The Art of Fielding

Feb 01, 2012 Kemper rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2012, modern-lit, sports

This novel should win some kind of award for Best Character Names. Check some of these out: Henry Skrimshander. Guert Affenlight. Pella Affenlight. Adam Starblind.

No John Smiths or Jane Does allowed in this one.

Mike Schwartz is a hard working and ambitious student athlete at second rate Westish College in Wisconsin. At a summer league baseball game, Mike sees Henry Skrimshander play and instantly recognizes that he’s seeing the kind of fielding talent that can only be called genius. Skinny Henr...more This novel should win some kind of award for Best Character Names. Check some of these out: Henry Skrimshander. Guert Affenlight. Pella Affenlight. Adam Starblind.

No John Smiths or Jane Does allowed in this one.

Mike Schwartz is a hard working and ambitious student athlete at second rate Westish College in Wisconsin. At a summer league baseball game, Mike sees Henry Skrimshander play and instantly recognizes that he’s seeing the kind of fielding talent that can only be called genius. Skinny Henry has just finished high school and assumes his days in organized baseball are over because all the college scouts passed him over because of his lack of size and below average hitting ability. Where Henry excels is at playing shortstop where no ball gets past him and all of his throws are right on target.

Mike arranges for Henry to get a baseball scholarship to Westish, and begins putting him through a rigorous training regimen designed to turn him from a talented fielding shortstop into a complete baseball player. As eager Henry flourishes under Mike’s guidance, the Westish baseball team starts winning for the first time, and pro scouts have started talking big money just as Henry is on the verge of breaking the record of his idol for most consecutive games without an error.

Then one bad throw with disastrous consequences shatters Henry’s confidence and suddenly leaves him unable to complete the simplest toss during a game. As Henry struggles to get his mojo back, Mike is realizing that his own ambitions may be bigger than his actual talent. The school president Guert Affenlight, a Herman Melville fanatic, has fallen in love with Henry’s gay roommate Owen, and Guert’s daughter Pella has just come to the campus looking to jumpstart her life after a bad marriage.

You don’t have to be a baseball fan to enjoy this one. The author doesn’t engage in the practice of trying to sell the readers on the greatness of the game. Henry loves it because it’s what he was born to do just like a great painter was born to paint, but other characters complain that it’s boring. Even Owen, who is on the team, bitches about it and prefers to read in the dugout rather than watch the games.

For the first half of this book, I was completely sucked in by the characters. Any one of these could have made a great book by themselves: Pella’s backstory about leaving high school to marry an older man and coming to Westish to finally pick up where she left off. Guert’s falling for Owen after a lifetime of heterosexuality and fearing that he was making a fool of himself. Mike’s bitterness over thinking that he’d never be truly great at anything himself while completely dismissing his own talent for motivating and getting the most out of people. All of these were excellent and the writing makes you feel for all of them.

Where it really hits a next level is with Henry’s struggles. Harbach spends a lot of time in the early going telling us about Henry’s development into a top baseball prospect and his incredible grace on the field. And he’s also just a helluva nice guy, the kind of student who doesn’t like to talk in his English class because he’s worried that he’ll hurt his sensitive teacher’s feelings. He works his ass off not for fame and fortune but because he wants to be the best. Then he's helpless to keep it from falling apart just as he’s about to achieve his dream. It’s painful, particularly the way Harbach puts you into Henry’s head on the field where he’s over thinking every play to the point where I almost found myself yelling aloud, “Just throw the fucking ball to first, Henry!”

That’s why I almost consider this a horror story with it’s notion that no matter how much work has gone into something, talent is such a mental thing that it can be destroyed in moments if the wrong set of circumstances cause self doubt to creep in.

Unfortunately, things got a bit too drawn out in the second half of the book, and the various self-destructive cycles that some of the characters enter when things get rough almost turned them from sympathetic into tiresome whiners. Shaving about a hundred pages from this book and tightening it up would have made this a five star read. It’s still an excellent book with some great characters and very good writing. (less)

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Apr 02, 2012 Teresa rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Recommended to Teresa by: James Murphy

I loved this book! (I suppose it's appropriate that I start off my review like a fan.)

While reading it, I couldn't help but reflect upon and compare this novel to The Marriage Plot. Both are about college-aged kids (though set in different decades); mental illness is an element in both; and while the love triangle in the Eugenides is paramount, the one here (which is sort of (though not really) a love triangle) is more subtle and more realistically portrayed. (I almost want to say that, exceptin...more I loved this book! (I suppose it's appropriate that I start off my review like a fan.)

While reading it, I couldn't help but reflect upon and compare this novel to The Marriage Plot. Both are about college-aged kids (though set in different decades); mental illness is an element in both; and while the love triangle in the Eugenides is paramount, the one here (which is sort of (though not really) a love triangle) is more subtle and more realistically portrayed. (I almost want to say that, excepting the baseball, this is the book Eugenides wanted to write.) Literature is prominent in both, but here it has a lighter touch (less pretentious, one might say). There's also a beautifully written, lyrical passage in the Harbach that reminded me of my favorite passage in Eugenides' Middlesex.

Though I've read Moby-Dick, it's been awhile and I'm sure I missed some of the references to it in this novel set in a fictional Wisconsin college where Melville is important to its existence. One section in the Harbach evoked (at least for me) E.M. Forster's Maurice.

The fictional (the book-within-the-book) "The Art of Fielding" evokes Ted Williams' The Science of Hitting. The fictional author of the book-within-this-book is Aparicio Rodriquez, whose name evokes that of the great shortstop, Luis Aparicio. Though it's not said, I imagined the baseball-loving Rodriquez parents naming their child after Luis. (Also, Henry's chasing of the college record, held by Rodriguez, for consecutive games without an error recalls the chasing of Robin Ventura's college hitting streak by Garrett Wittels a couple of seasons ago.)

