Comments on: Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland: the Novel of the Age http://www.radioopensource.org/joseph-oneills-netherland-the-novel-of-the-age/ Christopher Lydon in conversation on arts, ideas and politics Sun, 12 Feb 2012 19:09:22 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 By: Eric Levin http://www.radioopensource.org/joseph-oneills-netherland-the-novel-of-the-age/#comment-93218 Eric Levin Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:07:50 +0000 http://www.radioopensource.org/?p=3108#comment-93218 Chris: Zadie Smith, in her dizzying new collection, Changing My Mind, takes apart Netherland in a fascinating, if abstruse way. She calls it an "anxious" novel that errs by indulging its readers' anxieties and then, after acknowledging its literary virtuosity (which she seems to discount as nostalgia for 19th century lyricism), disses it as "a novel only partially aware of the ideas that underpin it." Phew. You should read this. Would love to know what you think. Chris: Zadie Smith, in her dizzying new collection, Changing My Mind, takes apart Netherland in a fascinating, if abstruse way. She calls it an “anxious” novel that errs by indulging its readers’ anxieties and then, after acknowledging its literary virtuosity (which she seems to discount as nostalgia for 19th century lyricism), disses it as “a novel only partially aware of the ideas that underpin it.” Phew. You should read this. Would love to know what you think.

]]> By: hurley http://www.radioopensource.org/joseph-oneills-netherland-the-novel-of-the-age/#comment-93217 hurley Thu, 18 Jun 2009 17:16:21 +0000 http://www.radioopensource.org/?p=3108#comment-93217 I haven't read either of Jospeh O'Neill's books, but I'll wager a comment. I grew up in the West Indies, in a place where cricket was physically on the wane but ever present on the radio courtesy of the BBC. You could at times walk down a dirt road and follow the course of a test from one long wave radio to the next, more or less as in that early Pynchon story where a boy rides a bicycle down a street. The official space for the game in my part of the world was between an oil refinery and an alumina plant. About as toxic as it gets thereabouts -- flames and red waste. But the players would come. Here in Rome an incongrously ragtag group of South Asians convene a game every Sunday in the Villa Doria Pamphili, one of the greatest parks in the world, not least because few people ttouble to visit it. With a backdrop of a villa and umbrella pines, they get to business. Backpacks delineating a circular space on a broad rectilinear field, everyone almost chirping with delight, or so I imagine. I'll have to learn more about it. Many thanks. I haven’t read either of Jospeh O’Neill’s books, but I’ll wager a comment.

I grew up in the West Indies, in a place where cricket was physically on the wane but ever present on the radio courtesy of the BBC. You could at times walk down a dirt road and follow the course of a test from one long wave radio to the next, more or less as in that early Pynchon story where a boy rides a bicycle down a street. The official space for the game in my part of the world was between an oil refinery and an alumina plant. About as toxic as it gets thereabouts — flames and red waste. But the players would come.

Here in Rome an incongrously ragtag group of South Asians convene a game every Sunday in the Villa Doria Pamphili, one of the greatest parks in the world, not least because few people ttouble to visit it. With a backdrop of a villa and umbrella pines, they get to business. Backpacks delineating a circular space on a broad rectilinear field, everyone almost chirping with delight, or so I imagine. I’ll have to learn more about it.

Many thanks.

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