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rue_baldry 's review for:
The Art of Fielding
by Chad Harbach
This is a very readable novel, even for me. I knew nothing about baseball when I started this book and I now know that the pitch is called a diamond and a shortstop throws the ball to first. That's all I know.
I've read no Melville and find the American education system confusing. I wouldn't know an LSAT from a thirty third round draft (what even are either of those things?). And I find the idea of students sharing bedrooms with complete strangers barbaric.
Despite all that I did follow most of what was going on enough to enjoy this novel quite a lot. The characters were interesting and their interactions made the book. I would have liked to have seen Owen's point of view. It was odd that the five central characters all shared equal weight and plot time, but the other four got the chapters divided up between their POVs and Owen got nothing. I ended up wondering whether he was going to get a 'Molly Bloom style' closing chapter in his voice, maybe even first person, which would make up for that and explain everything. But no.
Still, I felt that there was something big missing, in spite of all the personal journeys and redemptions and spiritual crises. Then I read Grace's review here on Goodreads and she mentioned the Bechdel test.
That's what was missing: female characters interacting with each other. There's one conversation between Pella and Genevieve, but they talk about Guert. Pella had some interesting aspects, as did another couple of the female characters, but they were a shadowy presence which had me reminding myself a few times that Westish wasn't an all-male college.
I thought that the theme of mental illness was handled in a subtle, believable, fairly sensitive way.
I've never been engaged by sport at all, but this book did give me an understanding of why and how sportspeople (well, sportsmen in this case) get so completely obsessional about their sport.
Guert was probably my favourite character, although I found Henry and Mike both many-dimensional and well-crafted, too. I just wish that the characters who weren't white, male, heterosexuals* had been given the same attention to emotional detail.
*yes, I can see the objection to my saying that (without wanting to drop spoilers) but he was essentially a straight character who spent a tiny fraction of his life doing something else. He approached even gay sex from a position of heterosexuality.
I've read no Melville and find the American education system confusing. I wouldn't know an LSAT from a thirty third round draft (what even are either of those things?). And I find the idea of students sharing bedrooms with complete strangers barbaric.
Despite all that I did follow most of what was going on enough to enjoy this novel quite a lot. The characters were interesting and their interactions made the book. I would have liked to have seen Owen's point of view. It was odd that the five central characters all shared equal weight and plot time, but the other four got the chapters divided up between their POVs and Owen got nothing. I ended up wondering whether he was going to get a 'Molly Bloom style' closing chapter in his voice, maybe even first person, which would make up for that and explain everything. But no.
Still, I felt that there was something big missing, in spite of all the personal journeys and redemptions and spiritual crises. Then I read Grace's review here on Goodreads and she mentioned the Bechdel test.
That's what was missing: female characters interacting with each other. There's one conversation between Pella and Genevieve, but they talk about Guert. Pella had some interesting aspects, as did another couple of the female characters, but they were a shadowy presence which had me reminding myself a few times that Westish wasn't an all-male college.
I thought that the theme of mental illness was handled in a subtle, believable, fairly sensitive way.
I've never been engaged by sport at all, but this book did give me an understanding of why and how sportspeople (well, sportsmen in this case) get so completely obsessional about their sport.
Guert was probably my favourite character, although I found Henry and Mike both many-dimensional and well-crafted, too. I just wish that the characters who weren't white, male, heterosexuals* had been given the same attention to emotional detail.
*yes, I can see the objection to my saying that (without wanting to drop spoilers) but he was essentially a straight character who spent a tiny fraction of his life doing something else. He approached even gay sex from a position of heterosexuality.