Netherland: A Novel
by: Joseph O'Neill
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Amazon Exclusive: A Q&A with Joseph O'Neill
Joseph O’Neill was born in Ireland and raised in Holland. He received a law degree from Cambridge University and worked as a barrister in London. He writes regularly for The Atlantic Monthly and is the author of two previous novels, This Is the Life and The Breezes, and of a family history, Blood-Dark Track, which was a New York Times Notable Book. O'Neill received the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for his third novel, Netherland. He lives with his family in New York City.
Question: President Obama mentioned in a New York Times Magazine profile that he’s reading Netherland. How do you feel about the President reading your book?
Joseph O'Neill: I'm very honored, of course.
Question: How is the world of Netherland particular to the United States after 9/11?
Joseph O'Neill: The story takes place in the aftermath of 9/11.One of the things it does is try to evoke the disorientation and darkness of that time, which we only emerged from with the election of President Obama.
Question: What is the importance of the sport of cricket in this book? Do you play?
Joseph O'Neill: I love sport and play cricket and golf myself. Sport is a wonderful way to bring together people who would otherwise have no connection to each other.
Question: One of your reviewers calls Netherland an answer to The Great Gatsby. Were you influenced by Fitzgerald’s book, and was your book written with that book in mind?
Joseph O'Neill: Halfway through the book I realized with a slightly sinking feeling that the plot of Netherland was eerily reminiscent of the Gatsby plot:dreamer drowns, bystander remembers.But there are only about 5 plots in existence, so I didn't let it bother me too much.Fitzgerald thankfully steered clear of cricket.
Question: Many reviewers have commented on the “voice” of this novel. How it is more a novel of voice than of plot?Do you agree with this?
Joseph O'Neill: Yes, I would agree with that comment.This is not a novel of eventful twists and turns.It is more like a long-form international cricket match (which can last for 5 days without a winner emerging), about nuance and ambiguity and small slippages of insight.And about language, of course.
(Photo © Lisa Acherman)
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.
Amazon Exclusive: A Q&A with Joseph O'Neill
Joseph O’Neill was born in Ireland and raised in Holland. He received a law degree from Cambridge University and worked as a barrister in London. He writes regularly for The Atlantic Monthly and is the author of two previous novels, This Is the Life and The Breezes, and of a family history, Blood-Dark Track, which was a New York Times Notable Book. O'Neill received the 2009 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for his third novel, Netherland. He lives with his family in New York City.
Question: President Obama mentioned in a New York Times Magazine profile that he’s reading Netherland. How do you feel about the President reading your book?Joseph O'Neill: I'm very honored, of course.
Question: How is the world of Netherland particular to the United States after 9/11?
Joseph O'Neill: The story takes place in the aftermath of 9/11.One of the things it does is try to evoke the disorientation and darkness of that time, which we only emerged from with the election of President Obama.
Question: What is the importance of the sport of cricket in this book? Do you play?
Joseph O'Neill: I love sport and play cricket and golf myself. Sport is a wonderful way to bring together people who would otherwise have no connection to each other.
Question: One of your reviewers calls Netherland an answer to The Great Gatsby. Were you influenced by Fitzgerald’s book, and was your book written with that book in mind?
Joseph O'Neill: Halfway through the book I realized with a slightly sinking feeling that the plot of Netherland was eerily reminiscent of the Gatsby plot:dreamer drowns, bystander remembers.But there are only about 5 plots in existence, so I didn't let it bother me too much.Fitzgerald thankfully steered clear of cricket.
Question: Many reviewers have commented on the “voice” of this novel. How it is more a novel of voice than of plot?Do you agree with this?
Joseph O'Neill: Yes, I would agree with that comment.This is not a novel of eventful twists and turns.It is more like a long-form international cricket match (which can last for 5 days without a winner emerging), about nuance and ambiguity and small slippages of insight.And about language, of course.
