The Ditch: Herman Koch

The Ditch is a novel by prize-winning Dutch author, Herman Koch. It is translated from the original Dutch by Sam Garrett. Despite the absence of any clear outward signs, Amsterdam Mayor, Robert Walter strongly suspects that his wife is having an affair with one of his aldermen; it has him second-guessing her every look, every word, every gesture. With warped logic, he tortures himself with imagined scenarios and finds himself assigning omen status to every tiny thing to the point of paranoia.

"My wife's remark today could, as it had at many points in the last few months, mean precisely one of two things: either she had decided to act as normally as possible and was pulling it off extremely well, or she wasn't acting at all and was truly behaving normally."

While denying that he is at all arrogant, Robert does have quite a high opinion of himself, so the (not at all handsome) man whom his wife has (perhaps) chosen for a lover leaves him bewildered. He can immediately rule out lust as the reason, so perhaps she craves variety, or it's simply a matter of opportunity? He begins to wonder if he wants to know, realising that the knowledge will sully any possible future together as well as tainting sweet memories of the past.

Distracting him from this is his elderly father's plan to commit suicide, with his mother, after his ninety-fifth birthday. Robert seems to tacitly accept this with the most cursory of objections and only a superficial effort to dissuade. This, and his reaction to the suicide threat of his newly-sacked city manager, gives the reader some idea of his disposition. He claims to have a strong character, expresses some quite provocative opinions and, with typically Dutch matter-of-factness, is highly critical of his own country and its residents.

Koch's latest novel proves him wonderfully perceptive and insightful into human behaviour and social habits. He manages to include, amongst a myriad of interesting topics, windmills, environmental nazis and town halls. By the last line of this cleverly plotted novel, readers will be asking themselves, was there really adultery, murder and assault with grievous bodily harm, or was it all in the imagination of the protagonist? As with Koch's other works, this one is thought-provoking and often blackly funny: he is, after all, a master of dark humour.
This unbiased review is from a copy provided by Text Publishing