Netherland
About three months ago I realized that I was no longer reading many books. I was using my time to read smaller pieces like articles and blogs on our iPad and I decided that I needed to get back into reading longer material. I closed out 2011 by reading several books and have resolved to do the same in 2012. I’m also going to get back into writing reviews of the books I read, much like I did back in the early days of the original manyhighways.
Netherland is my first read of the New Year and I zipped through it quickly. The book is written in the first person perspective of Hans, a banker who has immigrated to New York with his wife and young son. Hans and his wife are displaced by 9/11 and the event makes Hans’ wife realize that she wants to separate. After she leaves and heads back to London with the couple’s son, Hans is left looking for something to grasp onto, and he becomes friends with an interesting character named Chuck Ramkissoon who reconnects Hans with the sport of cricket. Both cricket and Chuck become the focal points of Hans’ life, though other strange characters wander in and out occasionally, including a man who walks around the city wearing angel wings. The strange characters and experiences in the book make Hans’ life feel surreal to the reader at times, but I also found myself rooting for him as he stumbles around rudderless until the end of the story.
As a former resident of New York, I was curious to read this book because of the cricket, which I often saw immigrant men playing in the large fields of Queens’ parks. I wondered about the sport while riding past matches on my way to play softball in the other large fields of Queens. O’Neill clearly understands the cricket subculture and city itself. Though I know nothing about cricket, I found myself nodding in agreement when he explains how all New Yorkers feel obliged to comment about each other’s living spaces and even ask, “How much are you paying?” when in other parts of America this would be considered rude. He describes small layers and nuances of the city and its people in a way that only someone who has lived in the city can, and this made the book very enjoyable for me. O’Neill is also a wonderful writer, and narrates in long, well-crafted, descriptive sentences without coming across as condescending and only occasionally slowing down the pace of the text. I could certainly have dealt with fewer reminiscences about Hans’ childhood in the Netherlands, for example.
Ultimately, I did feel that I got to know Hans’ character well, and this is what kept me turning the pages. This book was a great way to start another year of reading. Not screen reading, but good old-fashioned page turning.