(Photo © Lisa Acherman)
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
Average Rating:
Rating: 
- Helpful If You're Studying for the SAT's...
I kept waiting for this pretentious and boring novel to pay off--somehow, somewhere. I didn't realize that the only pay off would be for high schoolers studying vocabulary for their SAT's. Nowhere else will you find so many obscure words so densely packed together.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not against reading an author with a strong vocabulary. However, I am not interested in reading an author who is more enamored with the sound of his own voice than in creating a compelling story with ... Read More
Rating: - Extremely disappointing
The only reason I finished this excruciatingly boring book is because I had to read it for book club -- hours of my life I will never get back.
Rating: 
- it's not JUSTcricket
Netherland by Joseph O'Neil
I confess I read this book because I heard Obama was reading it. Little did I know I would be fascinated by this beautifully written novel about life, love, and, of all things...the game of cricket. O'Neil's brilliance is in his exquisite description of love and relationships. Using a game of cricket he describes what it is to truly "see" into the truth of a situation. He does this with a delicacy and intimacy that is tender and inspiring.
I am also ... Read More
Rating: - The invincible city of the dreams
Joseph O'Neill's "Netherland" opens quoting Whitman, a verse in which the poet dreams of a city invincible to attacks of the rest of the Earth, and it was `the new City of Friend'. Throughout the novel, these lines are, of course, related to the New York city and its life in the post-9/11.
On the surface this, strange as it may sound, a novel about cricket - but on another level this is a deep search for identity in the middle of the chaos, emotional and otherwise of one character, namely Hans ... Read More
Rating: - It takes a dutchman
I ordered this book based on the knowledge that President Obama was reading it. As I read it I could see why he was drawn to it. The book moves flawlessly through many cultures, recognizing the similarities and how our cultural assumptions are testedregularly. The game of cricket presents an excellent metaphor for how we can transcend our cultural bias by agreeing on a common set of rules and courtesies which allow us to experience each other.
This book is entertaining while giving us much to consider. ... Read More
- Helpful If You're Studying for the SAT's...I kept waiting for this pretentious and boring novel to pay off--somehow, somewhere. I didn't realize that the only pay off would be for high schoolers studying vocabulary for their SAT's. Nowhere else will you find so many obscure words so densely packed together.
Don't get me wrong. I'm not against reading an author with a strong vocabulary. However, I am not interested in reading an author who is more enamored with the sound of his own voice than in creating a compelling story with ... Read More
- Extremely disappointingThe only reason I finished this excruciatingly boring book is because I had to read it for book club -- hours of my life I will never get back.
- it's not JUSTcricketNetherland by Joseph O'Neil
I confess I read this book because I heard Obama was reading it. Little did I know I would be fascinated by this beautifully written novel about life, love, and, of all things...the game of cricket. O'Neil's brilliance is in his exquisite description of love and relationships. Using a game of cricket he describes what it is to truly "see" into the truth of a situation. He does this with a delicacy and intimacy that is tender and inspiring.
I am also ... Read More
- The invincible city of the dreamsJoseph O'Neill's "Netherland" opens quoting Whitman, a verse in which the poet dreams of a city invincible to attacks of the rest of the Earth, and it was `the new City of Friend'. Throughout the novel, these lines are, of course, related to the New York city and its life in the post-9/11.
On the surface this, strange as it may sound, a novel about cricket - but on another level this is a deep search for identity in the middle of the chaos, emotional and otherwise of one character, namely Hans ... Read More
- It takes a dutchmanI ordered this book based on the knowledge that President Obama was reading it. As I read it I could see why he was drawn to it. The book moves flawlessly through many cultures, recognizing the similarities and how our cultural assumptions are testedregularly. The game of cricket presents an excellent metaphor for how we can transcend our cultural bias by agreeing on a common set of rules and courtesies which allow us to experience each other.
This book is entertaining while giving us much to consider. ... Read More
