I “get” what Koch is trying to do, but somehow felt disappointed by The Ditch. Koch can be perhaps thought of as a toned-down version of Michel Houellebecq. The commonality is to shock readers, and specifically, in the case of Koch, to challenge comfortable middle-class assumptions/pretensions. There were some genuinely superb moments in The Ditch, plot twists, such as the mayor's admission that he had been a teenage thug who had maimed a policeman, or the attempted suicide of his parents, that only a talented and experienced author could pull off. But there were too many failings. Only Robert, the mayor, was a fully developed character, whereas his wife and daughter needed to be. Next, the plot took too many implausible turns that were barely reconciled by the conclusion. Finally, deep philosophical musings about happiness and life/death, contrasted with more flippant comments about his wife's home country, which pointlessly remained unnamed throughout. The strong parts of The Ditch were not emphasised sufficiently for this to be a great novel: 6.5/10.
By Herman Koch