Reading Joseph O'Neill's Netherland, I googled the cover [to put up on the blog] and found myself on literaryobama.com which is 'a chronicle of creative works by and about our 44th President.' Above this fab pic of Obama promoting libraries, is a post - written in April - titled 'On Obama's Nightstand: Netherland.' 
According to Qiana - the young-looking chap who writes the blog - knowing Obama's reading a book is enough to make him pick it up. He hasn't posted subsequently, so I wonder if he did. Meanwhile, Netherland is on my nightstand but oh how it asks to be brought downstairs and read and read and read until it's finished. There's something about the tone, the language, the voice of a book like this ...
Netherland is a post-9/11 novel set in New York. It feels as if the smoke and dust from that terrible day are still in the air and have been breathed in by the protagonist - a Dutch banker called Hans whose wife has left him for a safer life in England- making his life the kind of 'white on white' John Vanderslice sings about in his 9/11 album Emerald City. The novel is spare of language and the tone is a meditative one that is taut with the desperate stuff of longing and blame and alienation. But there is belonging too - in the game of cricket and the NY immigrants who play it on the margins of the recovering city. I am nowhere near the end, but this book is marvellous. One of the best I've read this year.
Lit blogger Mark Sarvas, like James Wood before him, gives it his highest recommendation [the review is in his 'recommended' column on the right]. He says of Netherland that it is 'a Gatsby-like meditation on exclusion and otherness,' and the conclusion is: 'a radiant beacon illuminating one of our essential questions, the question of belonging.'
Wonder what Obama thought of it.
7 comments:
I have recently finished "Netherland" and loved it. I made the mistake of describing it to friends as "a cricket novel", which put them off it in droves. I have learned my lesson!
But isn't the cricket just the ticket [as the Brits would say]? Hans' passion for the game is at the core of his character and the details of the games he plays - and remembers playing - create a particular world that he inhabits and that the reader inhabits with him. All that stuff of alienation and longing and loss and belonging are played out there. Your friends who were put off have made a terrible mistake.... On the other hand, my lit-reading, cricket-mad son is encouraged, I think, to read it...
oops, sounds like I'm trying to convert you, Tim, when I can see you are already converted... trying to convert your friends actually...
"All that stuff of alienation and longing and loss and belonging are played out there." - I'll read it on the back of this...note I am ignoring the word "cricket" - no, really, I am...
Hi Mary, thank you for linking to my blog. You know, I actually haven't gotten around to Netherland yet! Although as I said, this is a novel that probably wouldn't have crossed my radar if it hadn't been for the publicity surrounding Obama's interest in it. It's so hard to keep up with it all. I'm glad to hear that you are enjoying O'Neill's book, though. You and the President seem to have great taste.
P.S. I'm not a chap, but I appreciate being thought of as young-looking...!
Hi Rachel - Great, I hope you enjoy the book. I am still loving it and, for once, taking my time.
Qiana - my apologies re. the gender mix up! I wasn't sure if Qiana was a surname or a christian name and I only glanced quickly at the pic. Just goes to show... Thanks for the blog and the pic...
... pic of obama in the library i mean...
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