Behind a Mask

I picked up this book in a quirky little bookstore, intrigued by the idea of reading "thrillers" by Louisa May Alcott, the author of all those books for girls that I read in my youth (I had the whole collection, it was six or eight books... Little Women was only the first). These stories are certainly QUITE different from those.

If you read Little Women, you know that the character Jo March is very much Alcott. These stories equate to the stories Jo "scribbled" away at, the ones Professor Bhaer said were beneath her. I have to say, I tend to agree with him. In fact I found them pretty horrid. They reminded me of the Gothic tales that Jane Austen based Northanger Abbey on, rather lurid and pretty transparent, in my opinion. But they are probably what I should have expected in the writing of an innocent young lady of the era.

It's funny, there are about ten reviews of this book on Amazon, and all of them are four-five stars. I totally disagree with that. I guess it just wasn't my cup of tea.


Behind a Mask

The Dinner

This was such an intriguing novel! Herman Koch has written one of the most interesting unreliable narrators I have ever read. We start the novel with the idea that Paul Lohman is your average nice guy who has the misfortune to be the brother of a very famous pompous ass, but through the course of the story we find out that what we believe isn't necessarily so.

The whole story is told through the course of a dinner between Paul and his brother Serge and their wives, from aperitif through dessert. Both couples' teenaged sons have gotten into some trouble together, and the purpose of the dinner is to decide how to deal with that. But through the course of the meal we learn that appearance are deceiving, that things are not always what they seem, and that there are people in this world who are fooling everyone regarding their character and intentions.

Koch writes with humor, acerbity, and suspense. Although I came to like Paul less and less the more I read, I needed to find out how the meal ended, and when it was finished I was both satisfied and disturbed. This is just a really intriguing character study.

The Dinner