{"id":5005,"date":"2015-11-05T07:18:55","date_gmt":"2015-11-05T12:18:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=5005"},"modified":"2015-11-05T07:18:55","modified_gmt":"2015-11-05T12:18:55","slug":"summer-house-with-swimming-pool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=5005","title":{"rendered":"***Summer House with Swimming Pool"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"swimming

(photo: alobos life, creative commons license)<\/p><\/div>\n

By Herman Koch, translated from the Dutch by Sam Garrett <\/a>– Having greatly admired Dutch writer Herman Koch\u2019s European best-seller The Dinner<\/em>, I was delighted to find this more recent novel. The two have much in common: a first-person narration by men who turn out to be not entirely reliable, an unfolding tragic event whose full scope is only gradually revealed; and the grounding of the story in the hyper-intense relationships of a nuclear family, where every secret evokes the possibility of catastrophe.<\/p>\n

The narrator of The Dinner<\/em> was quite likeable, at least at first, his chameleon colors revealed only bit by bit. In this novel, Koch\u2019s narrator, Dutch general physician Marc Schlosser, shows his disgruntlement cards early on. Married with two preteen\/early teen daughters, his feelings about women are entirely retrograde: \u201cI looked at her (a just-met woman) the way every man looks at a woman who enters his field of vision for the first time. Could you do it with her?<\/em> I asked myself, looking her deep in the eyes. Yes<\/em>, was the response.\u201d Or, \u201cAny father would rather have a son than a daughter.\u201d Or, \u201cI laughed . . . the sooner you laugh during a conversation with a woman, the better. They\u2019re not used to it, women, to making people laugh. They think they\u2019re not funny. They\u2019re right, usually.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ouch, ouch, and ouch.<\/p>\n

Yet, Marc is not more charitable toward the men he encounters, truth be told, or toward any of his patients, whom he even fantasizes about killing. Why Marc is so dissatisfied is never quite clear. Is he just a curmudgeon in the wrong profession? Did he take too seriously the lectures of his amoral medical school professor?<\/p>\n

A luckless new patient is the famous actor Ralph Meier, a past-middle-age womanizer attracted to Marc\u2019s wife Caroline. Marc, in turn, is attracted to Ralph\u2019s younger wife Judith, and his attention seems to be reciprocated. Entangling the families further are Marc\u2019s daughters\u2019 growing relationships with Ralph\u2019s slightly older sons.<\/p>\n

At a minor early summer social event the four members of each family come together in a powerful way, which leads to an invitation to visit the Meier family at their summer house in some unspecified seaside destination. Marc, his eye on Judith, shamelessly manipulates his family\u2019s vacation itinerary, while denying his intent, to ensure the encounter happens. The conflicting personalities, the muddled motives of Marc, and the ingestion of too much alcohol create a decidedly unhappy holiday from which hardly anyone will emerge unscathed.<\/p>\n

The novel contains a couple of critically weak plot points (which I won\u2019t divulge) that mar its believability. I\u2019m not the only reader to find that Summer House<\/em> suffers by comparison with the diabolical genius of The Dinner<\/em>, with New York Times<\/a><\/em> reviewer Lionel Shriver calling this follow-up \u201cinexplicably careless.\u201d Read The Dinner<\/em> instead.
\n