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Netherland: A Novel | 
 enlarge | Author: Joseph O'neill
Publisher: Pantheon
Category: Book
List Price: $23.95
Buy New: $13.47
You Save: $10.48 (44%)
New (37) Collectible (12) from $13.47
Avg. Customer Rating:  45 reviews
Sales Rank: 628
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 6 x 1.2
ISBN: 0307377040
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780307377043
ASIN: 0307377040
Publication Date: May 20, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
In a New York City made phantasmagorical by the events of 9/11, Hans--a banker originally from the Netherlands--finds himself marooned among the strange occupants of the Chelsea Hotel after his English wife and son return to London. Alone and untethered, feeling lost in the country he had come to regard as home, Hans stumbles upon the vibrant New York subculture of cricket, where he revisits his lost childhood and, thanks to a friendship with a charismatic and charming Trinidadian named Chuck Ramkissoon, begins to reconnect with his life and his adopted country. Ramkissoon, a Gatsby-like figure who is part idealist and part operator, introduces Hans to an “other” New York populated by immigrants and strivers of every race and nationality. Hans is alternately seduced and instructed by Chuck’s particular brand of naivete and chutzpah--by his ability to a hold fast to a sense of American and human possibility in which Hans has come to lose faith.
Netherland gives us both a flawlessly drawn picture of a little-known New York and a story of much larger, and brilliantly achieved ambition: the grand strangeness and fading promise of 21st century America from an outsider’s vantage point, and the complicated relationship between the American dream and the particular dreamers. Most immediately, though, it is the story of one man--of a marriage foundering and recuperating in its mystery and ordinariness, of the shallows and depths of male friendship, of mourning and memory. Joseph O’Neill’s prose, in its conscientiousness and beauty, involves us utterly in the struggle for meaning that governs any single life.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 40 more reviews...
 A Modern 'Great Gatsby' With Unforgettable Doomed Dreamer August 28, 2008
'Netherland' is a powerfully written novel that's deservedly being called the latest Great American Novel. The book's an introspective, slow-paced and mournful story of New York City that has the audacity to evoke both 9/11 and F. Scott Fitzgerald's 'The Great Gatsby.'
The novel concerns Dutch-born financial analyst Hans van den Broek, an affluent denizen of New York's Chelsea Hotel who loses the joy and purpose in his life when his wife Rachel flees both the city and their marriage after the trauma of 9/11, taking their infant son with her. Hans tells his own story, but devotes considerable energy to being the captivated narrator of another man's story -- a fast-talking and grandiose Trinidadian immigrant named Chuck Ramkissoon, a friend whose larger-than-life plan for achieving success and respectability in America is as doomed as that of Jay Gatsby.
This is not a spoiler. Readers learn early on that Ramkissoon has been found tied up and murdered in the Gowanus Canal.
The novel spends a great deal of time on cricket, the only spark in Hans' dark existence after his wife leaves. Although I know nothing of the sport that I didn't pick up from this book, it doesn't detract from the impact of O'Neill's long and lyrical passages about the role of the game in Hans' life, its role in the lives of first-generation American immigrants like Ramkissoon, and the invisibility of the game to most citizens of the United States, where cricket serves as a stand-in for other exotic foreign subjects we might want to know better after 9/11 shrank the planet. I was amused by the notion, held deeply by the cricket players in the book, that the U.S. will not become truly civilized until it embraces cricket. "There's a limit to what Americans understand," one of Ramkissoon's potential investors tells Hans. "That limit is cricket." Ramkissoon's big dream is to build a cricket pitch on an abandoned airfield in Brooklyn, believing it will attract the world's best teams, worldwide TV audiences and the long-withheld affection of Americans.
O'Neill packs the novel's 256 pages with observations about New Yorkers that are worth repeating. Two of my favorites occur in rapid succession when the heartsick and unsociable Hans finally lures a woman home, providing a welcome respite from his morose internal dialogue:
"... while I changed, Danielle wandered around my apartment, as was her privilege: people in New York are authorized by convention to snoop around and mentally measure and pass comment on any real estate they're invited to step into. ...
"Like an old door, every man past a certain age comes with historical warps and creaks of one kind or another, and a woman who wishes to put him to serious further use must expect to do a certain amount of sanding and planing."