But forget all the comparisons. This book stands on its own merits. It is intelligent, engaging and wry. It is a world unto itself, as most great books are. The characters go on living beyond the page, the story went places unforeseen, and I didn't want it to end. Baseball being a major plot/metaphor/theme (and the way Harbach wrote about it) made it all that much richer for me.(less)

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Dec 27, 2012 Lee marked it as to-read · review of another edition

Shelves: put-down-for-now

As an English major who played two years of Division III baseball at a small liberal arts school in the Midwest , I figured I might really like a book involving college baseball players at a Division III small liberal arts school in the Midwest that's more or less adopted Melville as a mascot. The baseball bits weren't all that bad, particularly the bit about moving before the ball was hit, but the rest -- Guert, Pella, particularly -- just didn't seem real to me. Owen I didn't really buy as a l...more

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Dec 21, 2011 Greg rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, baseball

Review 1.1 updated introduction.

I've finished the book. I was a little wrong about how the book would end, I think I liked the book more because of the way it wrapped up than I expected to. I gave it an extra star. It is a pretty good book, not a great book, there are problems with it, some of the characters could be developed a bit more in places and some of the middle part of the book could have probably been reworked a little bit to make it not feel like a slog for a little bit, but with the...more

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Dec 19, 2011 RandomAnthony rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Chad Harbach's The Art of Fielding is 2/3rds strong but maybe 100 pages too long. You know that weird paradox you feel when you like a book but kind of wish it was over? I felt that around, oh, page 350 of The Art of Fielding. So while I can recommend the novel, with reservations, I can't make the four star leap.

The storyline revolves around five characters and readers shouldn't be misled into thinking, as the inside cover description seems to imply, that Henry is the star and the four other cha...more Chad Harbach's The Art of Fielding is 2/3rds strong but maybe 100 pages too long. You know that weird paradox you feel when you like a book but kind of wish it was over? I felt that around, oh, page 350 of The Art of Fielding. So while I can recommend the novel, with reservations, I can't make the four star leap.

The storyline revolves around five characters and readers shouldn't be misled into thinking, as the inside cover description seems to imply, that Henry is the star and the four other characters lesser lights. The five meet, collaborate, have sex, become codependent (maybe...I'm not sure what “codependent” means) and evolve over the course of a couple years on the campus of a small northeastern Wisconsin college. Water (specifically Lake Michigan) and Moby Dick recur as themes that, I would bet, a grad student somewhere is analyzing in a paper right now. Harbach writes in a controlled, professional writer's workshop manner about 80% of the time. His writing is good, clean, and high-quality but, unfortunately, occasionally reads sterile. The "gay guys discovering each other" subplot was trite and predictable. Only in the last fifty pages does he passionately let loose. The novel's end is serene and satisfying. The first 460 pages are more like a clinic on how to write well. Nothing wrong with that. If you like austere, well-constructed novels, you'll like The Art of Fielding. Franzen gives a cover blurb, by the way. He's a good reference point for Harbach; “kind of like Franzen” would describe Harbach well.

The prominent positioning of baseball in the title and storyline might lead non-sports-oriented (is that a word?) readers to question if this novel is for them. That's a fair inquiry. I bet you expect me to say, “No, you'll like the book even if you don't know much about baseball.” But I won't. Baseball knowledge/appreciation will increase your interest and/or understanding of The Art of Fielding. Too many scenes involve the committed, meditative approach Mike and Henry employ while on the diamond. If you don't know where a shortstop stands in the infield, stay away from this book. You won't get it.

So I liked The Art of Fielding and expect the novel to garner many end of the year prizes and, possibly, a film deal leading to a serious, oscar-worthy movie. I just can't get passed the idea that, for a week or so before the final push toward the last page, I wasn't looking forward to reading this book much. Maybe the skyrocketing press and reviews raised my expectations too high. It's possible. Recommended with tempered enthusiasm.(less)

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Nov 30, 2012 Gary McTiernan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is an auspicious, audacious debut novel about self-discovery. Set at a middling liberal arts college on the shores of Lake Michigan, it is loosely based on Melville's Moby Dick, with baseball substituting for whaling. Like most baseball games, it starts slow, but the momentum builds as the season progresses. One player succumbs to an existential crisis as the team finally begins to have some success. America's other favorite pastime appears with Pella, the college president's prodigal dau...more

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Feb 07, 2012 Miriam rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

People love to talk about the "great" books that aren't good reads. There's also the crap that people call "beach reads" but gobble up without taking seriously. But The Art of Fielding falls under a third category: A book I didn't like so much that I wanted to keep reading it.

I wanted to like it, I did. I like books that take place in college. I like baseball. I like baseball metaphors even more. but it felt like a book that took 10 years to write and not in a good way. Characters that I imagine...more

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Jun 13, 2012 Tony rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: baseball, u-s-lit

I have stood there, with my knees bent, on the balls of my feet. I have watched the signs and where the catcher sets up. I have known with some sense of probability if my pitcher can throw the ball where the glove is set. I have watched the hitter's swing, listened to the sound. I have intuited. So I have moved, left or right, back or in, often before the ball leaves the bat, before life, if you will, comes my way. Another example of how Life, as the columnist Thomas Boswell once mused, imitates...more

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Oct 16, 2011 Stuart rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: more-stuff-like-this-please

