The Art of Fielding

Though The Art of Fielding has as its characters those whose lives are somehow connected to the baseball team of a small non-descript liberal arts college in Wisconsin, you don't have to be a sports fan to enjoy it. The characters are compelling and the author has a way with language that you can veritably taste, smell, and feel the surroundings.

For a team from such a small school, it enjoys some unlikely successes on its way to a championship. And then, of course, it comes down the Big Game. Tension: will the team even more miraculously triumph in this one? Or like Rocky in his big fight, will they lose but achieve a personal victory? By this time, both alternatives have become cliches and I wondered what approach the author would take. And it turns out he beats the cliche with a completely satisfying alternative.

John Irving, Jonathan Franzen, and David James Duncan (The Brothers K) all liked this book. If you like any of those authors, you'll like this one too.

Sure, there's good baseball writing in year, but really, this is a campus life coming of age story.

This book is slow to reveal its intelligence. It begins as if it will be a reverie on the zen of meeting your full potential - in this case, playing baseball. It continues as a comparison of relationships, and in particular, how the age divide can affect the outcome. And it reaches its apotheosis as a metaphor for T. S. Eliot’s great poem, “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” that paean to ineffectuality that so typifies the human condition.The story concerns five people whose lives become intertwined at Westish College in northeastern Wisconsin. One of them, Henry, is a baseball shortstop whose hero is the fictional shortstop Aparicio Rodriguez (presumably inspired by the the real-life shortstop Luis Aparicio). In the story, Rodriguez is the author of a vade mecum on playing baseball called “The Art of Fielding,” and Henry studies it religiously, just as he has studied the play of the shortstop:"What he could do was field. He’d spent his life studying the way the ball came off the bat, the angles and the spin, so that he knew in advance whether he should break right or left, whether the ball that came at him would bound up high or skid low to the dirt. He caught the ball cleanly, always, and made, always, a perfect throw.”Mike Schwartz, the catcher for the baseball team, takes Henry under his wing and helps him train and refine his skills. Mike is a natural coach, and basically takes over the job: "All you had to do was look at each of your players and ask yourself: What story does this guy wish someone would tell him about himself? And then you told the guy that story.”Mike and Henry become close, but each thinks that the other’s perception of his own infallibility forms the basis of their friendship. For a while though, both the friendship and the infallibility work. Henry’s roommate at Westish is Owen Dunne, a bright, somewhat posturing and effete intellectual who also, in an out-of-character turn, is the baseball team’s right fielder. Owen self-identifies as a “gay mulatto” and one almost gets the impression that he is gay for the same reason he likes to smoke pot and sit in espresso shops reading poetry. It is important to him to be seen in all of his arty manifestations.The Westish baseball team begins to reap the benefits of the influence of Mike and Henry, and the wins start piling up. The team is called the Harpooners (Melville became the guiding spirit of this college after an important cache of his papers was discovered in its library). Guert Affenlight, the president of Westish, is the one who discovered the Melville papers while working on his dissertation. Guert’s daughter Pella skipped college to get married, but now she returns to Westish to get her degree. (Pella’s mother died when Pella was three.) Together, these five characters – Henry, Owen, Mike, Guert, and Pella - come to form a tightly interlocked matrix of hope, desire, disappointment and love that drives the second half of the book, and pulls us into its web by the tendrils of emotions that wind around the matrix.Some of Harbach’s best writing about relationships concerns those early moments when insecurity vies with excitement for the obsessions of the actors. That nervous energy is exhibited in the following scene, when Pella has slept over a male’s house, and the next morning, sees all the dirty dishes and wants to wash them, but isn’t sure about the message it will send:"It was a nice gesture, to do somebody else’s dishes, but it could also be construed as an admonishment: ‘If nobody else will clean up this shithole, I’ll do it myself!’ In fact, some version of that interpretation could hardly be avoided. She turned off the water. Even if [they] had been dating for months, unprovoked dishwashing might be considered strange. Meddlesome. Overbearing. Unless she dirtied the dishes herself: that would be different. Then the dishes should be done, and the failure to do them might pose its own problems. But the dishes weren’t hers, and [they] weren’t dating. Therefore the doing of dishes could only seem weird, neurotic, invasive.”And that buildup of awe and happiness that comes with new love is shown ably in this observation: "Everything that floated through his life’s width…seemed loaded with such poignance that he found himself on the verge of country-music tears…” Love ties the characters together, yes, but baseball provides an even sturdier glue. Schwartz sees baseball as a test of individual glory – not a melee sport dependent on team coordination, but as: "...a series of isolated contests. Batter versus pitcher, fielder versus ball. … When your moment came, you had to be ready, because if you fucked up, everyone would know whose fault it was. What other sport not only kept a stat as cruel as the error but posted it on the scoreboard for everyone to see?”But for Schwartz, whose métier was coaching baseball, the contests were all vicarious: "He had no art to call his own. He knew how to motivate people, manipulate people, move them around; this was his only skill.” He claims he’s not sick of coaching itself, yet he "just didn’t want to wake up in twenty years and see behind him a string of lives he’d changed, stretching out endlessly, rah rah go team, while he himself stayed exactly the same. Stagnant. Ungreat. Still wearing sweatpants to work. He who cannot, coaches.”T. S. Eliot’s Prufrock’s lament could easily have been Schwartz’s: "No! I am not Prince Hamlet, nor was meant to be;Am an attendant lord, one that will doTo swell a progress, start a scene or two,Advise the prince; no doubt, an easy tool,Deferential, glad to be of use, Politic, cautious, and meticulous;Full of high sentence, but a bit obtuse;At times, indeed, almost ridiculous—Almost, at times, the Fool. I grow old … I grow old … I shall wear the bottoms of my trousers rolled. Shall I part my hair behind? Do I dare to eat a peach?I shall wear white flannel trousers, and walk upon the beach.I have heard the mermaids singing, each to each. I do not think that they will sing to me. I have seen them riding seaward on the wavesCombing the white hair of the waves blown backWhen the wind blows the water white and black. We have lingered in the chambers of the seaBy sea-girls wreathed with seaweed red and brown Till human voices wake us, and we drown." Evaluation: Harbach takes on the existential challenge of the insignificance of man, expressed via the metaphor of playing baseball. Even as his characters struggle to make a mark in the world, most must resign themselves to the more common outcome of a quotidian life of mechanical repetition. Can love and companionship make it bearable? That’s the question the book leaves you to ponder, long after you turn the last page.

