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Title: Netherland

Author: Joseph O'Neill

Narrator: Jefferson Mays

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins

Language: English

Release date: 12-02-08

Publisher: Recorded Books

Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 282 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

Alone and un-tethered, feeling lost in the country he had come to regard as home, Hans stumbles upon the vibrant New York subculture of cricket, where he revisits his lost childhood and, thanks to a friendship with a charismatic and charming Trinidadian named Chuck Ramkissoon, begins to reconnect with his life and his adopted country. Ramkissoon, a Gatsby-like figure who is part idealist and part operator, introduces Hans to an "other" New York populated by immigrants and strivers of every race and nationality. Hans is alternately seduced and instructed by Chuck's particular brand of naiveté and chutzpah - by his ability to a hold fast to a sense of American and human possibility in which Hans has come to lose faith.

Netherland gives us both a flawlessly drawn picture of a little-known New York and a story of much larger, and brilliantly achieved ambition: the grand strangeness and fading promise of 21st century America from an outsider's vantage point, and the complicated relationship between the American dream and the particular dreamers. Most immediately, though, it is the story of one man - of a marriage foundering and recuperating in its mystery and ordinariness, of the shallows and depths of male friendship, of mourning and memory.

Joseph O'Neill's prose, in its conscientiousness and beauty, involves us utterly in the struggle for meaning that governs any single life.

Members Reviews:

Get Your Post-Colonial Gatsby ON!

One of the best post-9/11 and postcolonial books I've read. Easily in the same infield as Delillo's post-9/11 short novels ('Falling Man', 'Cosmopolis', 'Point Omega'). In someways it surpasses these shorter Delillo works and stands closer to 'Underworld'. Besides the obvious Baseball vs. Cricket, Underworld and Netherland are looking at the same point from the views of New Yorker in New York vs Immigrant in New York, and Big vs. Small. Also, at the same time 'Netherland' is a retelling of 'The Great Gatsby'. I only recognized this after reading James Wood's New Yorker review, but all it took was the briefest mention of Gatsby and the floodgates opened. Anyway, brilliant.

Very good book, excellent Narrator

THis book came as somewhat of a surprise, I didn't think I would be in the mood, but it starts off so well and the reader is so good, I just couldn't put it down and was engaged before I could protest. THe reader's accents were perfect and the tone was so perfect for the character, I must say I was very impressed with both the reading and the very moving story told in such an associative way rather than chronologically--I liked that. I look forward to hearing the book again soon, I read it so fast the first time I want time to savor it more slowly again.

Why You Should Read Netherland

Essentially a novel for men (lots of sports and sports metaphors), this is a book about a guy whose wife dumps him and who ends up living alone in post-911 New York City. Cricket is his salvation, and through it he becomes involved with a fascinating West Indian subculture. It's a book about human migration, about love and work and sex and the loss of a charismatic (and enigmatic) friend. Wonderfully written and narrated.

Extraordinary writing on ordinary life

I was somewhat shocked to read other reviews that derided this book as boring and pointless.