I'm from Wisconsin. This book takes place in Wisconsin. I love baseball. This book is about a baseball team from a fictitious Wisconsin college, Westish, which seems like a mix of Ripon and Lawrence. I love that fictitious name by the way. I love that school's absurd tie to Herman Melville as well and its funny Melville-related sports handle, The Harpooners. In a lot of ways, this book is as tailor made for me as a sharp ground ball is to a shortstop eager to make a 6-4-3 double play. It's not s...more I'm from Wisconsin. This book takes place in Wisconsin. I love baseball. This book is about a baseball team from a fictitious Wisconsin college, Westish, which seems like a mix of Ripon and Lawrence. I love that fictitious name by the way. I love that school's absurd tie to Herman Melville as well and its funny Melville-related sports handle, The Harpooners. In a lot of ways, this book is as tailor made for me as a sharp ground ball is to a shortstop eager to make a 6-4-3 double play. It's not surprising that I think that mostly this book is very good or as they say in Wisconsin, where modesty is king, pretty good. But there are flaws as one might expect with a first novel. There are also pet peeves that I have about coming of age, college-located novels that this book brings to the fore.

Here's the good news. In plain, precise prose, Chad Harbach tells a big-hearted story about five people - four young and one old - trying to find fulfillment and (sometimes) love in a tiny Midwestern college town. The story is well plotted and carefully thought out. Mr. Harbach clearly knows how to write. He's read Moby Dick many times no doubt (I've only read it twice), and essentially turns Melville's ship of men into a baseball team. If you like Moby Dick, you'll probably like this testosterone laden book. If you don't, you probably will hate it or maybe even more likely just be bored.

There are some slightly sour elements in this book related to my pet peeves. Like almost all college located novels, this one seems to assume that colleges are all about the humanities. That's simply not believable. Less than 10 percent of people major in the humanities at most schools, even liberal arts colleges in Wisconsin. The age of the prominent English professor ended about 30 years ago; he or she doesn't matter anymore. Also this book plays both light and earnest with a sexual relationship between a faculty member and a college student. I found that relationship to be creepy; there was nothing funny or uplifting about it, that's for certain.

Like many good first novels, this one starts with a bang. The two main characters and their bond are established within the first twenty pages. Also like many good first novels, the author doesn't quite know how to end his story and has use a "how convenient for the author" event to pull the plug. There are many times when characters are moved like marionettes for plot purposes and you can see the strings. But then there is the fun word play - especially with the names of characters and places - and the amusing antics of the characters that make up for the first novel clumsiness. The Art of Fielding is mostly a fun read, droll and often light hearted. The language is crisp. If I scored this novel as a baseball game, I'd say that it was mostly well played. It had a couple of bizarre errors, but the teams showed a lot of hustle, the pitchers were intelligent, there were a couple of home runs, and it was fun to watch. If you're a fan of good writing and baseball, you'll likely get your money's worth.

(less)

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May 16, 2012 Les rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: baseball, read-and-return-to-emily

3+
Self-deemed necessary 30 second pre-review prior to taking my son to school with typical perfunctory comment about how a real review will be forthcoming (unreliable):

This is the second time in two weeks that a baseball-related novel (that was about so much more) had me up until 2 AM finishing it. This is not Duncan's The Brothers K, but it is good. It has flaws no doubt (I'm still wrestling with the plausibility of the Pres. Affenlight and Owen relationship), but it hit me and fascinated me o...more

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Jul 05, 2012 Julie Ekkers rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction

The Art of Fielding is one of those old-fashioned, big-hearted, sink-into-it novels. The author's delight in his characters, all coming of age in different ways, is clear. It is a joy to be in such company. He writes of baseball with an ease that is very accessible. The opening chapter is delicious! My only complaint is that I felt the author's affection for his characters perhaps made him reluctant to do some judicious editing, from which I thought the book would have benefited overall. Still,...more

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Sep 15, 2012 Barbara rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

As a lifelong fan of "THE Game", I've used more baseball metaphors than I care to admit to...

That said, I had my reasons for initially steering away from this title. Somehow, it wound up front and center again. So, I sorbet-ed my literary palette and gave it a go!

*****

In the end, what I think I loved best--aside from so much of my beloved sport of baseball--was the depth of characterization, namely with Henry and Mike. These could be just average guys making everyday mistakes on one page, then d...more

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Apr 05, 2013 Grace Yeo rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: year-2012

The Art of Fielding is about baseball, but also about more than baseball, which is a good thing, because if I had wanted to learn about baseball, I would have gone to a game. The book centers around four main characters: Henry who breathes and lives and dreams baseball, but whose future as a major league ballplayer is threatened when his confidence is shattered by a freak accident; Mike who is Henry's everything and friend, who has the drive but not the talent, and who lives in terrible fear tha...more The Art of Fielding is about baseball, but also about more than baseball, which is a good thing, because if I had wanted to learn about baseball, I would have gone to a game. The book centers around four main characters: Henry who breathes and lives and dreams baseball, but whose future as a major league ballplayer is threatened when his confidence is shattered by a freak accident; Mike who is Henry's everything and friend, who has the drive but not the talent, and who lives in terrible fear that he will never come anywhere close to his dreams; Guert, whose inappropriate and single-minded obsession with the lovely Owen is slowly tearing his life apart; And Pella, who was brilliant and young and stupid, and who's now run home to rebuild her life.

And well, there's one more character, Owen. Owen is the only major character who did not have a chapter from his point of view. Which is really odd, because he drives the plot of the story-- without him, the characters would not be who they are, the book would simply fall apart. Owen is quirky, fun, and instantly likable. It's difficult to blame Guert for falling in love with him, simply because Owen is, well, transcendent-- young and alive, quietly confident of who he is and what he wants, if gods existed, he would be beloved of said gods. That said, because we never read in Owen's voice, we have no idea what Owen really thinks about his relationship with Guert, except that which is hinted at the very end. (Guert, on the other hand, has pages and pages devoted to his guilty fixation on Owen. I wonder why that was so.)

