21st Century Literature discussion

Welcome to the discussion for Netherland. Use this folder to discuss first impressions, general comments about the book (no spoilers), and to provide any links to reference materials other readers might like to know about.

Our central characters, Hans and his family, were living in Tribeca when the planes hit on 9/11. They moved uptown a bit, to the Chelsea Hotel. This hotel is sort of a story in itself, and almost a character in this book at times. As I was reading, I kept finding a line from a Bob Dylan song running through my head, "Staying up for days in the Chelsea Hotel." (From "Sarah".) I found an article about the hotel, and its storied past. Here is a link: http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/201...

Casceil,

Thanks for kicking this off. Not sure yet whether I'll have time to re-read the book, but will certainly follow the discussion and chip in if I can.

I really liked this New Yorker review, although it does give away many plot elements for those that want to avoid spoilers.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/200...

Dianne, thank you for linking that review. It is much better than the other reviews I have read of this book. It does give away some plot elements, but, as another reviewer pointed out, the book sort of has its own spoilers built in. While the main action is set in 2003, early on we see our main characters in 2006, and learn things that leave us knowing how parts of the story are going to work out.

As I mentioned in an earlier discussion here, I highly recommend the essay Zadie Smith wrote about this book (and also a then contemporary Tom McCarthy book she contrasted with). This was included in her collection Changing My Mind: Occasional Essays, which I read a few months ago - not sure whether it is available on its own anywhere online. She sees O'Neill as a defender of traditional plot based narrative fiction and McCarthy as something of a polar opposite - I couldn't help siding with O'Neill as what she said about this book was far more interesting and coherent.
I'd also like to talk about the place of cricket in the book (as an Englishman it is a subject I know quite a lot about), but I'll leave that for later.
Thanks for posting the review Dianne.

Thanks for the reference to the Zadie Smith review Hugh! The NY review of books has an excerpt, and there are many articles referencing it but I can't seem to locate the whole thing. Still, I was able to glean enough to get a sense of her discussion and the contrast with McCarthy was compelling.

I plan to jump into the discussion once I finish (I'm on pg. 100), but came across this article this morning about cricket being America's first--and now forgotten--sport:
https://www.1843magazine.com/culture/the-daily/americas-first-sport

Great article Marc, thanks! Like O'Neill, the author protests, it's American, it's American! Although then, strangely, he protests his son's possible greater allegiance with baseball, the sport more commonly known as 'America's pastime."

Thanks, Marc. That is a great article. It also gave me an interesting perspective on Hans, the main character. In other threads, we've talked about his determination to stick with the cricket techniques he learned as a youth, and not to adapt his style of play to one that would be more successful on American playing fields. I hadn't really thought about this as a way in which he stays deliberately foreign, but it is.

Hugh wrote: "As I mentioned in an earlier discussion here, I highly recommend the essay Zadie Smith wrote about this book (and also a then contemporary Tom McCarthy book she contrasted with). This was included ..."

He's a defender of "traditional plot based fiction"?

Hmmm.... I'm only 25% in. (Don't know what page as I'm listening to the audiobook.) However, it feels more like a character study. Maybe a stream of consciousness thing. I'm having a hard trouble pinpointing any plot. Maybe it comes later?

Kirsten *Dogs Welcome - People Tolerated" wrote: "Hmmm.... I'm only 25% in. (Don't know what page as I'm listening to the audiobook.) However, it feels more like a character study. Maybe a stream of consciousness thing. I'm having a hard trouble pinpointing any plot. Maybe it comes later? ."
It's all relative - from what I gather Tom McCarthy's work is far more confrontational.

Dianne wrote: "Thanks for the reference to the Zadie Smith review Hugh! The NY review of books has an excerpt, and there are many articles referencing it but I can't seem to locate the whole thing. Still, I was a..."

If you have a chance, could you give us that link (NY review...), Dianne?

In the book, the essay was called "Two Directions For The Novel". I think this is what Dianne found, but the whole essay is much longer than the few paragraphs you can see without subscribing:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/2008/...

Bonus Question:
Which historical figure was mentioned in both June group reads?