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'Deal(ing) with 9/11 far more subtly and indirectly than recent novels...(there is) a rare combination of ambition and humility.' --Literary Review
`This multi-faceted, poignant and considered novel, which...does something momentous: it evokes life for all of us.'
--Time Out
`This multi-faceted, poignant and considered novel, which...does something momentous: it evokes life for all of us.'
--Time Out
Observer Sports
'Great cricket novels can be counted on one hand...Netherland looks as if it may top the lot!'
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Hans battles to understand himself, his wife and the city of New York,
By
This review is from: Netherland (Paperback)
The narrator is all-important in this wonderful book. He's a Dutchman adrift in New York when his wife decides to return to her English parents with their small son, Jake. Hans is an analyst in oil and gas conglomerates and his job is just too lucrative to relinquish, and so he opts to stay, returning to England at fortnightly intervals to spend a weekend with his little son. Shortly after his wife, Rachel, leaves he happens upon a group of immigrants playing cricket, such a bizarre apparition that it prompts him to join them, and there he meets Chuck Ramkissoon, a West Indian naturalised American, who is a fabulist and some-time entrepreneur, who later turns out to have darker sidelines that Hans only gradually discovers.
If you, like me, don't care for, or even understand the game of cricket, don't fear that you'll be embroiled in endless descriptions of the thwack of leather on willow, this novel is not about cricket in that way. Cricket is a mechanism to explore the city of New York with its ability to create the diaspora of almost everywhere else. What captivates is the voice of Hans describing his life, his love for his wife, Rachel and his child, and the gift of friendship with Chuck, who has endless stories to tell, as well as fantasies to dream about. Wry, gentle, sensuous and sensitive, Hans battles to understand himself, his wife and the city of New York and we learn much about the history of the city and its inhabitants in this stunningly intimate and moving narrative. This is an absorbing and captivating read, one of the most memorably pleasurable books I've come across this year.
21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A demanding but worthwhile read,
By
This review is from: Netherland (Paperback)
According to the dust jacket the critics loved it. I can see why but found it very demanding. It is not a novel in which plot plays a big part. In fact, it is more an extended meditation on experience - on love,class, fatherhood, friendship,and belonging. But the prose is breathtaking at times, and there are some sections of description and reflection which I won't forget in a hurry and which make it worthwhile in the end.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Outstanding,
By Green Star "SD" (Bucks, UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Netherland (Paperback)
I thoroughly enjoyed this book. Really can't think of a fault. An intriguing plot, with thoughts and ideas slipping backwards and forwards over time and place. There are all manner of components - evocations of childhood, the unpicking of relationships, visually memorable scenes and images, and humour slipped in between sorrow and angst, to name but a few. I had to admit feeling relieved to read later that it took the author 7 years to write this - it tells in the glittering prose.
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