Netherland

- Joseph O'Neill -

On the one hand, this book was strangely evocative - from the dislocation of being an expat in a strange land, to the comfortable joyousness of coming across something you loved from home like cricket, I could relate to these kinds of experiences and appreciate the dreamy quality that they have as you float between the reality of life where you are now and the familiarity of these things that remind you of home.

On the other hand, as Hans wanders the city in a emotional fog, displaced by 9/11 from his Tribeca apartment and living a solitary life in a hotel filled with transients and strangers after his wife takes their son back to London, the narrative had a very disconnected quality to it.

I think this was intentional as Hans tries to find his way out of the sad state of inertness that circumstances have left him trapped in, but it also meant that is was hard to get truly invested in the story, as Hans never really seemed to be.

He related the story of his time alone in New York and of his strange friendship with the doomed Chuck Ramiskoon as though it had all happened to someone else. It almost seems like, as he tells the story from back in his "real" life, back with his family, that it never really happened at all.