The Post American Novel?

The Post American Novel? Joseph O’Neill author of the novel ‘Netherland’ 2008 speaking in an interview with Travis Elborough on a question about The Great Gatsby and the American Novel said….. “Netherland is clearly having some sort of conversation with The Great Gatsby saying goodbye to it perhaps and some of the notions associated with that wonderful book. This is be way of explanation of the fact that I actually see the book as a Post American Novel. It is told from the perspective of a man who has left America. Hans is over America even though he is still fascinated by it. Nick Carraway by contrast has moved back to the Midwest. I increasingly think that the integrity of the United States, the idea of the US as this special sealed off zone of opportunity and freedom is anachronistic. Globalization has undermined the exclusiveness of the American experience. It remains an extraordinary and exceptional place but our attitudes to it have changed. The veneration certainly isn’t what it used to be. I believe some of that has been precipitated by the behavior of the United States internationally in recent times.” The phrase that leaped off the page are the words: ‘The idea of the US as this special sealed off zone of opportunity and freedom is anachronistic’ There are two interwoven myths here. The special chosen myth and the isolation myth. That there could or would be this place called ‘The New World’ where people could safely ignore history-civilizational experience and proceed to success and freedom on the basis of The Declaration of Independence and live in isolation of the rest of the world. Well in answer to that O’Neill a self confessed rootless world citizen has given us a book on the unlikely topic of: Cricket- the people attempting against the odds to play that game in the city of New York. While the New York Times said of the book ‘The wittiest, angriest, most exacting and most desolate work of fiction about life in New York and London after the World Trade Center fell. I devoured it in three thirsty gulps that satisfied a craving I didn’t know I had’ And for those who wonder if I got paid to write this- Nah –It just helps me to enjoy the book more!