willing them to finish the bloody dinner and move on to some new scenery.All in all, although quite an interesting concept, I wasn't as gripped as I expected to be, and much of that was because I didn't really care what happened to any of the characters in the family.3 stars - the meat was juicy, but the vegetables accompanying it weren't too my taste.
    • 3/5
      Even with all the brilliant observations on human behavior, this book still left a bad taste in my mouth. Too cynic, bitter and downright depressing, with twisted notions of right and wrong on behalf of the protagonist - which is sort of explained away by his psychiatric ailment (but what about the others? they are "normal" in the strict sense of the word and yet flawed as well...). At the start, you don't really know what to expect of this dinner between two brothers and their wives, and I almost gave up, but then the story unravels with sobering speed, with all unpredictably revealing flashbacks, and you cannot practically put the book down. There is a fascination of sorts, but an unpleasant one - about how it will really end?!... The whole thing is enveloped with cynicism - a disappointment, in a sense.
    • 4/5
      Is it realistic to think that a father and mother would go to such lengths as are depicted in this story to protect the abominable acts of their child? Maybe. There is perhaps some explanation for the father's behavior due to his psychiatric condition (which has apparently been genetically passed on to his son) for which he is supposed to be taking medication, but what about the mother? This story raises lots of thought-provoking questions, but mainly I was appalled.
    • 4/5
      What a sneaky little book! Two brothers and their spouses meet up at a fancy restaurant for dinner. The narrator, Paul Lohman is a teacher currently on the non-active list, his brother Serge is in the running for the premiership of Holland. They couldn't be more different. As each course progresses the story tinkers with our perceptions of who the characters are why they are really meeting together at this moment in time. I enjoyed it immensely!
    • 5/5
      The characters are great, and you end up hating them all for what they do in the end. The story moves along and keeps your interest.
    • 3/5
      not at all what I was expecting, which was something wry and witty. this was dark and disturbing
    • 2/5
      hmmm...what to say about this book. I found this book very slow, tedious, a little soap boxy and very dark and twisted. None of the characters are likeable and the slow burn of the story was more frustrating than enticing.
    • 4/5
      This is a book I highly recommend. Based on true events (albeit in another country), this novel is a chilling reminder of how actions can snowball and go so wrong. Facing the truth and the consequences of those actions, both on the part of the perpetrators and their families, makes for a thought-provoking story.
    • 3/5
      Told through the eyes of a decidedly unreliable narrator, The Dinner is an elegantly simple novel served up over five courses. From the casual opening aperitif to the grittier, questionable digestif, the book layers on the story over a meal in a swanky restaurant.

      The story revolves around two families who meet to discuss a problem with their children. The two men are brothers: the one being our narrator, who seems to have little time for the second, who we soon learn is a high-flying politician likely to become the next prime minister. During the course of the meal, details are filtered in, largely via flashbacks, as we learn the nature of the 'problem' the couples are having with their children, as well as becoming increasingly suspicious about the motives of our initially amiable narrator. There are plenty of shocks and twists to get the book through to its conclusion, and leaves the reader posed with the question on the book's cover: just how far would you go to protect the ones you love?

      The writing style is very colloquial, each course easily digested, with the whole meal edible in one sitting. At times humourous, occasionally shocking, there is an interesting moral question being posed, but I think the book would like to be taken more seriously than it deserves. For me, it was an enjoyable read, but nothing more than entertainment.

      Still, it remains a great little tale, light bite size portions gradually building up a satisfying meal, which depending on your palate might leave you feeling a little queasy - and nevertheless thanking the chef for it.
    • 4/5
      This psychological thriller will keep you on the edge of your seat! It is not fast-paced, but certainly keeps you thinking and guessing as the author lets out a few clues at a time as to what is happening and going to happen. It is the story of two brothers, and their wives, having dinner at a restaurant. They are there to discuss a family situation regarding each of their sons, and how they are going to handle it. All the time thinking how their decisions will affect the boys' futures, and their own futures, one of which is a high level politician. All the information is not revealed till the very end, and even then the reader is left with a few questions, such as "What just happened?!..." I enjoyed this book very much and think it would make a good movie!
    • 4/5
      This was a page turner of a psychological thriller. I work with the homeless and found some parts of this book deeply disturbing but sadly also an accurate portrait of how some view homeless people. Haven't been this surprised about a book since Gone Girl.
    • 3/5
      This is one of those books you might love or you might hate or you might be somewhere in-between, but it's definitely one of those books that sparks conversation and has you thinking about after the fact. You won't love any of the characters, but that's not the point. It's a book you need to experience; not read a review about, so I'll stop here so you can grab a copy and check it out.
    • 4/5
      It's the kind of book where you can't look away - like driving slowly past a traffic accident. Every detail is important. In the early part of the book, the details may seem trivial, but then as more information comes out, it comes together. The story started in a way I thought I understood, I thought I knew where it was going. And then before my eyes it completely changed direction! By then I was utterly hooked. There are some weak spots in the plot but they are easily overlooked. This is dark, disturbing, unpleasant and shocking, but undoubtedly clever.
    • 3/5
      Author Koch has received much acclaim in literary circles, and I can understand why. He writes really well. But if you want to be able to like a single character, or even have sympathy for a character, look elsewhere. The only other book I've read by Koch so far is Summer House with Swimming Pool, and it was also filled with rather nasty people.The Dinner is about one dinner between two brothers, one of them running for Prime Minister, and the wives of each. But of course, there is more to it than that. The brothers are getting together to talk about their children.This book is full of cruelty, dishonesty, violence, bullying taken to an extreme, pomposity, posturing. The adults cannot be liked; the teenage children cannot be liked. I can care about characters I don't like, but in this case, there were no redeeming features.Nevertheless, I read to the end. I did want to see how this train wreck of a story ended. And the author did keep me hooked. I'm glad I'm done with the book, and am ambivalent about whether I'm glad I read it.
    • 5/5
      I liked the sound of the movie in a review I read so I took a chance on the book. Yes, it's set around a dinner - a fancy, nouvelle cuisine affair, and with the main protagonist's (Paul) high profile politician brother and his glamorous wife. Paul and his wife Claire would much rather eat a less pretentious place but what his bro commands ...The book is divided into the 4 courses and I loved his sardonic wit and comments about the food and the maitre d'. It was so good I though surely it was written in English but no, it's translated Dutch. Superbly. Fairly soon into the book, there are undertones outside of the actual dinner which become reflective on Paul and some of his issues, his son (I won't elaborate), and an increasingly darker topic.Without giving away too much it evolves into a very dark situation and a nasty resolution of it. I've read reviews that comment on how evil Paul is and praise his wife Claire. IMHO Paul is nasty but flawed and his wife manipulative and very much the evil one. Really, all the characters are severely flawed except for his brother's wife who is just a victim and otherwise pathetic.A superb read and an easy and quick one too.
    • 2/5
      2.5 This was rather disappointing. I had been excited to read The Dinner and from the marketing believed I was in store for a fun and fast-paced thriller. Not so much. This was the epitome of a slow build, so much so that I was bored and tempted to skim. Perhaps I wouldn't be so harsh if I had gone in without the same expectations. It was a decent look at the lengths people go to to protect their family. But overall, not for me.