A review by plan2read
The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach

4.0

The complete evocation of a Midwestern college lifestyle in this book reminded of me of Philip Larkin’s portrayal of an Oxford education in his novel Jill. Their main characters are similar in that they both come to good colleges from less-privileged backwards and have high expectations of what they will achieve when given the opportunity. For Larkin’s character it is academic success; for Henry, it is baseball perfection. In the end they experience disappointments and broken relationships instead. The Art of Fielding does all college students and graduates a favor by discussing the limits of perfection and achievement in a world that pushes us to distinguish ourselves in all ways possible while many of us feel as Schwartz does—“His [world] would always be occluded by the fact that his understanding and his ambition outstripped his talent.” The writing style, however, shows a fair degree of talent by giving us a less florid, more circumspect version of the type of American novel Jonathan Franzen might write but with the added bonus of characters who are actually likeable. And anyone who can turn a baseball game into attention-grabbing entertainment deserves kudos.