Archive for the ‘Books’ Category

January 12, 2012 0

Netherland by Joseph O’Neill

By in Books

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.

December 4, 2011 1

A Book With Many Meanings

By in Books, Genevieve

The Giving Tree

One of the books that I loved most as a very young boy was The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein.  I still have the copy that I was given by my godmother, Sherri, in 1984 when I was four years old.  The book is very simple and the basic premise is that there is a little boy who loves playing up, in, and around a tree.  The tree loves the boy and the boy loves the tree.  The tree provides the boy with everything he asks for.  As the boy grows older, his needs change, but the tree is always happy to see the boy return and always gives him what he asks for.  As the boy continually takes from the tree, the tree loses it’s branches (which the boy uses to make a house) and eventually even it’s trunk (which the boy uses to make a boat).  In the final pages of the book, there is only a stump left and by this point the boy is an old man and he uses the stump as a place to rest.

When I came back to this story in my teens and twenties, I felt that the book, written in 1964 as the modern environmental movement was getting underway, was clearly telling us that nature is important and that we should be careful of taking advantage of it.  The book has a bit of sadness to it, which I think is intentional.  The simple drawing of the old man sitting on the stump on the last page is mournful, almost as if Silverstein is telling us that this is ultimately what all of the world’s trees will look like if we are not careful.

The Giving Tree was the first book I read to Genevieve a few weeks after she was born.  We laid together in bed on our backs.  I held the book above her so that she could see the pictures as I began to read.  Suddenly, as I turned the pages, the book’s meaning completely changed for me.  I wasn’t thinking about environmentalism or conservation as I read the story to Genna.  Instead, the tree became a parent.  Because in the book, the tree wants to give the boy everything he needs.  The tree loves the boy and is always there for him, no matter what – the very definition of unconditional love.  As I read the book to my beautiful little daughter, I completely understood how the tree feels about the boy, and why the tree acts as it does in the story.

It took a bit longer than usual to read the book aloud that day because my vision blurred a few times and my voice wavered.  The book’s “new” meaning caused me to think about fatherhood in a deeper way than I ever had before.  In fact, I think it was the first time that I truly realized the depth of my love for the little tiny girl at my side.