On Netherland and reading at 3 am

So the dog wakes me at one in the morning and I curse my stupidity in going to bed too early because I can't get back to sleep. I stagger to the lounge and pick up where I left off last time Netherland by Joseph O'Neill. I am reading this book v-e-r-y slowly because it's such a marvel. When I use my usual skimming methodology, I have to go back and read again, because you can't miss a single sentence. Even though this book has the game of cricket at its centre, as Breath had surfing at its, and I don't know much about cricket nor will I ever, O'Neill has this gift of instilling significance into every phrase, not in that soppy sense of Wow, This is Significant Stuff, but in the real sense which makes me put the book down and stare into the middle distance. So early this morning at the time when one feels most alone and wonders how many other people are also up, I thought of what it means to write a really good novel, as this is. A novel that, like Henry James's, doesn't do much. A contemplative novel that manages to keep your interest throughout the contemplation. Hans has roots in the Netherlands - his memories return there repetitively with scenes of skating, the quiet orderly streets of The Hague, his mother, his school - yet his heart is in New York where he is an unwilling sojourner, a legal alien. The Chelsea Hotel comes to life in this book in a miraculous way, just as that other hotel, whose name I have forgotten, but which is being restored, will always remain for me part of my childhood thanks to Eloise. This morning I read this wonderful scene in which the Turkish angel (he wears rather dirty angel wings and robes) is lying on the roof of the synagogue and Hans lies next to him while the angel's mother has hysterics believing that her son has committed suicide. Hans looks up at the night sky and what follows is typical of the book - a synergy of signficant moments which I can't possibly capture in my clumsy and turgid prose but which made me put the book down and stare into the middle distance. You'll have to read it yourself.
So I get back into bed at 3 in the morning and lie there writing this in my mind. How annoying that the words flowed so fluidly there in bed which they never do when I face the screen, hands poised over the keys. I thought of what it means to write in this blogging space - how private it is - and what a paradox that is, to be most private when being most public. But no-one reads this. It's name - anacoluthon - protects my privacy. Who would bother with a blog with a name like that? So, why is this different from writing in a journal? Well, someone always finds the journal, so it's never a truly private space, whereas this huge etheric place which is theoretically open and free for all is a better place to hide.

Oh, and Kate Atkinson's latest is also a joy albeit in a totally different form.
And I have further thoughts about the novel as the most accomplished form in which to grasp the meaning of life, but I won't go there.