In one conversation Ramkissoon uses a bit of Trinidadian slang that I really like. He derides one of his more obnoxious business associates as a pawmewan, a poor-me complainer who is always feeling sorry for himself. Hans is a huge pawmewan whose personal suffering occupies a majority of the book, but O'Neill describes the grieving and loss associated with failed marriage and parenthood with great skill.
I read that blogger Janice Harayda believes that Hans is an unreliable narrator, a prospect that adds considerable intrigue to Ramkissoon's murder. I don't know if I buy that, because O'Neill doggedly refuses to make Hans' life dramatic, devoting several pages at one point to an intolerably long day he wastes at the Department of Motor Vehicles.
Although 'Netherland' is by no stretch a thriller, O'Neill manages in Chuck Ramkissoon to create an unforgettable American character -- like Jay Gatsby another dreamer dead in the water.
 Longwinded August 27, 2008
4 out of 9 found this review helpful
This book seemed to get great reviews from other people in the literary world as a profession, but as just a person who enjoys reading novels this book was not interesting. Yes, the author can use a lot of big words and flowery language, but that does not make the story good. I was extremely bored throughout this book, but forced myself to finish it (though it took a long time because I could not engage with the story), since I thought I must be missing something with all the hype. Now I don't think I am missing something, but that the book was. The long descriptions about cricket throughout the book also caused some serious skimming instead of real reading. I did not feel any strong connection with the characters, except maybe twice during some analyzing of the failing marital relationship. It is difficult to even describe this book, as the timeline jumped all over the place and the story had many strange characters and storylines. Not worth the money or time.
 Intoxicating August 26, 2008
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
"The Adversity of Hans van den Broek, as such a tale might be called, amounts to not very much." Thus the narrator of this unusually acute and well-written novel describes his own misery during a two-year stay in NYC. The misery was triggered indirectly by 9/11 and directly by the departure of van den Broek's acerbic wife and little son Jake. The marriage at the heart of this tale is hardly charged with warmth. In fact, both Hans and Rachel, his wife, are cool customers, fancying themselves as intellectuals and superior beings. Hans, however, is brought down to earth in a hurry, and winds up in residence at the Chelsea Hotel, under whose roof a collection of eccentrics resides that provide him with odd yet comforting company. These characters are well described and are fascinating.
The true heart of this work, however, beats in Chuck Ramkissoon, the Trinidadian cricket maven, raconteur, shady character, womanizer, gangster, and roving genius with whom Hans takes up during his forced hiatus. Chuck's dream is to bring cricket center stage in America and to bankroll a major stadium for the sport at Floyd Bennet Field in Brooklyn. At the very outset of this novel, we know that Chuck's body has been found in the Gowanus Canal, hands cuffed behind his back. Yet this information does not detract one bit from the tale, and in fact, brings out Chuck's life even more.
The narrative is hypnotic in parts because of Chuck's long and fascinating rants, and the book is hard to put down. I was repulsed at times, however, by Hans's sometimes blatant narcissism and self-absorption. In fact, van den Broek's personal melodrama "amounts to not very much," but it's couched within a fresh eye's view of my city, New York, and all its familiar places, including the outer boroughs of Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx, and Staten Island.
I recommend this work, but O'Neill puts his vocabulary on display a number of times, which might send you off to the dictionary if you are a conscientious reader. One might say this is a bit of overwriting, but this is a minor quibble with a very good piece of work.
Funny and sad, the best view of post 9/11 NYC I know of August 24, 2008
This is a well written and knowing book. Its sad but has true wit as well.
another one not to be missed August 23, 2008
Netherland was truly one of the finest books I've read this year. O'Neill's writing is incredible, offering the reader a look at how one man tries to find his way and carve out a new life for himself after he is basically left alone in exile in New York City just after the events of 9/11. Without going into plot details (others have done it so well in many places), the book is simply beautiful. It's sad but at the same time funny, depicting at times what a nightmare it must be to be an immigrant (the scenes at the DMV had me laughing out loud) in this country, and the disconnection people often endure until they can find their own place or discover how to find meaning or recreate themselves by whatever means possible.
I would highly recommend this book; it's definitely something you won't forget after you've read it. I read this about a week ago and still find myself thinking about it off and on. I don't think you need to live in New York City to appreciate it, either -- we're all kind of adrift in some aspect.
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