I really enjoyed Harbach's style of writing. The sheer lyricism reminds me of Chabon. The story reads easily and is hopelessly engrossing even though I (still) don't know anything about baseball (Ok. That's a lie. I now know shortstop is a position.) The descriptions of the games, which could have been boring and awful especially to someone not quite of the sports persuasion, somehow managed to make baseball come alive on the page.

On the down side, as the sole female member of an almost-boys-only cast, Pella was…disappointing, I thought. So much could have been done with her, yet her story centers around her relationships with Mike (complicated fling), Henry (boyfriend), David (husband) and Guert (father). Does the book pass the Bechdel test? I'm not sure, but I don't think so. I did enjoy her pointing out "the namelessness of women in stories, as if they lived and died so that men could have metaphysical insights." (This beautiful turn of phrase being just one of many in the book.) Too bad there were still plenty of nameless females in the story.

On the other hand, the character of Mike Schwartz, whose unrestrained ambitions extend far beyond his failing knees, his mediocre lsats and his empty wallet, rings particularly true for me. It is not for lack of trying that Mike didn't make it to law school on his first try, and that, perhaps, is the worst of it. Mike's total and brutal self-assessment of his failings, his single-minded obsession with not wasting each and every second that passes mark him as a man so driven that it leaves the reader little doubt that he will eventually succeed. However, just as in real life, this does not mean that his insecurities are any less real or painful to experience. (less)

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Nov 24, 2012 Andy Miller rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favorites

This is the best novel I have read in a long, long time. Once I started, I didn't want to put it down, but at the same time I didn't want it to end. I expect to read this again many times.

The book reviews tell you that this about a college baseball team which develops into a winning team under the defensive prowess of the star shortstop Henry Skrimshander. While some reviewers correctly note that to say that is a baseball book is like saying Moby Dick is a fish story, even the best reviews don't...more This is the best novel I have read in a long, long time. Once I started, I didn't want to put it down, but at the same time I didn't want it to end. I expect to read this again many times.

The book reviews tell you that this about a college baseball team which develops into a winning team under the defensive prowess of the star shortstop Henry Skrimshander. While some reviewers correctly note that to say that is a baseball book is like saying Moby Dick is a fish story, even the best reviews don't give the complexity of the book justice. Henry, a kid from small town and family who had never been to college and has self doubts is just one of many characters that the reader comes to know as a real person.

Mike Schwartze is the team captain and excellent student who plans to go to law school even though everyone tells him he would be a natural coach. You learn that he applies to only the top 7 law schools with no safety application and then can't bring himself to tell anyone the results. Pella Allenbright is the university president's daughter who had earlier turned down an admission to Yale to marry an older man and rebel against the Eastern private school system only to later come to Westish college to start her life over. She also represents the non baseball fan for this book, she had never been to a baseball game. Her father, Guert, unexpectedly falls in love with Henry's gay roomate and teammate, Owen. I was put off by that story angle when I read reviews, but it turned out great. Guert may be the most interesting character and Owen the most likable

This book was rare in that it was fun to read but also made you think. I found myself wondering why a character did what he or she did, what the character was going through, and repeating dialogue in my mind. The description of a soul by Owen in an informal memorial at the end of the book is one of the best pieces of writing I've ever read.

And the plot was just great. Every time I anticipated what was to happen next, I was wrong. And I loved finding out I was wrong.

Again, this is a great, great book I recommend to everyone(less)

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Apr 28, 2012 Andrew Campbell rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

*mild spoilers*

100 pages in and the author has already *twice* withheld information from the reader which would be apparent to the character. Is there a name for this?

The first time it's dialogue overheard by a character, dialogue which the reader is meant to mistake for sex when in fact it's two people lifting weights. But the character is outside the weight room, so there's no chance that /he/ would think it's sexual.

The next occurrence: one character is straining for a glimpse of another, wor...more *mild spoilers*

100 pages in and the author has already *twice* withheld information from the reader which would be apparent to the character. Is there a name for this?

The first time it's dialogue overheard by a character, dialogue which the reader is meant to mistake for sex when in fact it's two people lifting weights. But the character is outside the weight room, so there's no chance that /he/ would think it's sexual.

The next occurrence: one character is straining for a glimpse of another, worried that his interest will betray his crush. While the identity of this man's interest has not yet been provided to the reader (though simple, literary math makes its deduction almost perfunctory), and so the character's name (the crushee) is not used till the end of the passage, it is known to the crusher.

Thing is, I get the intended *effect* of both these passages. They're just so calculated for the reader, foreign to the characters.

---> Now just under 200 pages in... this is not a good book. It has the appearance of a good book, the elements of a good book, but I'm very close to abandoning it. Plotted and paced like a soap opera, and not nearly as clever as it thinks it is, the writing is middling and its "insights" banal rather than revealing or challenging.

---> page 237: a character tries to will himself to have an erection: "Missles, redwoods, the Washington Monument." I wish this was meant to be funny. Seriously, Austin Powers shows more ingenuity with imagery than this book.

---> two major characters sleep together for no good reason other than that they're alone in the same room. This may happen in college, but as these two characters have been drawn, it just doesn't ring true- and the consequences of the liaison seem rather convenient for the narrative.

---> page 429: "Melville had once called America a seat of snivelization; what Affenlight wanted was a seat of swivelization." This is what passes for "humor" in The Art of Fielding: strained, self-congratulatory literary reference that is not only inorganic but also wastes both words and the reader's time.

Other demerits: a dramatically timely death; cardboard characterizations of every figure on the fringes of the narrative; abandonment of subplots; "cliffhanger" chapter breaks; withholding of information sheerly for dramatic effect; obvious dialogue. Also, can we get a moratorium on the Saintly Gay Sage character? For pete's sake, this one's nickname is even "the Buddha."

