Top 3 Herman Koch Books

If there is a current author thoroughly employed with narrative as a form of social criticism, that is Hermann Koch. In the suspense of his novels, hot topics always end up being distilled regarding the pressing social drift that involves orchestrated individualism, complacency and the incorporation of violence as a channel towards hypocrisy and alienation from a very young age and especially in the well-to-do classes.

Married to a Spanish woman, he has also used real events that occurred in our country, such as a despicable racist or class attack in Barcelona.

Since his novel La Cena was published in Spain (precisely the one that incorporated events extrapolated from the city of Barcelona), it has also been gaining followers in our country. Readers who are interested in that intention to uncover miseries between appearances, at the same time as the suggestive thread of doubt about the characters, about their half-truths and their blatant lies is weaving together in a disturbing and disconcerting way.

Although this author had already been publishing books in his country since the 80s, it is since 2010 that he has achieved success and translations into countless languages, demonstrating a degree of maturity and success in all his proposed arguments.

Herman Koch's Top 3 Recommended Books

Summer house with pool

Belonging to the social elite in their versions of renowned doctor, famous actor or potentate director means having physical and intellectual spaces away from the populace.

That's where those who know how the world moves can keep ranting about morals, good and evil, the state of affairs, and the sex of angels.

Dr. Marc Schlosser receives an invitation from his patient, the renowned actor Ralph Meier, to spend a few days together at the mansion on the beach, facing the Mediterranean.

They will end up being joined by a valued film director, back from everything and enjoying his latest and young girlfriend. Along with the first two couples will travel their adolescent children, boys cultivated in elitist education and trained to take the social helm when they leave that adolescence that no one knows well how to face.

These are days of dispersion and laughter, of ambrosia and alcohol under the sea breeze. But sometimes this fiction of believing oneself above everything and everyone can lead to disregard for the lives of others.

When the terrible thing happens, nobody understands how it could happen or where the guilt arises. Because fatality is not a critical moment, it is a sum of circumstances, decisions and thoughts that can be driven by uncontrolled feelings such as violence, desire or passion, feelings that some people believe they can control at will.

Summer house with pool

La cena

A luxury restaurant in Amsterdam. There two couples meet for a relaxed conversation. And it is on that basic level that a story takes place that, despite everything, acquires a frenetic pace and an unsuspected intensity.

The author's successful concise language to outline characters and develop dialogues manages to captivate from the first bars that point to a comfortable dinner of hors d'oeuvres and good wine.

Only that the meeting has an underground foundation, or at least reserved for dessert. What the children of the two couples did is not right, Michel and Rick behaved like inhuman types, incapable of any empathy. They are friends and children of both couples, they protect them until the last consequences against social stalking.

But among the parents the guilt appears and ends up opening in the channel the hypocritical ideology of a high society bent on the image, always. As I have already said, based on some events that occurred in Barcelona.

La cena

Dear Mr. M

Not because it is in third place, it should be considered very distant in quality. Koch achieves in all his novels an obligatory analysis parallel to the events narrated, endowing the narrative with an unusual force.

As if we were looking at a literary version of The Indiscreta Window, the narrator of the story introduces us to the objective of his life, his neighbor, Mr. M., a famous writer to be exact but about whom our narrator friend throws suspicions that he is not we know if they are based on realities or on some particular hatred.

The narrator tells us about the great novel of its spied author: Adjusting the accounts, a novel narrated from real events that took place in the city. Finding out if what is narrated by the writer is true or if he wrote that novel as a cover for what really happened is the vital foundation of the narrator, and of the reader as soon as he immerses himself in the novel.

Dear Mr. M
5/5 - (7 votes)

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