What I understand of cricket is that someone throws a ball upon which someone else tries to hit it away using a piece of wood and then the hitter scores points by running to-and-fro two wooden Ms before the thrower’s team mates have found the ball and thrown it back to its base. I presume this is equivalent to knowing Spanish to the extent of being able to count to ten and say ‘good morning’: it is still a long, long way to Don Quixote. But, after reading Netherland, at least I am convinced of cricket’s special position among other sports; that it is a Sport with a capital S, in comparison to which other sports are nothing but games.

Joseph O’Neill’s novel, however, is not a book about cricket, just like it isn’t a novel about New York or about growing up in The Hague. It is a book about failure in life —in a short period of life— and the understanding of it, to which these things are a mere background. More importantly, it is an awfully well written story, one that makes reading a fulfilling pleasure just because of the language. O’Neill, whom I had not heard of before, but who is an Irishman who grew up in the Netherlands, then worked in London before moving to New York (and thus bound to become a great writer), really gets things. Like the post-9/11 thing: I had been struggling with that label for a while, for it is true but didn’t feel right; but then I decided that it actually fits very well, for such Big events hardly ever affect people’s lives in obvious ways and then always mixed with seemingly irrelevant personal experiences.

I think it is a brilliant book. Not shortlisted for the Booker, but if that means something, then surely that the six other books are all brilliant. How is that?