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3.83 AVERAGE
3.83 AVERAGE
Read Harder Challenge 2017: Read a book that is set within 100 miles of your location
Great book about listening to call and living by the faith of something that cannot be seen
Proving my theory that some books need to happen for the reader at just the right time, Shoeless Joe finally happened on my clock. So, you have to know that whenever I fly I have a tradition of stopping at the airport bookstore and wandering through their offerings until some book title strikes me. I buy it and read it on my trip, starting there at the gate. It’s way fun. Usually. I bought this book on a trip like that. I started it, but never finished. There were lots of reasons for that, but in the end it just came down to it not being the right time.
Well, you also need to know that I almost NEVER DNF a book. It runs counter to the whole of my being. So, eventually I picked it back up again and this time, it was right. Everything about it was right. I love this story. Yes, I do love baseball. And yes, I did love the movie - so much so, in fact, that if I get pressed to choose my favorite movie of all time, this is the one I will pick. And yes, I live in Iowa and I have set my feet on the Field of Dreams diamond, run the bases and have the pictures to prove it. It is hard to separate the book from the movie looking back on it from this place in history. And I suppose I bought and started the book way back then because of all of that. But I can say now that the book stands on its own.
The theme that has always struck me from the moment I saw the movie for the first time to now, having turned the last page of the book, is that of having the courage to listen to the voice that speaks to you - as unexpected, unreasonable and inexplicable as it may be - and following its call on your life. Maybe with questions. Maybe with no idea what the outcome will be. But being willing to follow anyway. There is no escaping the spiritual implications of that, at least not in my life. Ray Kinsella heard it, took a step in the direction it took him and then invested himself in it to its completion. That is the definition of being called. The fact that it took him on a journey that was just a little “outside” of this world just adds to the spiritual nature of the story. With that foundation, the story’s subject could have been about anything. But, happily, it was about baseball.
Not being a person who ordinarily dwells in the surreal comfortably, I probably would have struggled with that aspect of the book if I had not already seen it set in film. And on the page it worked for me. Only near the end did it’s magical elements get a little over the top and disjointed for me, but it all came together well. I was also happily surprised by the depth of the love story here. Everyone knows about Ray Kinsella’s deep love for baseball, rooted in the unexplored depths of his love for his father. But the love story between Ray and his wife, Annie, is quite simply beautiful. It is loving with wisdom, with trust, with abandon. And the Epilogue made any rough places in the writing worth it. It was my favorite section (of many favorites). Reading that last bit of the story made me feel like I was standing there in the twilight, feet in the grass, under the lights, watching the players take their walk through the right center field fence and out into the late summer Iowa corn. It was so good that I did what I almost never do. I read it out loud to myself…if the writing can make me do that, then the time for this book was perfect.
Well, you also need to know that I almost NEVER DNF a book. It runs counter to the whole of my being. So, eventually I picked it back up again and this time, it was right. Everything about it was right. I love this story. Yes, I do love baseball. And yes, I did love the movie - so much so, in fact, that if I get pressed to choose my favorite movie of all time, this is the one I will pick. And yes, I live in Iowa and I have set my feet on the Field of Dreams diamond, run the bases and have the pictures to prove it. It is hard to separate the book from the movie looking back on it from this place in history. And I suppose I bought and started the book way back then because of all of that. But I can say now that the book stands on its own.
The theme that has always struck me from the moment I saw the movie for the first time to now, having turned the last page of the book, is that of having the courage to listen to the voice that speaks to you - as unexpected, unreasonable and inexplicable as it may be - and following its call on your life. Maybe with questions. Maybe with no idea what the outcome will be. But being willing to follow anyway. There is no escaping the spiritual implications of that, at least not in my life. Ray Kinsella heard it, took a step in the direction it took him and then invested himself in it to its completion. That is the definition of being called. The fact that it took him on a journey that was just a little “outside” of this world just adds to the spiritual nature of the story. With that foundation, the story’s subject could have been about anything. But, happily, it was about baseball.
Not being a person who ordinarily dwells in the surreal comfortably, I probably would have struggled with that aspect of the book if I had not already seen it set in film. And on the page it worked for me. Only near the end did it’s magical elements get a little over the top and disjointed for me, but it all came together well. I was also happily surprised by the depth of the love story here. Everyone knows about Ray Kinsella’s deep love for baseball, rooted in the unexplored depths of his love for his father. But the love story between Ray and his wife, Annie, is quite simply beautiful. It is loving with wisdom, with trust, with abandon. And the Epilogue made any rough places in the writing worth it. It was my favorite section (of many favorites). Reading that last bit of the story made me feel like I was standing there in the twilight, feet in the grass, under the lights, watching the players take their walk through the right center field fence and out into the late summer Iowa corn. It was so good that I did what I almost never do. I read it out loud to myself…if the writing can make me do that, then the time for this book was perfect.
