Book Review 2012 #2: The Art of Fielding
[WARNING: LONG REVIEW AHEAD FOR AN EVEN LONGER BOOK, hahaha]
I was a late bloomer when it came to baseball as I’ve only started loving it when I was in college. I was New York Yankees fan, and then I started exploring other teams just in case my Yankees got booted out early during the playoffs (and in the past years, that seemed to happen a bit too early for my liking). A team that I had taken to liking?
The St. Louis Cardinals.
So there wasn’t any doubt in my mind that I was going to pick up The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach. Aside from being hailed as one of the best books of 2011, it tackles one of my favorite sports that I rarely get the chance to read up in books: BASEBALL.
So first off: I’d give it 4 out of 5 (but really, it’s 3.75 out of 5, I’m just being generous with the .25 because it’s a baseball book).
THE GOOD: Characters, style of writing / plot, and the way it makes me feel.
- CHARACTERS: I like Henry’s innocence, his determination, and his struggle (this last point is actually a middleground—see point #2 in The Bad). I like how Guert struggled with who he is and how he tried to be who he is even is he is a bit older. I like Owen and his humor, and how he has been there for Henry. I like Mike and his drive to change people’s lives even though sometimes it comes at the expense of his own (e.g., passing up on opportunities, not focusing on his own goals), and how he bonded and mentored Henry. I like Pella and how somehow she made all the main characters feel complete. I even like Rick O’Shea and Starblind. The ensemble was perfect, and there are times when I can relate to each and every single one of them.
- STYLE OF WRITING / PLOT: I liked how things were unraveled and how it pulls the rug from under me at some parts. Frankly, when the synopsis said “…a routine throw that goes disastrously off course…” my first thought was, ‘uh-oh, Henry might have torn something in his arm, gee,’ but it wasn’t that. I also liked how it gave me an inside view of things that happen inside a star athlete’s head.
- THE WAY IT MAKES ME FEEL: Like I said in Why We Broke Up, I like it when books make you feel. I think books are more effective when they do that, aside from when they leave you with an answer to the question: after I read this book, now what? What have I learned? This book frustrated me (in a couple of ways, really), made me smile and made me cry. It did give me lots of answers to What have I learned which I loved. I liked how the story made you want to champion for the Harpooners, because they were underdogs, they were imperfect creatures trying to prove something, to win something, to prove they are alive and they can make a change.
THE BAD: Length and ending how things led to the ending, particularly for Henry.
- LENGTH: I think the book’s a hundred pages too long. I don’t know if it was just me or I felt like it sort of lingered in some parts where it shouldn’t, and it kind of left out the parts where it should have focused. There were parts when I was reading it that I was like… who was this guy again? Wait, what are they talking about? What is the Henry Skrimshander day again? I think there was about 100+ pages between the first time they mentioned what was going to happen on that day and the day it was about to happen. While this may be a plot device, I felt that as a reader, I was put into a disadvantage.
- ENDING HOW THINGS LED TO THE ENDING, PARTICULARLY FOR HENRY: I had to reword this because while I did like the ending, I figured… Why did Henry get an almost-easy pass? I was wrestling with myself if I liked the way Henry struggled, and I found that I am 50/50 on this one. I feel like someone should have given him an extra hard time, pushed him harder than Pella did, and made him see what he had actually missed and what sacrifices were made for him.
FAVORITE PARTS / QUOTES:
- Locker rooms, in Schwartz’s experience, were always underground, like bunkers and bomb shelters. This was less a structural necessity than a symbolic one. The locker room protected you when you were most vulnerable: just before a game, and just after. (And halfway through, if the game was football.) Before the game, you took off the uniform you wore to face the world and you put on the one you wore to face your opponent. In between, you were naked in every way. After the game ended, you couldn’t carry your game-time emotions out into the word—you’d be put in an asylum if you did—so you went underground and purged them. You yelled and threw things and pounded your locker, in anguish or joy. You hugged your teammate, or bitched him out, or punched him in the face. Whatever happened, the locker room remained a haven. (p. 106-107)
- But baseball was different. Schwartz thought of it as Homeric—not a scrum but a series of isolated contests. Batter versus pitcher, fielder versus ball. You couldn’t storm around, snorting and slapping people, the way Schwartz did when he was playing football. You stood and waited and tried to still your mind. When your moment came, you had to be ready, because if you fucked up, everyone would know whose fault it was. What other sport not only kept a stat as cruel as the error but posted it on the scoreboard for everyone to see? (p. 259)
- Like Ishmael said: Being paid—what will compare with it! It was embarrassing, how proud of herself she felt. The check proved that she’d been alive these weeks, that she’d accomplished something, however trivial. This was why people grew attached to earning money, even money they didn’t need. This was how they justified themselves. This was how they kept score. (p. 263)
- How could you learn something, accomplish anything, build any kind of momentum toward becoming a good person, unless you felt at least a little bit comfortable at first? (p. 290)
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Next book: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer (still struggling to finish The Happiness Project *sad face*)
