Netherland

After reading descriptions of Joseph O’Neill’s new novel Netherland which talked of it as a post 9/11 novel, I was not really interested in reading it and that is the reaction of most people when I attempt to describe the book in reference to that date.  However, after hearing the author interviewed by Terri Gross on Fresh Air, I decided to give it a try, and I’m glad I did.  It touches on the events of September 11, 2001, only in the most delicate way, so that the mind that fears pressure on a sore spot is put at ease.  The story is a somewhat dark, yet dreamy (and occasionally funny) meditation on adulthood, national identity, parenting, marriage and life, but again the touch is light.  The main character, Hans is struggling with the dissolution of his marriage and the death of his Mother, which among other things including Cricket, make up the book’s several threads. The comparison to The Great Gatsby seems apt, but is not overstated (the reference to Daisy brought a smile).  In the end, I found myself flipping back through the book for certain passages that resonated as when Hans describes his own tendency toward dreaminess and mystery resulting in him “stepping around in a murk of his own making” and his concern about his own son and how to “ensure that he does not grow like his father, which is to say, without warning.”  Speaking of his confused state of mind, he adds, “I still have no firm idea whether my own descent into disorder was referable to an Achilles heel or whether it’s a generally punishable folly to approach life trustingly — carelessly, some might say.” I’ve been thinking lately about the fate of dreamers and pondering how one might possibly fit into this life, the answer seems to be not very well or only by luck.