Netherland: A Novel by Joseph O'Neill Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Netherland: A Novel
Book Review: A great read!
Summary: 5 Stars
Netherland is a wonderful Novel, and one does not have to know cricket to read it, in fact it may inspire some to find out more about it.
The story is heart wrenching, romantic, and adventurous.
What's funny is as an American who has recently taken up the game of cricket and had the pleasure of actually playing Staten Island Cricket Club, I found the description of Walker Park laugh out loud accurate.
Joseph O'Neill has written a book every man, woman, and cricket player will enjoy.
See Staten Island Criket club, Walker Park, and an overview of cricket On SNY's Street Games
http://www.sny.tv/media/player/mp_tpl.jsp?w=mms%3A//a1503.v222062.c22206.g.vm.akamaistream.net/7/1503/22206/v0001/mlb.download.akamai.com/22206/2007/shows/streetgames/101807_streetgames_cricket_400.wmv&type=v_free&_mp=1
Book Review: A heavy but charming examination of exile, friendship, and New York City
Summary: 4 Stars
Hans van den Broek is a man adrift. Recently separated from his wife Rachel, who has returned to her native England with the couple's young son, Hans is in his mid-30s and still living out of a suitcase in the Chelsea Hotel in 2003, a temporary situation that seems to have become permanent after Hans and Rachel fled their Tribeca loft in the wake of September 11, 2001.
Left behind by his family in a city that is not his home, Hans, a native Dutchman who has grown fabulously wealthy as an oil futures analyst in Manhattan, is still flummoxed by his quasi-adopted country and its inhabitants. And even as he attempts to make sense of everything from turns of phrase to the particularly aggressive style of the American walk signal at traffic lights, Hans tries to make sense of himself.
An analyst by trade, Hans is also an analyst by nature, noticing small details in the people and places he encounters, and devoting not insignificant efforts on analyzing himself, particularly the remoteness he feels not only from his family but also from his youthful self, one who had meaningful relationships, found joy in life and excelled at the sport of cricket.
So when Hans connects with an energetic, charismatic Trinidadian immigrant named Chuck Ramkissoon, his subsequent discoveries reconnect Hans not only with a little-known subculture of New York but also to his youthful past. Through Chuck, and with his involvement in the New York Cricket Club, Hans encounters immigrants from virtually every English-speaking country in the world as they meet for games on makeshift cricket fields carved out of every spare corner of the five boroughs and beyond. Hans's reunion with his beloved sport brings him back to his past, to his origins and possibly to himself.
NETHERLAND is Joseph O'Neill's third novel. A native of Ireland who has lived in the Netherlands for many years, O'Neill certainly understands the feeling of estrangement from one's own country as well as the feeling of being an alien in one's adopted homeland. The symbolism of exile is apparent throughout this elegiac, thoughtfully-paced novel --- not only in the shape of cricket but also in images of migratory birds, shifting ice floes, and the constantly moving and shifting population of New York City.
The city itself is practically a character in the novel, described alternately by Hans, the narrator, with grudging admiration, genuine fondness and a sense of loss as he prepares to leave the city forever. As the city moves through the seasons during the winter and spring of 2003 and beyond, the narrative alights on tiny moments --- a degrading incident at the DMV, a surprise sprout from a long-forgotten flower bulb, the reawakening of the city's homeless population --- that not only point to a profoundly observant understanding of the city but also mirror Hans's shifting consciousness.
Although NETHERLAND, with its meticulous details, heavy self-reflection and at times ponderous pace, may not be a novel for everyone, it will speak strongly to those who value carefully crafted sentences, wise observations and moments of startling insight.
--- Reviewed by Norah Piehl
Book Review: A modern day Great Gatsby
Summary: 4 Stars
Apparently it took an Irish-Turkish Cambridge-educated barrister who was raised in Holland to write a contemporary The Great Gatsby. Brilliant.Book Review: A significant work
Summary: 3 Stars
A significant work about an emotionally bleak post-9/11 that is at once invigorating and reflective. The great tragedy of that day is a shadow that falls over the characters and the events, but it wisely never takes over the novel. This is a reasonably suspenseful, well-paced book,even with some rather long-winded explanations of cricket, which I found myself skimming after a while. (O'Neill, is the author of an acclaimed memoir and a member of the Staten Island Cricket Club, and like a reviewer from the Guardian I couldn't help but wonder occasionally if he shouldn't have written a memoir-essay on New York cricket.) The writing is slightly self-aware at times, and some of the undeniably lovely lyric passages don't feel completely credible to the 1st person narrator. Still, many of the psychological aspects are piercingly sharp and the writing is both honest and subtle, although the main character, Hans, is ultimately less interesting, and more thinly-drawn than the novel's foil, Chuck, a Trinidadian self-made (and highly shady) business man who, we learn early on, has been murdered. Quibbles aside, O'Neill is a great observer of the human condition, and his descriptions of the occupants of the Chelsea Hotel alone are worth the effort.Book Review: Amazingly sublime
Summary: 5 Stars
Joe O'Neill captures the angst that pervaded the city post 9/11 by channeling a collection of fascinating characters and genres.
Even if you're not a cricket fan you'll get this!