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jacki_f 's review for:
Netherland
by Joseph O'Neill
This is a difficult book to read. Another reviewer on Amazon commented that he gave up on it around the 90 page mark and I can fully understand why he did. It was about that point in the book where I was wondering if it was ever going to go anywhere. Ironically, it's the kind of book that you like more after you've read it, when looking back on it. Now that I finally have a sense of the story that he was trying to tell, I almost feel like reading it all over again. Almost.
There are two things that make Netherland hard going. The story meanders backwards and forwards in time, so you are always trying to piece it together and work out where you are at and how this section relates to the one that you were reading previously. Sometimes this happens in the middle of a conversation. It's annoying. The other is the language, which is occasionally stunningly beautiful, but often feels unnecessarily complicated.
There were parts of the story that really interested me. One of the two central threads is the narrator (Hans's) marriage. He and his wife break up for a time and eventually get back together (which is established early in the novel). The other is his relationship with a colorful character called Chuck Ramkisson. We find out on page 3 that Chuck is dead, but the story of his relationship with Hans gradually unfolds throughout the novel. Along the way there are a lot of musings about his boyhood in the Netherlands and about the game of cricket and some amusing interactions with people that he meets in New York and in London.
Ironically this is being hailed as a great American novel, but it was the sections in London that came most to life for me. I'm glad I read this book and I really enjoyed parts of it. But overall, I found it hard going.
There are two things that make Netherland hard going. The story meanders backwards and forwards in time, so you are always trying to piece it together and work out where you are at and how this section relates to the one that you were reading previously. Sometimes this happens in the middle of a conversation. It's annoying. The other is the language, which is occasionally stunningly beautiful, but often feels unnecessarily complicated.
There were parts of the story that really interested me. One of the two central threads is the narrator (Hans's) marriage. He and his wife break up for a time and eventually get back together (which is established early in the novel). The other is his relationship with a colorful character called Chuck Ramkisson. We find out on page 3 that Chuck is dead, but the story of his relationship with Hans gradually unfolds throughout the novel. Along the way there are a lot of musings about his boyhood in the Netherlands and about the game of cricket and some amusing interactions with people that he meets in New York and in London.
Ironically this is being hailed as a great American novel, but it was the sections in London that came most to life for me. I'm glad I read this book and I really enjoyed parts of it. But overall, I found it hard going.