We had a very interesting discussion about this Dutch family drama played out over the dinner table in a posh restaurant. While most of us had quite a few reservations, about the plot and the central characters, George continued to make his mark in his capacity as new book group member - he really loved the premise - the veneer of middle class respectability hiding violence just under the surface, the characters and the plot. He also found a lot of it very funny, especially the bits where Paul is giving someone a thrashing... He thought the characters were refreshingly direct (fairly typical of the Dutch in his experience) and the dilemma of loyalty to family vs social conscience cleverly balanced. Carole also enjoyed the book quite a lot, how the unreliable narrator's dark nature was gradually revealed to the reader and the tight narrative style (ugh, 2 hours on and I'm already sketchy on the discussion..!) She also really enjoyed the sibling rivalry, and Paul's obvious resentment for his more successful brother. Caroline and Anna both started off enjoying it, but became disillusioned as the story unfolded. Chris found the characters and story thoroughly unconvincing and unengaging throughout. She wondered whether the translation was part of what turned her off it. Jill had not finished it but was not very impressed so far. While most of us agreed that the dinner was a useful device to pace the story, some of us found the references to the meal and how everyone behaved at it repetitive or 'clunky' at times, and some of us wondered whether they would really have chosen such a public setting to discuss their sons' involvement in murder. The more we discussed it the more we accepted that you had to suspend disbelief about that, along with the details of Paul's mental illness, the lack of any sign of police / criminal justice intervention, and see it as a piece of theatre populated by very sinister caricatures. Depending on how attached we are to having empathetic characters in a book, the total lack of them effected some of our enjoyment. Those which probably were sympathetic in reality (Babette, Beau) were tarnished by Paul's twisted view of the world. There was an interesting debate as to whether Paul's reaction to seeing the Youtube videos of what we later knew to be 'follow up' violence to the original crime against the homeless woman, was motivated by genuine concern that his son was serially violent or just anger/worry that they had been made public. Claire's character was particularly sinister, her true nature not being revealed til late in the book, but then made responsible for orchestrating Beau's disappearance and voicing the most overt hatred of homeless murder victim.
Judith's notes:
So here are my hastily-typed thoughts on the Dinner. It wasn't quite what I expected, really. The device of the dinner was quite good in terms of pacing things, and the revelation of the main character's past worked initially, but I was expecting more psychological tension and less actual violence. I wasn't sure that giving Paul a specific 'condition' was necessary to explain his instincts, though I guess it did serve to raise questions about Clare and what she did or didn't know (everything and more, as it turned out).
The other characters i found harder to read, especially Babette, who i couldn't work out at all. The mysterious figure of Beau raised some interesting questions, particularly about attitudes to race, though I thought the episode of Michel's essay was a bit inconclusive, hard to say whether he was just trying to impress his father or expressing some sort of actual belief system. Once again, all the main characters were so unsympathetic that I didn't really want to dwell on their motivations!
Having said that, it was clever on some levels and it did keep me reading. Also always hard to judge a book in translation.
Scores:
Judith 6.5
George 9
Chris 5
Jill 6.5
Anna 6.5
Carole 7.5
Annie 6.5
Caroline 6.5
'The wave and the smile were meant to show that from out there, it probably all looked worse than it was. That I'd had an argument with the Principal about his, Michel's, essay, but that in the mean time everything had come closer to being sorted out'
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