Yes, now I'm finished. There is a certain satisfaction in the terribleness of The Art of Fielding— particularly when by the end it veers off into John Irving territory. What a pat, pretentious, superficial book. I would call it a waste, but that would mean the writing showed promise.

The Art of Fielding is to the novel what the summer blockbuster is to the movies: a heavily hyped investment property that appears to contain all the elements of a satisfying story but, on its release, reveals itself as anything but a rewarding experience.(less)

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Nov 26, 2011 Lola425 rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Everything they're saying about this book is true. I couldn't put it down. First, Harbach knows how to tell a story. I want to make a Franzen comparison, because this book gave me the same type of satisfying "ahhh" feeling I have when reading him, but he is not Franzen. Sometimes reading Franzen is like taking a vitamin. You know it's good for you, but sometimes it's a little bitter going down. Not so, with this book. His writing is lovely, without being highbrow. If you are a baseball fan, you...more Everything they're saying about this book is true. I couldn't put it down. First, Harbach knows how to tell a story. I want to make a Franzen comparison, because this book gave me the same type of satisfying "ahhh" feeling I have when reading him, but he is not Franzen. Sometimes reading Franzen is like taking a vitamin. You know it's good for you, but sometimes it's a little bitter going down. Not so, with this book. His writing is lovely, without being highbrow. If you are a baseball fan, you will be mesmerized, because he writes about baseball with a poetic and philsophical tone, yet with an everyperson appeal to it. All of the characters felt fully realized. By twenty pages in, you cared about everyone you encountered. Henry and Schwartz's relationship was fascinating. You were rooting for them to work it out as much if not more than you would root for a romantic couple. At first look you might want to label their relationship a "bromance" in the pop culture parlance, but you'd be wrong. Their relationship seemed much more essential, was filled with much more gravitas than the word bromance would imply. I'd even say there isn't yet a word that adequately describes the kind of love and affection that Mike and Henry had for each other. Pella calls Schwartz out on it, in a half-joking-half-jealous-but-100% convinced-of-its-truth way. And it's not that you imagine that their realtionship has any kind of homo-erotic tension, because it doesn't. You need only to contrast the relationship between Owen and Affenlight and Henry and Schwartz to see that love between two people (I want to say to men but even writing that fells like I am giving the wrong impression of the book, which just goes to show, I guess, how hard it is to pin down and names complex, complicated emotions) can take any number of forms.

There were images that made me put the book down and think on them awhile, there were uncomfortable moments where my heart wanted to break for Henry, there were many, many moments, in fact. The sole main female character in the book was handled well and believeably. My one and only complaint was that perhaps all the characters were a bit idealized, no one had any egregious flaws. An entire baseball team didn't flinch in having an "out" gay man on their team, Mike's addiction to pain pills is glossed over, even the affair of a 60 year old man with a gay teenager feels "right". And speaking of Owen, good Lord, he was Oscar Wilde in a baseball cap. But I think it is simply that kind of book. Harbach created characters and a story that makes you believe. Definitely in my top five books this year.(less)

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Dec 10, 2012 John rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

In The Art of Fielding talent only gets you so far, determination might get you farther but chance can change your course at a whim. In this elegiac book centered on a small college baseball team talent and determination gets thrown off track. Baseball is a game of disappointments, which the characters of this novel know something about.

A young phenom of a shortstop, Henry Skirmshander, turns around the Westish baseball program with his uncanny ability to field. A talent of singular focus (he’s...more In The Art of Fielding talent only gets you so far, determination might get you farther but chance can change your course at a whim. In this elegiac book centered on a small college baseball team talent and determination gets thrown off track. Baseball is a game of disappointments, which the characters of this novel know something about.

A young phenom of a shortstop, Henry Skirmshander, turns around the Westish baseball program with his uncanny ability to field. A talent of singular focus (he’s memorized Aparicio Rodriguez’s The Art of Fielding) Henry gets tutored in physical exhaustion by the team captain, Mike Schwartz. Baseball will get Henry into the big leagues and it will get Mike into an Ivy League law school. Until one day Henry throws one wild ball into the dugout and snaps back the head of his teammate, Owen Dunne, who’s also his roommate and the clandestine new lover of the college president.

A novel of chasing dreams turns into a study of drowned desires as Henry grapples with a bad case of the ipps as he loses his grip on throwing a baseball and on life. Everyone unravels - the love struck college president, the brilliant young scholar/lover, the president’s daughter, the phenom and the guiding friend, but it is a testament to Chad Harbach that The Art of Fielding doesn’t turn into a melodramatic weeper of desire and talent gone wrong. Sometimes it just goes and you have to deal with it, or not.

We watch Henry and crew avoid two dimensional character purgatory as they struggle with the fact that, like baseball, getting life right a quarter of the time is a pretty damn good average. Their elusive awareness follows the wake of the Westish team as it hurtles towards a championship run without their best player. While this sometimes smacks of baseball novel “Destiny” it turns out to be a pitch perfect foil to Henry’s swirling abyss. This is an ultimately expansive and forgiving novel of redemption, deferral and the art of singular vision being blindsided into broader realizations.
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May 31, 2012 Neil rated it 1 of 5 stars · review of another edition

How much of a book must one read before one's opinion of it is valid? I read 60 pages of The Art of Fielding, but I loathed much about it. First: Harbach doesn't have much grace as a stylist, and the descriptions read like something from young adult novels (I don't have the book with me any longer, but I remember being particularly irritated by a description of Schwartz as someone who "goes out and gets what he wants." One could argue that the use of such a cliche is meant to reflect Henry's mod...more How much of a book must one read before one's opinion of it is valid? I read 60 pages of The Art of Fielding, but I loathed much about it. First: Harbach doesn't have much grace as a stylist, and the descriptions read like something from young adult novels (I don't have the book with me any longer, but I remember being particularly irritated by a description of Schwartz as someone who "goes out and gets what he wants." One could argue that the use of such a cliche is meant to reflect Henry's mode of thinking, but that's the way Harbach writes everything in the first 60 pages, which included three characters' points of view.)

