Dinner at the Center of the Earth

For more than a decade, Prisoner Z has been housed off the books in a covert prison in the Negev Desert, his only company a lone guard. An American by birth, Z was formerly an Israeli Mossad operative who later betrayed his adopted country. He bides his time writing letters to The General, the man who sentenced him to his fate and the only one who can set him free. He is unaware that the General is in a comatose limbo, trapped by his memories, largely unresponsive to the outside world, and watched over by his trusted confidant Ruthi, who happens to be the guard’s mother.

Nathan Englander’s 2017 novel is an ambitious book, equal parts captivating and frustrating. It’s an existential character study that wears the trappings of a historical spy novel, engrossing in its complexity yet nearly undone by a contrived ending and by leaving too much off the page.

Dinner at the Center of the Earth alternates between several different times, places, and viewpoints. The “present-day” (actually, 2014) chapters reveal a codependent relationship between guard and prisoner (an odd, co-dependent friendship) and mother and son (the latter cannot fathom the former’s fanatical devotion). The “past” chapters take us to 2002 where Z falls for an Italian-Jewish waitress in Paris (to be named Shira in later chapters) as his espionage career unravels. Other past chapters focus on Farid, a Palestinian ex-pat living in Berlin whose life is upended when he meets a Canadian businessman. The quick movement from one perspective to another will alienate some readers, but for those who are willing to keep up, this structure sustains the story’s momentum by drawing the audience to a point where past and present converge.

Englander also takes care not to stereotype his characters. The General is Ariel Sharon in all but name, and the novel does not shy away from confronting the controversial legacy of his long and bloody military career. However, it also shows the affection he had for his family and the veneration he inspired in those such as Ruthi. Contrastingly, Farid is shown in a relatively sympathetic light, but the dark path that he takes is not excused let alone exalted.

In light of this character development, however, Z comes across as a weak protagonist both inside and outside of the story. Within, Shira continuously points out his deficiencies as a spy and his mother his inadequacies as a son. For us as readers, he comes across as a naïve fool too easily swayed to take up one cause and then another. Were Englander to show more of him working his way from A to B and B to C, he would be both more believable and worthier of taking up so much of the book’s focus.

Given the novel’s content and tone, the title seems completely out of place, as is the incident it refers to: a romantic rendezvous between Shira and a Palestinian mapmaker in a tunnel beneath disputed territory. Their relationship is supposed to serve as a counterpoint to Shira’s years-ago (but not forgotten) relationship with Z, but whereas the book’s other parallels seemed more organic, this one is clumsily forced, and the distracting build-up to it makes the latter quarter of the book something of a letdown.

In The Dinner at the Center of the Earth, Englander bites off more weighty concerns (questions of culpability, the efficacy of vengeance, etc.) than his trim 250-page-book can effectively chew. It's an admirable attempt but one that comes across as underdeveloped.

7.5/10