The Ditch by Herman Koch

The Ditch: A Novel by Herman Koch

My rating: 3 of 5 stars
Crown Publishing
Pub date: June 11, 2019
Translation copyright (Dutch) by Sam Garrett
Original copyright 2016 Netherlands
Genre: fiction


I received a digital ARC of this book from NetGalley and Crown Publishing in exchange for an unbiased review.

Having read “The Dinner” by Herman Koch, I was interested in reading this book. Unlike “The Dinner” which was more of a psychological thriller, this novel was less than thrilling. The writing perspective seems similar using an unreliable narrator whose internal musings become distracting. I kept waiting for his distracting, paranoid thoughts to be resolved but they just seemed to get muddied down with more confusion.

As this story unfolds, Robert Walker, the mayor of Amsterdam, begins to describe his wife, “Sylvia” and daughter, “Diana” which are not their real names. Robert Walker cherishes his preconceived notions and prejudices which seem to reinforce his overall paranoia. This staunch Dutchman is both condescending and self deprecating which further complicates his reliability as a narrator. He feels the need to maintain secrecy regarding details related to his wife and country of origin which he mentions quite often throughout the book. Similarly, he would like to appear unbiased but makes obvious his extreme judgement of her cultural background.

Although he provides subtle inferences to her heritage, he never seems to fully embrace his “foreign” spouse. Robert attributes his current marital concerns to his wife’s country of origin. He begins to unravel his suspicions that Sylvia is having an affair with Alderman Maarten van Hoogstraten, a colleague he despises. He exhausts himself in attempts to discover the “truth” spending time and attention to minute observations. Only a series of unfortunate events could force him to surrender his internal ruminations as a method of self preservation.

Ultimately, this novel has several disturbing subplots involving his parents and events from his past. In some of the situations, the reader is left to ponder Robert’s contribution to the consequences. It would be difficult to provide a spoiler to this book as the narrator keeps too much of his story private. I wanted to enjoy this story more than I did. The writing style keeps you simultaneously attentive and skeptical but disappointed when the ending lacks a satisfying resolution.



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