Plenty else annoyed me, but it was probably an effect of me already not liking the book, not a cause: I disliked the way in each chapter he tried to come up with some stupid, hamhanded twist (in chapter one it was the way it turned out unexpectedly to be modern day, thereafter it was Henry presumably hearing people having sex only it turns out to be lifting weights, Owen being on the baseball team, etc.) The character of Owen is one of the silliest I've ever encountered; what person, homosexual or otherwise, would introduce himself to the coach of a baseball team you're trying out for with a line like "I trust you don't mind having a homosexual on your team?" What coach would respond "The only thing I mind is Schwartz over here playing football. It's bad for his knees!" (All this is paraphrased from memory.) I am a progressive, liberal, pro-gay marriage, etc., kind of guy -- way, way more so than your average sports coach, I'd wager -- but if I were a baseball coach and someone introduced themselves to me like that, I'd have no response but "What the fuck are you talking about?" Then, if they started reading on the bench, I'd cut them. Judging by the first 60 pages of the book though it probably turns out the baseball coach is gay and in love with Owen, or something.

Other things that irritated me: the way in which we're supposed to believe that, because this is a good college, the students on the baseball team are these intellectual titans (the son of the economics professor, Owen in general, Schwartz quoting philosophers while they lift); in my experience, at least, the median athlete at any college is well below the median non-athlete in terms of intellectual curiosity, no matter the prestige of the institution (Harvard's football team is not on the same level as its Physics majors). I disliked the sudden montage of Henry lifting and going through his sophomore and junior year and becoming a prospect; I would've preferred he just skip to his senior year and refer back to it.

I'd just finished reading The Corrections prior to this; I don't think Franzen had anything in particular to "say" other than to offer a collection of bleak observations of life, but he writes so well that one can at least lose themselves to that. Harbach, I'm going to guess, has nothing in particular to say in the remaining 10 million pages of this book, other than probably eventually taking Henry, this pseudo-mystical character, and turning him into some sort of Buddha or Christ figure or something. But if an author has nothing to say, he'd better be a titan of style. Otherwise he just shouldn't bother.(less)

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Jan 14, 2012 Peter rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Man, I really didn't want to like this book. And here, quickly, are the reasons why:

Number 1) Pure jealousy. Harbach got paid like a bajillion dollars for his very first novel. I was paid slightly less than that. Okay, a lot less than that.

Number 2) I don't like n+1 magazine, of which he is the co-founder. I find it pretentious and boring. I would honestly rather read Cat Fancy.

Number 3) Harbach wrote an article about MFA vs. New York writers that was, in a word, uber-douchy. And anyone who we...more Man, I really didn't want to like this book. And here, quickly, are the reasons why:

Number 1) Pure jealousy. Harbach got paid like a bajillion dollars for his very first novel. I was paid slightly less than that. Okay, a lot less than that.

Number 2) I don't like n+1 magazine, of which he is the co-founder. I find it pretentious and boring. I would honestly rather read Cat Fancy.

Number 3) Harbach wrote an article about MFA vs. New York writers that was, in a word, uber-douchy. And anyone who weighs in on that argument has already told you something about themselves that you'd be best off not knowing.

So, as you can see, I had all my petty reasons amassed into an army of pre-read hatred. I was ready to unleash the critical beast and be confirmed in my belief that all hyped literary things are, at heart, overrated, particularly new "it" books written by new "it" writers.

Then I read it.

And I'll be damned if it isn't a really good book. It's not earth-shattering. It's not even particularly person-shattering. But it's great storytelling, particularly when it comes to the friendship/rivalry of the two baseball players at its core.

Harbach writes sports with a strong balance of precision and emotional coloration. He literally had me on the edge of my seat during his masterfully-imagined game days. I felt like I could see the whole field expand in front of me, but, on top of the action, I had access to the internal state of the players. And when it came to the wondrous and beleaguered Henry Skrimshander (a note: the names in this book will either be the best or the worst names in literary history, depending on your personal taste), it was fascinating to get inside the mind of a natural who is beginning to deal with the unnatural. And it was just as compelling to see the game from the eyes of Mike Schwartz, the old soul team captain who pops "Vikes" like they're beer nuts.

Off the diamond, Harbach was a little less successful, but still batting at decent average (Ha! A baseball pun). While I had moments of disbelief with the gay affair that takes up a bit more page space than it likely should have, it was never completely bungled. And the lone female character, Pella, avoided token status with a compelling backstory and a believable case of indecision. Her life is pretty much defined by the men vying for her affections, but it helps (a tiny bit) that she admits this early on and tries to free herself of the affliction.

The prose is a seemingly-effortless mix of clarity with flourishes of the lyric, particularly in moments of high action. I also really liked all the poetic waxing about America's pastime and the art of being a shortstop.

On the whole, this was a solid meaty book about surprisingly interesting meat-heads. I cared. I invested. I wanted to be in the locker room of Westish College, post small-stakes win, all the while contemplating suffering, love, perfection, and the infinity pattern of a baseball's red stitching. But when I was done, I was happy to go back to being a barely-coordinated nerd. Less chance of a pulled groin.
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Dec 07, 2011 Yulia rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Certainly the best book to come from one of the founders of n+1, the others being Indecision by Benjamin Kunkel and All the Sad Young Literary Men by Keith Gessen. Harbach said this book, his first, took him nine years to write and his effort paid off. The main characters are all very sympathetic and engaging and there's a reality to their reactions to the situations they confront that I found very realistic.

