Netherland: A Novel
by Joseph O'Neill
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Book Reviews of Netherland: A Novel
Book Review: An English professor's dream?
Summary: 1 Stars
I should have counted the number of words I ought to have looked-up while reading Joseph O'Neil's "Netherland." They must have numbered at least one hundred. Not a bad trick to play on someone with a masters from an Ivy League university. Also, there were those inordinately complex sentences that I needed to reread at least three times to get their full meaning. Perhaps, an English professor's dream and the basis for an excellent literary essay. But the makings for a great novel? I think not, without a good plot and character development to back up those fancy words and sentences. I am perplexed why this book has been selected by The New York Times as one of the ten best books of the year and how it made the cut for the Man Booker Prize's long list. Apparently, all the reviewers were mesmerized by Mr. O'Neil's literary style to the point that they overlooked other ingredients normally associated with a good book. For me, "Netherland" was simply boring and pretentious. I plodded through to the end but then wondered why I had bothered.
I decided to read "Netherland" because it has been described as a post-9/11 novel. There are several references in this book to the emotional impact of 9/11 on New Yorkers and on the main character Hans whose wife uses the threat of future terrorist acts as a pretext to move back to London along with their son. A book that I found much richer in its discussion of 9/11 was "A Thousand Veils." It tells about a lawyer, totally immersed in the corporate greed of Wall Street, whose last-minute escape from the North Tower leads him to question his values and results in his life-changing decision to assist an Iraqi refugee. This is a much more satisfying solution than Hans' response in the aftermath of the crisis to bury himself in the game of cricket.
Book Review: Hard going
Summary: 3 Stars
This is a difficult book to read. Another reviewer on Amazon commented that he gave up on it around the 90 page mark and I can fully understand why he did. It was about that point in the book where I was wondering if it was ever going to go anywhere. Ironically, it's the kind of book that you like more after you've read it, when looking back on it. Now that I finally have a sense of the story that he was trying to tell, I almost feel like reading it all over again. Almost.
There are two things that make Netherland hard going. The story meanders backwards and forwards in time, so you are always trying to piece it together and work out where you are at and how this section relates to the one that you were reading previously. Sometimes this happens in the middle of a conversation. It's annoying. The other is the language, which is occasionally stunningly beautiful, but often feels unnecessarily complicated.
There were parts of the story that really interested me. One of the two central threads is the narrator (Hans's) marriage. He and his wife break up for a time and eventually get back together (which is established early in the novel). The other is his relationship with a colorful character called Chuck Ramkisson. We find out on page 3 that Chuck is dead, but the story of his relationship with Hans gradually unfolds throughout the novel. Along the way there are a lot of musings about his boyhood in the Netherlands and about the game of cricket and some amusing interactions with people that he meets in New York and in London.
Ironically this is being hailed as a great American novel, but it was the sections in London that came most to life for me. I'm glad I read this book and I really enjoyed parts of it. But overall, I found it hard going.
Book Review: A document of our time
Summary: 4 Stars
When this book was published in the spring of 2008, it received wonderful reviews, most notably in May on the front page of the New York Times Sunday Book Review Magazine. The usually difficult and persnickety Michiko Kakutani also gave it high marks in another review in the Times' daily edition. It was therefore a surprise when the book was ignored by the Booker Prize, not even making the long list for the prestigious award in England.
This is a complex novel, moving along the timeline between a few weeks after September 11, 2001 and three years later, when the upheaval created by the terrorist attack starts to become a healing memory with persistent repercussions. Details of life and the mindset in New York and of the U.S. at large are nicely detailed, but the most compelling narrative is the way the terrorist attack disrupts and almost anihilates the marriage of the protagonist.
Interwoven with the marriage break-up is the main character's pursuit of the game of cricket in New York, and his involvement with a shady character who wants to popularize the game in the U.S. What's the connection between the two story lines? The main character is Dutch, reared in England, and finds in cricket a civility and a comfort that has been denied him since the departure of his wife back to her native England after September 11.
Joseph O'Neill is wonderful writer. His prose is sure-footed even as it jumps from future to present to past, never confusing the reader, and always with near-poetic language that is beautiful as well as evocative of the action on the page. Let's hope the National Book Awards later this year (2008) recognize this tremendous achievement.
Book Review: Book Club Purgatory
Summary: 1 Stars
I had high hopes for this book, as this was given praise in the media. I was more than disappointed -- actually angry, that I paid $25 to suffer through this dreadfully awful book. Had this not been a book club selection, I would have put it down and laid it to rest.
The author has created characters that are one dimensional -- they are so flat, that they are barely memorable. There is nothing about the characters that engender any empathy.
Then the book is so overly focused on cricket, a sport that I never realized was so boring. At least it was boring the way O'Neill paints it.
O'Neill also uses way too many words to make a point, and much of the dialogue is just unbelievable. Nobody thinks or talks in sentences like that.
I am an avid reader, and nothing irks me more than wasting precious time on a book that should have never made it into print. I would have rather eat liver (which I loathe) then read this book.
FOLLOW-UP: My book club discussed this over dinner at our last meeting. Three out of the five of us actually made it through the book. The other two surrendered and gave up halfway. We could not find anything redeeming about the book.
Being Manhattantes, we also found that the descriptions of our beloved city were oftentimes inaccurate. For example, the author paints the Chelsea Hotel as a hip place to live. The Chelsea is a "has been", and a major dump. No affluent family (as are the main characters in the book)would live there with their children. It's just too bizarre a place.
Again, I would rather eat a truckload of liver than read this awful book.
Book Review: At least now I know a little more about cricket
Summary: 3 Stars
I really wanted to like this book. I had read reviews calling it an intelligently written and thoughtfully conceived novel about NYC post 9/11. Also knowing that the main character became intrigued with the crazy patchwork quilt of immigrant Brooklyn convinced me to try it. Now having read it, I agree with all of the reviews on Amazon and elsewhere that it is wonderfully written. And also agree that there really is too much cricket, for even a reader interested in learning more about it. I liked all of the Brooklyn color and the fabulous Chelsea Hotel setting, with the great quirky cast of characters. Even liked his accurate depiction of life as a research analyst working for a large bank. But what really disappointed me about this book (though I should have expected from all of the fawning mainstream reviews) was the mind numbing amount of navel gazing and wistfully self absorbed carrying on. Tons of self pity disguised as some form of post modern traumatic stress combined with entering adulthood fears (made worse by the loss of his parents), plus every childhood memory over analyzed. Add to that the whiny read-between-the-lines-post-9/11-living-in-America-is-so-strange tone, and I would normally have given up half way through. The only thing that made me want to finish it was the curiosity about the murder mystery which formed the entire "hook" of the NYC portion of the novel. SPOILER ALERT: which is not solved. So if you like reading for the sake of marveling at the sentence-constructing skill of the author, you'll be happy. If you really want all of that plus a great story, you'll probably be disappointed. But you will know more about cricket.