She expected a man-unfriendly evening, said host Griet Op de Beeck immediately after the opening of this season's last Summer guests. "Do you think so?", guest Herman Koch asked with his familiar twinkle in his eye. "Because it's all men who don't come off well". , said Op de Beeck. Koch: "But there does
Interesting opening dialogue for the last Summer guests of 2025, indeed a broadcast in which the male guest had chosen excerpts in which men played the leading roles. Up to and including the pilot who had crashed the plane containing that Brazilian folk singer. Which meant that the only woman on duty was mostly dead.
The other woman who played a leading role was Herman Koch's mother. Not in pictures, as she is also dead, but in text she made frequent appearances in the rather neat conversation between the international bestselling author and the celebrated Flemish writer along biographical lines.
A real conversation
And a conversation it was, especially in the beginning. That was sometimes different this series of Zomergasten. This time, they both jumped in very relaxed. Herman Koch was in the mood, making eager eye contact and Griet Op de Beeck, as a result, forgot to interrupt, complement and rush her guest. During the first hour. After that, the filling-in started again, and after-talk about the excerpts shown had to be kept to a bare minimum.
As a result, it became a bit of the 1970s holiday slide show with Uncle Herman, as neither of them intended to unleash very in-depth analyses on each other. Herman Koch also solemnly declared at the start, that "unlike in previous episodes" he would not burst into tears.
Any other Zomergasten presenter might take that as a challenge to get Koch to water down anyway, if only for the honour, but Op de Beeck liked it just fine. The only times she pressed on to Koch's comments seemed invariably to have been ordered in her 'ear' by the director. So abruptly, the "what?", "how?" and "why? "s came out of her mouth: not in the laidback rhythm of the further dialogue, nor ever followed by a follow-up question to Koch's often brief explanation.
Nothing wrong
So, despite the occasional interesting fragments, it turned out to be a nothing-to-do evening with an author who has made nihilism his life motto. It was three hours of fragments in which men did nothing active, moving more or less helplessly along on the erratic waves of fate, sometimes as victims, but mostly as detached witnesses.
That is, of course, how we know Herman Koch, as the slightly sneaky but always charming bully who learned how to get the blood under other people's nails as early as primary schools. Thus, many strong stories from his autobiography still make you wonder how true they are, but since they cannot be checked anyway, we all go along with the myth.
Prices
They would also all be nice things to see two authors philosophise about, but the only time they came close to that was about literary prizes, and how much it hurt to never have got them. Koch wasn't hurt by that, Op de Beeck was, but that's all we got to know. On to the next excerpt.
This happened around the time that booze was openly on the table, and Griet had already tried once, following an old excerpt about a Herman during the service inspection in the 1950s, to jokingly attribute it to Herman. Which didn't really generate much hilarity among the other attendees.
Wrong house
There is a ridiculous amount of story in the nihilist's nothingness, but you have to be of good stock to hear that story from the nihilist too. That is clearly not the home of Griet Op de Beeck, who became the guide we viewers need in this formula only once these six episodes.
Was she afraid of criticism of her self-proclaimed status as a therapist, that she never got beyond a skin-deep psychology? Was she overwhelmed, overloaded with information by editors? How did she herself actually feel it went? The answer to that last question will say a lot.
Meanwhile, here we long for top summer guest hosts like Janine Abbring and Margriet van der Linden. Through them I heard unfamiliar things from over-familiar guests. For that, you stay home those Sunday summer evenings. I'd rather read a good book by Griet Op de Beeck next year.