A review I read compared Harbach's voice to Franzen but I don't think there's nearly as...more

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Nov 23, 2012 Suzanne rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I was mildly entertained. I'm not interested in group sports, nor are most of my friends. I had skipped over reviews when this came out.
This novel almost seems like young adult literature. As I read, I compared The Art Of Fielding to John Irving's novels. Irving is usually funnier and more engrossing, though his cast of characters often attend or teach at small private schools and are often atheletes, like Henry, his teammates and Geurt the President of Westish.
I find Henry's family unbelievea...more

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Feb 29, 2012 Gene rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I'm not the biggest baseball fan. Generally I find it pretty slow and boring and I don't follow the seasons at all, unless the Yankees make the playoffs. (I'm a Manhattan native and my mother's from the Bronx -- deal with it. The New York Yankees are unquestionably the greatest team in baseball history.) My childhood was full of baseball, with a very jocky Irish-twin brother ("I just want to check the score.") and my inglorious Little League career, which lasted into junior high. I find baseball...more I'm not the biggest baseball fan. Generally I find it pretty slow and boring and I don't follow the seasons at all, unless the Yankees make the playoffs. (I'm a Manhattan native and my mother's from the Bronx -- deal with it. The New York Yankees are unquestionably the greatest team in baseball history.) My childhood was full of baseball, with a very jocky Irish-twin brother ("I just want to check the score.") and my inglorious Little League career, which lasted into junior high. I find baseball stultifying on TV and team identification rather stupid (except the Yankees -- see above) but going to a game itself, with the stadium's intense stimuli, rowdy crowd, and beer, rather fun once in a blue moon. That's all just to give you my baseball background. It's not a thing I would list among my favorites or even passing interests, but I know the rules and what it's like to stand in a manicured outfield on a beautiful summer day, wearing the sexy uniform with my balls sweating in a cup and my hand sweating in a leather glove.

The Art of Fielding is, comprehensively, a baseball book. It's fully immersed in the world of collegiate sports at a contemporary, quaint little liberal arts college on the banks of Lake Michigan, and the setting feels believably real. The players live and breathe baseball, and we see them train and play, in intricate, well-choreographed, engaging visual detail. Harbach is an excellently cinematic writer, and his action scenes bristle with easily-imagined excitement. I was never bored or confused by the activity, and stakes are kept high throughout. Parts read almost like a baseball thriller -- or really, like any classic sports underdog story, like the Bad News Bears, with their engaging emotional investment. This world, and its motion, is wonderfully rendered.

Besides the thrilling action scenes, the writing is solid throughout, even lyrical, with a humanistic good humor and emotional understanding. Perhaps if I were nitpicking, I'd say that some of the descriptions of emotional and mental states become overindulgent and maybe a little whiny, but Harbach has set himself a difficult and ambitious task -- to illuminate the challenge of self-doubt from our modern existential crisis through the arena of baseball -- and that's extremely hard to accomplish without some serious navel-gazing. Really, it's impressive how much entertaining action and pleasurable soap opera is delivered to sustain us through this dark tea time of the soul.

Several characters are quite good, with captain and catcher and coacher Mike Schwartz perhaps the most vividly created. He's a full, exciting personality, filled with pain and strength. Henry Skrimshander, who the book revolves around, can seem sexless and cryptic, a bit more machine than man, even while struggling with weighty mental blocks. I like Henry, but wanted to know more about him to make his crisis more personal. The third in their awkward romantic triangle, Pella Affenlight, is pretty interesting and relatable, but perhaps a touch too adorkable. Her father, Guert Affenlight, the president of Westish college, fits into the puzzle neatly, and he's a fascinating intellect who makes a believable late-life veer into homosexual romance, although he sometimes read somewhat younger than his life experience would indicate. The final main character here is Owen Dunne, a Zenlike baseball player who gets all the best lines, and is notable for the deep respect the team shows him, but perhaps is too Magic Gay to provide a fully-rounded portrait. Still, I cannot complain too harshly about the inclusion of a complex gay romance as a major plot point in a baseball book -- it's a wonderful addition to a sports story, and makes the novel seem all the more modern and humanistic.

Overall, I'd give the book 4 1/2 stars. The prose is enjoyable, even superb and funny in places, and the vivid action, stronger characters, open-minded and open-hearted outlook, and solid literary and psychological ambition recommend The Art of Fielding greatly. I'd be remiss not to mention the problems of the more obtuse characterizations and self-indulgent soul-plumbing, but ultimately it's a gripping read that resonates.

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Mar 01, 2012 Ellen rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Pretty much hyped as the latest Great American Novel (note the capitalisation), I had high hopes for this first novel. As a first novel, it is excellent. As a novel, it's a bit weaker. I'm surprised that, as a first novel, it wasn't edited a bit more tightly.

Here in Britain, reviewers wondered if the baseball narratives would be too much for British readers. They shouldn't be a problem, however as they're the best written part of the book. It's when Harbach leaves behind the baseball diamond and...more

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Aug 15, 2012 Amy Wochos rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I loved this book. Of all the "potential future classics" i've read lately (The Night Circus, The Marriage Plot), this is the only one that really deserves that distinction. Disclaimer - I love Wisconsin, baseball, and Melville, but really, I just loved the characters. I didn't even notice that the book was long.

