30 Books in 30 Beach Days Day 24: "Netherland"
Today's review is of Joseph O'Neill's beautiful post-colonial novel, Netherland. Most of the novel is told in an extended flashback, after protagonist Hans learns of the death of his friend Chuck, a man with whom he used to play cricket when he lived in New York City in the wake of 9/11. As Hans reminisces about his friend's life as he prepares to attend the funeral acknowledging his death, he ruminates over the course of his own life, and the various places and sentiments that have contributed to his own feeling of belonging in the world.
From the novel's title, it would be reasonable to assume this was a novel about the Netherlands or about a uniquely Dutch experience, but it isn't. Hans, a double-emigrant, feels lost in a terrorized city after moving from London to New York City (after initially having moved from the Netherlands to London). His marriage is falling apart, and he can't identify the malaise and distance that keeps him from feeling truly connected to and at home with his family.
The only place, it turns out, that Hans does feel at home is on the cricket pitch. Chuck is the one who introduces him to the cricket club, and it's only here -- stripped of his street clothes, in uniforms that match the South Asian and Trinidadian men with whom he plays -- that he feels alive and at home. The cricket pitch, the site of a quintessentially un-American sport, is the place most representative of that American ideal of the true "melting pot."
The novel allows access to a specific time in both our nation's history and in one immigrant's life. It's a beautiful story that will make you question how you define time and space and, ultimately, home.
Rating: 4/5
