|
| 
| Author: Joseph O'neill
Publisher: Pantheon
Category: Book
List Price: $23.95
Buy New: $16.29
You Save: $7.66 (32%)
Rating:  73 reviews
Sales Rank: 267
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 272
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 5.5 x 1.2
ISBN: 0307377040
Dewey Decimal Number: 823.914
EAN: 9780307377043
Publication Date: May 20, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours
|
| Customer Reviews:
 A European in New York City, Post 9-11 May 21, 2008
15 out of 19 found this review helpful
Mr. O'Neill has published a rambling account of one family's encounter with the attacks upon the World Trade Center and its impact upon the marrage of Rachel and Hans van de Broek. The writing is riveting and compelling as Hans is the first person narrator who tells his story in a stream of consciousness. For the reader looking for a linear story, this is not that novel. But it is also a novel about cricket (the sport), the men who play it, and Hans' friendship with Chuck Ramkissoon of Trinidad. This opens up the novel to be a tale of New York City surviving 9-11. This is one of the few times where a book is too short.
i read it twice--first in gulps, and then in sips May 24, 2008
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
This book has been reviewed so extensively and lavishly that I wonder if I actually have anything to add. Here is what I loved about Netherland: those of us fortunate enough to live in New York typically take great pleasure in the multiple layers of life and experience we find here. No matter who we are, we are constantly reminded that we are only one of thousands of unique stories walking the sidewalks of this city and riding the trains. Netherland is a beautiful reminder of this--it takes readers outside of their own experience and says, "Consider this!" I enjoyed it less for the 9/11 connection, which is not in my mind all that important to the plot, than for the reminder of what is extraordinary about this city. I galloped through the first reading, knowing full well I'd go back to savor it again. The writing really is lyrical--that is no exaggeration. Just when you think English has been fully exploited in all the most beautiful ways, along comes another writer who does it again. Many sentences have the humor and beauty of Mark Helprin at his best. Living in Chelsea makes this story special for me, but it will resonate with readers far afield for other reasons having to do with love, dreams, and dislocation. Don't miss it.
 Longwinded August 27, 2008
11 out of 18 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.
An extraordinary achievement May 20, 2008
9 out of 11 found this review helpful
O'Neill's novel is just marvelous. A poignant, funny and heart-wrenching account of events that unfold as a result of the 9/11 destruction of the World Trade Center. The fear, vulnerability and the sense of isolation that the attack exposes are palpable in passages of beautifully written prose. I found myself constantly pausing after paragraphs to reread and savor the author's descriptions.
The New York he describes is as authentic as any I have encountered in a novel: dreaded trips to the DMV are as dreadful as can be--creepy "performance artists" at the Time Square subway station are even more oppressive than the suffocating maze undergoing renovation. These "netherlands" and New York's Hudson Valley the original New Netherlands are juxtaposed to the mile high skyscrapers and Tribeca lofts that domicile the newest colonists.
Under the observant eye of Hans, a commodties analyst from the original Netherlands and his unlikely but entirely believable Trinidadian companion, Chuck, O'Neill explores the terrifying possibility of being alone in a city of eight million people. Loosely structured around their relationship to the game of cricket, Hans sets out to find something that will re-anchor and replace the sense of permanence he has lost.
I will never again hear the upstate town of Poughkeepsie pronounced without recalling the author's description as merry childish blurting. I probably will never go on Google Earth without experiencing something of the futility Hans feels as he "travels" to England each night to try to be near to the son who has gone home with Hans's wife. The technology, like his emotions will only let him get so close to family he aches for.
The entire book is what fiction does best: it is new and familiar at the same time. These characters are strangers and different yet just the same as yourself. Some reviewers have made a comparison Fitzgeralds's Gatsby which is apt. But for me, Joseph O'Neill's Netherland conjured up EM Forster's admonition in Howard's End: "Just connect....connect!".
There are books and there are books... October 21, 2008
9 out of 18 found this review helpful
I was excited to read this book. So excited, in fact, that I went from bookstore to bookstore until I found a store that had a copy. And when I did! The feeling was not unlike a hunter stumbling upon the one sickly beast among a wild herd. There it was. My safari, success.
Proud, as I was, I took my trophy home. I waited until I had some time. Free time. Time in which I would not be bothered by anyone; no friends, no expectations. Nothing. The reputation of this book was that great. Life-changing, one particular review had said. Voice of a the post-9/11 Generation, said yet another.
So there I sat. My bed. My quiet. The night was warm. Was it warmer than usual? I don't know. But the night was mine and I was free to read as many pages as I could get through until my tired eyes finally closed. Though, realistically, I had expected to keep reading on through until the wee hours.
Thus, I began.
And reading through those first few sentences, then paragraphs, then pages something in me turned over. A knot, perhaps, a tying up of some sinew somewhere in my gut. Something was off. But what? What was causing the twitching, that nausea invading my stomach? Something was not right. But what was it?
Gasp! Could it be? I looked down at my hands and sure enough, there was my answer. It was the book. Well, not so much the book itself as the writing. The author, it seems, has come from a school of thought in which to get to a point, you must write in a hazy cloud of talk and backtalk. Where a point expressed isn't expressed until it is, thought about, and then, perhaps, expressed again. It is ugly writing. Aesthetically unpleasing, to say the least.
If you try to read the book, instantly you'll know what I mean.
I don't care how good a story is. I don't care if the author mentions 9/11 in passing or fully exploits the tragic events of that horrific day. If the writing is poor the work suffers and the readers (like me) return the book. Which I did. At Borders. Because for as much as I would have liked to read a highly-recommended story having to do with our beautiful post-9/11 world, I, for the life of me, could not get through all the commas. Actually, I counted them and told the number to my girlfriend. Who put down the book she was reading and said, "that's a lot."
It was a lot. In fact, too much.
Perhaps I missed something, but when a writer does something like that, constantly mending and shaping a sentence until the he thinks point is reached, by then the point is lost (see what I mean?). So much for clear and direct, eh? Add in some big words and over-described descriptions, and only then does the message become clear. The writer is reaching for something that is, perhaps, not there.
One star.
|
|
|
Copyright 2008 BetterEditor.net
| |
