Hi again,

This time the book which I will be talking about is Summerhouse with Swimming pool, a dutch book by Herman Koch. It is quite a large book, but not huge. Herman Koch is a famous Dutch literature writer, but not that that means anything. It was not very difficult to read it but it was sometimes a little bit confusing

This book is about a doctor called Marc Schlosser. He has a wife and two daughters, and he has a practice where famous people come. The story begins with a man who commits euthanasia. Marc had made a medical mistake, so badly that the patient can't be ill. The question in the beginning was if it was a mistake or on purpose. Relatively quick you find out it was not an accident to what happened. This patient is an actor and he invites Marc and his family to come over to their vacation house in the summer. Marc caught that patient looking at his wife, in a way he didn't like. Later in the book it becomes clear that Marc and the wife of the patient had an affaire (if there is not an affaire in Dutch  literature it is not Dutch literature). At the summerhouse Marc sees the patient watch at his eldest daughter in the same way as he did at his wife. Marc lets this go, but he is not happy about it. A few days later they all go to the beach and the kids of both couples run of onto the beach. Marc's eldest daughter goes to another tent with the eldest son of the patient, because she wants to dance. The three men go to another bar where two of them try to seduce some young girls. The patient gets slapped in his face by one of the girls and a little while later another one almost dies but the heroic doctor saves her. Marc walks to the beach and there he finds his daughter lying unconsciously. Very quickly he sees what has happened to her; she was raped.

I didn't like this book very well, because the characters are a bit superficial and I can't wrap my head around why the doctor has an affaire with the wife of the patient. I think the main reason why I didn't like the book was because I didn't like his writing style. The whole book was about punishing the one who he thought had raped his daughter, but when he finds out who the real rapist is, he does nothing about it. That was just the strangest part of it all. I guess I will have to read this kind of books to graduate but it doesn't mean I like it.

This was it for today and I don't know what the next book is going to be, but I don't think it will be over a long time.

Ike