Review
Netherland, alas, does not live up to its formidable
promise. I was hooked by this novel right away and was rooting for it throughout
the first third, as it kept holding out the good stuff on me and deferring the
true introduction of the charismatic man at its heart. But it gradually became
clear that this novel wasn't ever going to happen, and I finished it with
disappointment.
Netherland is about the friendship of two very different men. The first
is Hans van der Broek, a straight-laced Dutch banker who marries Rachel, a
British woman, and relocates with her to New York City. After the 9/11 attacks
uproot them from their Tribeca loft and deposit them in the famed and eccentric
Chelsea Hotel, their marriage begins to fall apart. When his wife takes their
son back to London, Hans finds himself adrift in the city and removed from his
own...
Beyond the Book
Cricket
It would seem that Joseph O'Neill's secret mission in writing
Netherland is to convert
Americans into cricket fans. Hans, his narrator, implicitly assumes that his
readers are not familiar with the game, and long passages are given over to
(rather aggrievedly) pointing to its illustrious history and explaining its
subtleties. Herewith, for those who know baseball but not cricket, a few
additional pointers on a game that Bill Bryson calls "a sport that is enjoyed by
millions, some of them awake and facing the right way."
Like baseball, someone throws a ball and another person bats at it, but the
similarities, for the most part, end there. Cricket is played on a circular
field and the play extends in all directions. The batter is out...
