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3.26 AVERAGE
3.26 AVERAGE
This book is beautifully written, but I just couldn't get into any of the characters, themes, or story lines. The story is sort of random and sad and not enough to keep my attention these days.
I wanted so much to love this book... what with immigrants and cricket being the theme. But it was too New York-centric for my tastes, and I just couldn't connect with it.
Ultimately, I don't think I liked the book as much as I was expecting to based on the personal recommendations I got. O'Neill's writing style is not one that I especially enjoy. He seems to be always on the lookout for a fresh, creative turn of phrase, with the result that, in my mind, the writing receives more attention than the story. None of these characters are ones that will really stick with me, even the nominally interesting Chuck Ramkissoon. Still, the overall story is pretty nice--just not exactly my own cup of tea.
The premise of this book was great...but I thought the execution poor. The extraordinarily long sentences seemed pretentious and the flashbacks within flashbacks within flashbacks (no, I'm not exaggerating)made it a bit difficult to follow. O'Neill was at his best when detailing the almost-demise of Hans and Rachel's marriage. Surprisingly, I also enjoyed the cricket scenes.
Read first couple pages. Got bored. Thought it must be one of those books that gradually pick up. Read twenty more pages--skimmed, rather. Didn't like it. Thought there must be something that will come up that will change things around because so much has been said about the book. Skimmed more, and more, sometimes entire pages, just to find that the story is still pretty much where I left it ten pages ago. And every time, I opened the book in the hope of serendipitous discovery and read on till I could bear no more of the redundant, why-god-why descriptions of locations and people; and finally put it down again. "Mission unsuccessful. Will try tomorrow." Now, I've read 120 pages, and still, NOTHING HAS HAPPENED that can pique my interest. Either I am foolish or wonder who didn't get the memo.
I DO NOT like to depreciate books. And authors. But, there is nothing really that I gained off the 120 pages and I have no patience left to skim further, eating up excerpts after excerpts and still landing exactly where I left. Sorry, boss.
I DO NOT like to depreciate books. And authors. But, there is nothing really that I gained off the 120 pages and I have no patience left to skim further, eating up excerpts after excerpts and still landing exactly where I left. Sorry, boss.
A perfectly fine book, well written - sometimes beautifully, and I understand the comparisons to The Great Gatsby. Like others, though, I didn't particularly enjoy reading it. It gave me a slightly ick feeling, maybe because the narrator was so miserable, maybe because the most compelling character was dead on page 5, maybe because there was just Sooooo Much cricket.
Perhaps this is the way we're supposed to feel from a 9/11 novel.
Perhaps this is the way we're supposed to feel from a 9/11 novel.
I'll wait until after our book club discussion on this one to post a full review, and perhaps I'll feel differently after digesting this for a few days, but here's my gut reaction/word association on Netherland immediately after finishing it: underwhelming, frustrating, tedious.
**Update: I've digested for about a month now, and I still feel the same about this book -- and those feelings were verified by most, if not all, of the book club members who discussed it (for the record, all of whom are professional, well-educated women who enjoy books and enjoy being challenged by those books, and are for the most part anti-chick lit).
Basically, because of the hype -- the NYT review, the PEN Faulkner award, etc -- I expected to be blown away by Netherland. Had it not been picked by our book club, though, I likely wouldn't have finished it at all, or would have done so only out of a stubbornness to not let this book defeat me.
That said, it almost did. I can enjoy either a good story OR writing that makes me jealous of the author's talent -- a book need not do both to make me happy. Netherland had neither. The characters were difficult if not impossible to relate to, the story meandered needlessly, and O'Neil's writing made me have to stop, go back, and reread to decipher what he was trying to say -- and not in a good way. Someone in our book club pointed out one section that was at least 6-8 lines long, and was all one sentence. Sad to say, this was not an anomaly with O'Neil's writing. If one of my students had turned this in, I might have marked, "say what, exactly, it is you want to say" or "condense" in the margins.
To make a long review longer, I just don't get the hype.
**Update: I've digested for about a month now, and I still feel the same about this book -- and those feelings were verified by most, if not all, of the book club members who discussed it (for the record, all of whom are professional, well-educated women who enjoy books and enjoy being challenged by those books, and are for the most part anti-chick lit).
Basically, because of the hype -- the NYT review, the PEN Faulkner award, etc -- I expected to be blown away by Netherland. Had it not been picked by our book club, though, I likely wouldn't have finished it at all, or would have done so only out of a stubbornness to not let this book defeat me.
That said, it almost did. I can enjoy either a good story OR writing that makes me jealous of the author's talent -- a book need not do both to make me happy. Netherland had neither. The characters were difficult if not impossible to relate to, the story meandered needlessly, and O'Neil's writing made me have to stop, go back, and reread to decipher what he was trying to say -- and not in a good way. Someone in our book club pointed out one section that was at least 6-8 lines long, and was all one sentence. Sad to say, this was not an anomaly with O'Neil's writing. If one of my students had turned this in, I might have marked, "say what, exactly, it is you want to say" or "condense" in the margins.
To make a long review longer, I just don't get the hype.
I don't even know how this ended up in my queue -- maybe from browsing at Barnes and Noble at some point? Glad it did, however. For much of the beginning of the book, I felt disoriented -- as though I had stepped into the story 10 minutes late and missed a critical beginning sequence that would explain the current lay of the land. I felt also for the beginning of the book that he was a bit much in love with the technicalities of grammar, to pull off a novel.
But you know what? I don't care. His prose is beautiful. He loves language in a way that I love language, and he loves the canvas of people in New York. He paints a picture of my home that I can really connect with, and I loved this book. It was a pleasure to read.
But you know what? I don't care. His prose is beautiful. He loves language in a way that I love language, and he loves the canvas of people in New York. He paints a picture of my home that I can really connect with, and I loved this book. It was a pleasure to read.