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Mar 05, 2013 Alison rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I avoided this book like the plague since I'd read about the huge advance, the MFA, the over-the-top praise, just another male writer that we're all supposed to worship...but in the end, I was the fool. A beautiful story with characters I adored--they're each heroes with tragic flaws and the story is about the ways they help each other compensate for those flaws. What a lovely vision of what life can be. And the baseball served as a metaphor for the great possibility that can live within each ti...more

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Jul 30, 2012 Michael rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, humor, coming-of-age, sexuality, gay, baseball, wisconsin, sports, 1001-books-you-must-read-before-you

This tale sited at a small liberal arts college in Wisconsin is a total delight. Aside from a fabulous delving into the mysterious pleasures of playing baseball, the narrative shows a great balance of humor and insights into the meaning and challenges of love in all forms. The development and interplay of the five main characters is very well done. These include: Henry, a shortstop whiz recruited from rural South Dakota; Owen, his intellectual teammate and roommate, who is gay; Mike, a wise olde...more

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Dec 28, 2011 Michael Magras rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Don't let anyone tell you otherwise: You do have to like baseball to appreciate fully Chad Harbach's début novel. Yes, it's about other things, but the focus is on baseball and how one's talent for the game, or lack thereof, affects one's sense of self-worth. Non-baseball fans would probably relate to many of the themes, but I doubt they'd give the book its due if they had to force their way through long set pieces about missed cut-off men and errant throws and hitting to the opposite field. It...more

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Aug 07, 2011 switterbug (Betsey) rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This tender campus novel about five individuals whose paths connect and cross--straight, not straight, diagonally, vertically, and sometimes horizontally, doesn't require you to like baseball, although you may be roused to watch a game when you close this lively book.

It opens in Peoria with a no-name tournament between small-time summer teams. Harbach sets the robust tone and pacing here, with a droll wit and a steady, fluid tempo. He coaxes us to treasure his characters as much as he clearly en...more This tender campus novel about five individuals whose paths connect and cross--straight, not straight, diagonally, vertically, and sometimes horizontally, doesn't require you to like baseball, although you may be roused to watch a game when you close this lively book.

It opens in Peoria with a no-name tournament between small-time summer teams. Harbach sets the robust tone and pacing here, with a droll wit and a steady, fluid tempo. He coaxes us to treasure his characters as much as he clearly enjoyed writing them. Occasionally, it feels self-conscious, that he is maneuvering us to like them.

During the Peoria game, farmboy shortstop Henry Skrimshander impresses college sophomore and student coach Mike Schwartz, enough for Mike to recruit South Dakotan Henry to Westish College in Wisconsin. Mike takes Henry under his wing and they form an intense, interdependent bond. Henry is a runty guy lacking season but is a wonder boy with his glove named Zero. The more garrulous Mike is brawny, brash, and a superb team supporter, but no record-breaking player.

The title, The Art of Fielding, comes from the (fictional) and well-read baseball bible that is Henry's inspiration and encouragement, a kind of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance guide for baseball players. Athlete and philosopher-writer of the book, retired player Aparicio Rodriguez, holds a shortstop record for number of games with no errors. Henry aspires to meet him and match his record. Along the way, he must confront a crisis of confidence and a mound of angst and anxiety.

Henry's roommate, Owen, is scholarly, sartorial, and secure in his own skin. He's a brotherly friend to Henry, and the only player who gets away with reading books on the bench. He starts out dimensional, but unfortunately dwindles to not much more than a set piece later on, more of a vehicle for the story's progression.

College president Guert Affenlight is a hale, hearty, and handsome intellect with cultured charm, who looks younger than his sixty-ish years. He's been estranged from his only daughter, Pella, since she skipped out years ago and married an older architect.

Now the prodigal daughter returns, solo, and Guert and Pella make a go of repairing their fractured bond as well as establishing other new relationships. Guert's conduct in all affairs wasn't wholly convincing, and the author engineered a facile plot turn towards the climax, a tactic that a veteran author might have avoided.

As the story unfolds and the bases get loaded, the reader is taken on a journey of second chances and last chances, where a phoenix can rise out of the Astroturf, and a curve ball can cut loose and fly. It's a big-hearted, warm-hearted story of friendship, love, and loyalty. There's also a wink and a nod to a scene in John Irving's A Prayer for Owen Meany.

Debut author Harbach is an ace storyteller, terrifically engaging, who nevertheless went a half inning or so too long in the end, and presented a few implausible events along the way. The exuberance of his writing is his best defense against his overindulgence. (3.75)(less)

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Jun 25, 2012 Helen Stower rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: american, sport, friendship

I quite liked "The Art of Fielding". It was an unpretentious read set at a factitious College in the US. The setting and characters were well evoked and even though I never thought I'd enjoy a book about baseball, this offered much more than a simple book about sport. Right towards the end of the story is a great quote about soul - "soul isn't something a person is born with but something that must be built, by effort and error, study and love. And you did that with more dedication than most, th...more

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Feb 16, 2013 Susan marked it as abandoned · review of another edition

Shelves: audiobooks, my-own-reading, homosexuality

I could not get interested in this. I keep falling asleep while listening to it and dreaming that someone just would not shut up.

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topics	posts	views	last activity
Mic Breaks Only: Fielding: Fin! (Full Book Discussion)	3	5	May 17, 2013 02:09am
La Stamberga dei ...: L'arte di vivere in difesa di Chad Harbach	1	6	May 14, 2013 02:26am
Mic Breaks Only: Fielding: The First Half: Chp 1-37	3	4	May 08, 2013 06:16am
Mic Breaks Only: Fielding: Page 0: Links & Notations	4	3	May 08, 2013 05:46am
Henry and Mike's relationship	3	61	May 01, 2013 07:43pm
did this book capture you? It did me.	30	222	Mar 25, 2013 02:35pm
Similarities	1	26	Mar 14, 2013 08:20am

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