Middle age naval gazing novel, themes - crime does not pay, and being rich does not necessarily make you happy, but will win in the end. Has won lots of awards, so will appeal to those who ponder the deeper meaning of life - writing is in very looong paragraphs. Good for fans of New York and cricket. ( )

Netherland is a novel about substance and structure, foundations and constructions of memory, current events, and imagination. O’Neill’s characters search their memories for lost time and find applications of essential sources of courage when the security of their personal lives and general social stability disintegrate. The events of 911 brought down the Twin Towers, but the characters find that the substance of life is in the netherland, the area below and beneath the public parts of their personalities. It is in this nether region that the fountainhead of life exists. It is largely obscured by the pseudo-structure of unreflective, habitual daily activities. With the courage of imagination, the characters tap into this area and apply the skills and emotions of the past to help them in the apparent current collapse of reason. The game of cricket provides a metaphor for understanding the integration of substance and structure in the personalities. The reader can imagine the beautiful grass fields cut in patterns with carefully marked boundaries. The pitch is the center of action bounded by wickets and guarded by umpires, a carefully laid out rectangle of packed earth with very short grass compared to the wider field. Rules of bowling, batting, and fielding are strict and complex. For Hans, cricket dominates many of his childhood memories in the Netherlands. Of course there is the beautiful structure of the game, with vivid memories of sights, sounds, scents, and feel of the bat in his hands and field under his feet. It is the substance of his memories that emerges to help him rebuild his life and appreciate the recovery of people from the disasters of the turn of this Century. Cricket in his mind is all about doing the right thing; not looping the ball with a broad swing but rather using the unique contours of the field to ground the ball past the outfielders. Hans remembers his own way of batting, of following the rules of cricket within the contours of the game. But more importantly, he remembers his fundamental identity with the game related to his hard won skill, understanding what is morally important, and the enduring personal idea of the combination of structure and function in the game of cricket. The individual’s foundation of personality is the source of stability even when the social and physical world falls apart and long term personal habits must be changed. ( )

This is a rather curious and disjointed novel. The story is straightforward enough, a Dutch oil analyst has moved to New York with his English wife and young son. His marriage slides away from him for reasons he can't grasp and his family move back to London. He tries to find some meaning in life by playing cricket with expatriate West Indians and sub-contintentals forming a strong if strange relationship with one of them who dreams of bringing cricket back to America.

As a cricket nut this book should have been right up my street but it never really engaged me. O'Neill's narrative swoops around all over the place so that, for example, one jumps from the present to the past and then to the future where he is talking to some one about the past.

The book is character, rather than plot-driven, and the confused narrative perhaps mirrors the difficulties the hero has in understanding himself and his relatioships. O'Neill is partially successful here - we do get a good insight into a fundamentally decent but emotionally stilted man. On the otehr hand this is at the expensive of the other characters, particularly the wife, whose actions appear incomprehensible. ( )

Some of the most accurate descriptions of lonliness, marriage failure, and loss I've ever read. I have to say the Cricket stuff got boring for me, but as a metaphor, it worked. I love the title. He's dutch, NY was dutch and his world is a netherland during this part of his life. I like what another reader wrote...I think I admired this book more than loved it. ( )

: the Google summary states:
In a New York City made phantasmagorical by the events of 9/11, and left alone after his English wife and son return to London, Hans van den Broek 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. As the two men share their vastly different experiences of contemporary immigrant life in America, an unforgettable portrait emerges of an 'other' New York populated by immigrants and strivers of every race and nationality.
The above does a nice job of detailing the plot aspects of the novel, but more than the plot is the mood of the book. It is wonderfully written and at times the sentences alone make it a joy. The 9/11 element in the story is not really part of the narrative, but rather the reason for the despair of the narrator. The tumbling towers are symbolic of his marriage and become the reason that his wife leaves. Hans finds himself adrift trying to get solace from his success at work but ( Pg. 52: " But by the fall of 2002, even my work, the largest of the pots and pans I'd placed under my life's leaking ceiling, had become too small to contain my misery." He explains “we all find ourselves in temporal currents and that unless you're paying attention you'll discover, often too late, that an undertow of weeks or of years has pulled you deep into trouble." What is interesting is that the style of the novel - being told in reflection - let's the reader know that in fact his marriage is okay, that the mysterious Chuck R is murdered. These things are then reflected upon as Hans reviews his life' s events during his stay at the Charles Hotel in NYC. Some reviews have cited the Great Gatsby comparison and I see the resemblance- the distanced narrator who is enamored by the rich schemer. The final part ends thoughtfully and satisfyingly as Hans reflects back on his mother and remembers learning from her what the interesting sites really are. In reading about the book, it was interesting to hear several podcasts that nicely detail the importance of the book. The author lived in the Charles Hotel that he depicts in the novel as well. It's possible that I admired this novel more than I loved it. It is certainly an important work and worth reading. ( )