The Art of Fielding in Reading with Style

Sep 24, 2012 Elizabeth (Alaska) rated it it was ok

Shelves: 1001-books, library, set-aside

Abandoned just short of halfway. There must be a part of me missing not to have appreciated it as many of my friends have. AND, it's on the 1001 list. But, while the sentence structure was interesting, the vocabulary was boring as all get out. There was not a single character that I found interesting. They were all younger than my grandchildren. Except for the 60-year old college president who had chased women all his life, only to find a 20 year old male very attractive. Excuse me if this is co ...more

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Jul 04, 2013 Katy rated it it was amazing

Shelves: beautiful-writing

I don't think the description on Goodreads does it justice...the plot is interesting, but to me the plot was secondary to the feelings it evoked. I'm not at all sure why, because I definitely am not overly into baseball, though anything about college sports does get me a bit nostalgic, and I couldn't quite relate to any of the characters. But despite that, I felt compelled to read a bit more every day -- I was carrying this book as I was at a workshop, and I could almost hear it humming away in ...more

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Jun 10, 2012 Juniper rated it it was amazing

Shelves: owned, effing-awesome, 2012-books

What an amazing book. Given all the praise and recognition this novel has received over the past year, I was hopeful of a great read. But...the book totally blew any expectations I had out of the water.

Also - for those wondering - even if you aren't a fan of baseball, you should give this book a read. ...more

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Aug 11, 2011 Krista rated it really liked it

Shelves: literary-fiction, fiction, 1001-read, coming-of-age, 2011-books-read, 2011-fall-challenge-read, reviewed-for-luxury-reading

This book review was originally written for and published on the LuxuryReading.com book review website.
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The college years are usually full of angst, longing, uncertainty and growth. The main characters in Chad Harbach’s debut novel, “The Art of Fielding” experience all sorts of conflicting emotions and life experiences as they each struggle to define who they are within the small rural Wisconsin campus of Westish College; and who they will become when they leave college. This book review was originally written for and published on the LuxuryReading.com book review website.
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The college years are usually full of angst, longing, uncertainty and growth. The main characters in Chad Harbach’s debut novel, “The Art of Fielding” experience all sorts of conflicting emotions and life experiences as they each struggle to define who they are within the small rural Wisconsin campus of Westish College; and who they will become when they leave college. This book has been billed as a baseball story. There are plenty of pages devoted to the discussion of baseball philosophy (the Zen of Baseball if you will) and lots of descriptions of baseball games. For those of you who aren’t baseball fans or who normally shy away from sports centered books I’d suggest that step up and (ahem) take a swing at this book anyway. I think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

To me this story was reminiscent of John Irving’s, “A Prayer for Owen Meany” or David James Duncan’s “The Brothers K”. Like “The Art of Fielding”, both of these books had strong baseball themes; and like “The Art of Fielding”, they were both about so much more than baseball. At more than 500 pages, Harbach has given himself a broad enough canvas to also be able to throw in some Herman Melville history and other 19th century poets and philosophers. Guert Affenlight, the current Westish College President became a Melville scholar and changed his intended career because of a discovery about Melville that he made as a Westish undergrad. The Westish teams are called the “Harpooners” and Melville is a symbolic mascot for the campus.

The story centers around five main characters. Henry Skrimshander is the phenom short-stop recruited by Mike Schwartz who is himself still just a sophomore at Westish when the story opens. Schwartz is a motivator and mentor to his teammates, but he has higher aspirations for his life than just coaching. Owen Dunne is Henry’s erudite gay roommate who also happens to be an exceptional batter on the Westish baseball team. Pella, Guert’s daughter, arrives back in Wisconsin the day that Henry makes his first ever throwing error. Owen is seriously injured and hospitalized by the throw. Guert is so preoccupied by his unexpected obsession with Owen that he barely has time to acknowledge that his daughter has fled back to him, leaving her depressing marriage behind in San Francisco.

How all the characters react to the consequences of that one errant throw propel the story arc for the remaining bulk of the book. If the story seems overly tinged with soap opera angst the fault lies with my abridged retelling of the bare plotlines. The book feels lively and character driven as Harbach takes his time to tease out the nuances of the story. Overall, I thought Harbach only copped out with the resolution of the relationship between Guert and Owen. Otherwise this memorable story about friendship and coming of age reminded me how tough it was to work through all the issues the college years presented.

"Review from LuxuryReading.com" ...more

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Mar 20, 2013 Erin (NY) rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: books-i-own, read-in-2013

I was not expecting to like this book at all, I mean, I am not interested in Baseball at all. How can I possibly be interested in a novel about it, right? Wrong! This novel is not ABOUT baseball, baseball is more of a backdrop.

This novel so accurately represents the current events of today in its handling of the gay relationships. I also quite enjoyed the love triangles and the parallels in different relationships.

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Aug 21, 2023 Bucket rated it really liked it

Shelves: love, 1001-read-all-editions, friendship, literary, class, communication, philosophy, culture, reviewed, life-and-death

I'm a little torn on this one, but decided to round up to 4 stars. The story itself is full of depth and fascinating, and only rarely overblown. But what leaves me a little confused are the characters. I didn't find any of them whose voice we hear very believable. That said, I found the relationships between them, their motivations and their actions quite believable. I think the issue was this sense of perfection, preciousness with which the author treats each main character. They were just too ...more

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