Netherland

Book Review

Joseph O'Neill

Netherland is the sleeper hit of the Man Booker Prize season, a novel by a little known author, virtually an American, with two previous novels and an Atlantic Monthly column to recommend him. In spite of this, the bookies William Hill installed him as the three to one favorite to win the prize. And the “buzz” for this novel has increased tremendously since the longlist announcement – on the day of the longlist, there were 2750 Google hits for this novel and “Booker Prize.” By mid-August 2008, this number grew to 27,500.

The novel itself reminds the TurboBookSnob of the reputedly classic American sitcom Seinfeld (the qualifier is used because the TurboBookSnob is not a Seinfeld fan). Seinfeld was widely accepted to be a sitcom about nothing, and yet in its way, it attempted to portray the quintessential New York City urban existence.

Netherland claims to be about a lot of things. Cricket. A murder mystery. The attacks on the World Trade Centers. The alienation of separation and divorce. And yet the novel is not about any of these things in a direct or specific way. In a way, it is about nothing and everything, the great gleaming melting pot of New York immigrant existence. Oh, and along the way, there's some cricket, someone gets murdered, the attacks on September 11th cause their aftermath, and the main characters suffer divorce and alienation. It sounds as if O'Neill packs a ton into his slim little novel, but he does so with good judgment, erudition, and eloquence, and it helps his case.

The novel's protagonist is Hans, a banker from New York who has emigrated with his wife Rachel. They seem to be happy, and even prosperous, but when the twin towers fell, they left Rachel searching within, and Hans searching for something more primal. She find her answers in a return home to England with their son; he find his in a return to the cricket of his boyhood, in Brooklyn of all places.

It is hard to find much to like in Hans. Surprisingly, there is more to enjoy to find in O'Neill's patchwork of a New York novel. The TurboBookSnob expected to hate this novel, and found herself charmed. There is much to be said for good writing, regardless of the subject matter. That said, the writing is a little too good, a bit too erudite for the circumstances.

One almost longs for Jerry Seinfeld's whininess and Elaine Bennis' realistic self-importance. This is a huge novel, however, and it will be surprising with all the buzz it is garnering if it does not make the Booker Shortlist.