I decided to read Shoeless Joe after rewatching Field Of Dreams for the first time in years. While the movie and the book diverge greatly in detail, they both benefit from their differences.
Ray Kinsella has it all. A beautiful young wife, a sweet little daughter, and giant Iowa corn farm that he barely knows how to farm. A man ill at ease with machines, he is unsuited to the age of industrial farming but he loves the land and is living some sort of a dream come true. Then he starts hearing the voices.
“If you build it, he will come.”
Ray doesn’t seem perturbed by the voices, nor does his wife. And he seems confident that he knows what these enigmatic words mean. He builds a left field and, sure enough, Shoeless Joe Jackson shows up to play. As he slowly builds the rest of the field, other players begin to show up and materialize more clearly, transforming the cornfield into a full size major league stadium. Then the voices return for more.
What follows is a madcap mystical joyride than includes kidnapping J.D. Salinger and picking up hitchhiking apparitions. Kinsella writes well, steeping everything in nostalgia with prose that is enjoyable without being indulgent in any way. The book is drastically different from the movie in every detail and messier, as a novel has the right to be. The book is written from the first person and there are a lot more characters that come on the scene who are streamlined out of the film adaptation. Even so, there is something deliciously nostalgic and strangely appealing about this mystical magical tour that embraces the unknown without spiritualizing it. Both Ray and his wife Annie come from fundamentalist Christian’s families who pass aggressive judgement on every element of their lives. While they attempt to live at peace with those family members, their wild willingness to take leap after leap of faith to follow their guts and the voices from the clouds, they create a grateful little slice of heaven in the wilderness, showing just how differently people can pursue faith and faithfulness.
Ray Kinsella has it all. A beautiful young wife, a sweet little daughter, and giant Iowa corn farm that he barely knows how to farm. A man ill at ease with machines, he is unsuited to the age of industrial farming but he loves the land and is living some sort of a dream come true. Then he starts hearing the voices.
“If you build it, he will come.”
Ray doesn’t seem perturbed by the voices, nor does his wife. And he seems confident that he knows what these enigmatic words mean. He builds a left field and, sure enough, Shoeless Joe Jackson shows up to play. As he slowly builds the rest of the field, other players begin to show up and materialize more clearly, transforming the cornfield into a full size major league stadium. Then the voices return for more.
What follows is a madcap mystical joyride than includes kidnapping J.D. Salinger and picking up hitchhiking apparitions. Kinsella writes well, steeping everything in nostalgia with prose that is enjoyable without being indulgent in any way. The book is drastically different from the movie in every detail and messier, as a novel has the right to be. The book is written from the first person and there are a lot more characters that come on the scene who are streamlined out of the film adaptation. Even so, there is something deliciously nostalgic and strangely appealing about this mystical magical tour that embraces the unknown without spiritualizing it. Both Ray and his wife Annie come from fundamentalist Christian’s families who pass aggressive judgement on every element of their lives. While they attempt to live at peace with those family members, their wild willingness to take leap after leap of faith to follow their guts and the voices from the clouds, they create a grateful little slice of heaven in the wilderness, showing just how differently people can pursue faith and faithfulness.
I read this for book club. I didn't want to. I liked it better than I thought I would but I didn't think I'd like it at all so a mild "like" is what I found this book to be; okay. It was cute at parts and boring at parts and magical at parts.
Maybe having seen the movie before hand made this a bit of a weird read discovering everything they changed/cut out, but still incredibly charming.
adventurous
emotional
funny
hopeful
mysterious
medium-paced
One of the truly rare instances where the movie is better than the book.
Perhaps the narrative is so esoteric it's benefitted by easy the visualizations of the screen. Reading the book, or in this particular case, listening to it meant one had to develop pictures on his own (which invariably lead back to Kevin Coster and James Earl Jones) and it was somewhat less satisfying. The time and plot jumps were less enjoyable without the on screen visual cues and came across as meandering and random rather than carefully woven together.
I'll watch it again, but I won't read it again.
Perhaps the narrative is so esoteric it's benefitted by easy the visualizations of the screen. Reading the book, or in this particular case, listening to it meant one had to develop pictures on his own (which invariably lead back to Kevin Coster and James Earl Jones) and it was somewhat less satisfying. The time and plot jumps were less enjoyable without the on screen visual cues and came across as meandering and random rather than carefully woven together.
I'll watch it again, but I won't read it again.
Easily the most Lindsay book to ever exist and I can't believe I had never heard of it. Magical realism and baseball?! Beautiful poetic language and a family drama?! *grabby hands*
But for real, this book was stunning and I loved spending time with these characters. What a dream.
But for real, this book was stunning and I loved spending time with these characters. What a dream.
adventurous
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
sad
fast-paced
Plot or Character Driven:
A mix
Strong character development:
Complicated
Loveable characters:
Yes
Diverse cast of characters:
No
Flaws of characters a main focus:
Complicated