The Art of Fielding was a good read but it's also one I'm going to be thinking about for some time. I enjoyed the story and characters on a surface level but I suspect there's a lot more to it than that. Wish I had a book club to discuss it with.

I really loved the first 50 pages, but lost a bit of interest as the focus left Henry. (I was not a big fan of the Pella character.) I think I wanted more about baseball, and less about the lives of the other characters. That being said, the last 2 pages are super amazing!

Harbach creates a world peopled with characters of greatness and flaws that the reader cares about. You need not be a fan of baseball as you can easily substitute any passion that one chooses to follow through on. This will be one of those books that I will remember for a long time and recommend often. Good on audio but you may need to check out the book to increase the pace!

Every once in awhile you find a book that has the rare combination of a good plot, complex and believable characters with complex and believable relationships. The Art of Fielding is one of those stories. Set in a small liberal arts college, the story revolves around 5 people. Henry Skrimshander is a farm boy who is amazingly talented at short stop - so talented that he is being pursued by scouts from many of the pro teams. Mike Schwartz, the captain of the baseball team, has been Henry's mentor throughout his college career. Owen Dunne (my favorite character), Henry's roommate is an amazing ball player, but unlike the other members of his team, enjoys reading Greek classics in the dugout during the game. The final two characters are Guert Affenlight, the college president, and his daughter Pella, who has returned home after a failed marriage. The story is compelling and very readable - definitely one of my favorite books of the year.

I never imagined reading a literary book about baseball, campus life, and literature. Of course, The Art of Fielding isn’t really about baseball, campus life, and literature. It just uses those things as metaphors for life… or something. There were parts of this book that I enjoyed, but overall it just felt overly contrived and way… too… long. As a former high school coach, I can say I have never met a baseball player who would be accepting of a openly gay teammate who reads books in the dugout with a booklight on his cap. It just wouldn’t happen. The book seems to move between wanting to be a satire and a serious drama. Overall, I thought it was likeable but uneven.

Opens like a baseball movie from the 1950s--red-blooded, good natured, hard working Americans. Pace of the novel also reminded me of baseball--slow and deliberate, satisfying with occasional short bits of exciting play. But as the novel progresses it becomes far more complex. Because things are so idyllic at the beginning, we expect catastrophe and indeed get a fair amount of heartbreak. But the characters that survive grow.

I have to admit, I'm not a sports fan. I never really had the patience to sit through a game. I used to watch baseball with my grandfather, though. I have fond memories of watching the 1972 World Series with him, although I remember the handlebar mustaches worn by the Oakland A's more than any outstanding play. Grandpa's enthusiasm for the game was contagious. A former ball player himself, he could communicate what was great about the game, and about the particular players in question. I suppose my liking for a good baseball story comes from nostalgia for those days, when we'd watch the Series on TV, or when he'd take me to a Pirates game, and we'd see the great Clemente play.

It's not just nostalgia, though. There's something about baseball that connects with all the themes of American literature. The pitiless lottery that is capitalism. The small town hick who achieves fame. Art vs. Commerce.. The heroic quest, whether it be for a white whale, or to fill one's life with meaning. The transition from boy to man. All of life is here. Or at least all of life that is particular to men. But that doesn't mean women won't enjoy it. Women who want to understand men better may find it fascinating.

"The Art of Fielding" isn't just a great baseball story, it's a literary novel, full of allusions and symbols. If it were part of the course syllabus for a survey of American lit, it would be the last book of the semester, in which the threads of Hawthorne, Melville, Whitman, Emerson, and Thoreau would all be tied together. Not to mention Homer and T. S. Eliot.

I want to tease this novel rather than to tell you specifically what's in it. Is it also, in addition to the things I've mentioned, a love story? You bet. There are three love stories. One is your standard boy meets girl. One is guy meets guy. This one may land the book on a lot of LGBT year-end lists this year. But probably the most central love story is a platonic one: that of a friendship between two young men.

I worried that I wouldnt care much for this book because I'm not all that interested in baseball.It turned out to be a compelling story despite my lack of knowledge about the game. My only complaint is that it seemed to drag on at the end and an editor could have pulled things together for the reader by cutting some of those last pages. Its a worthwhile summer read!!

I really liked this book... Most of it. So I'll start with what I disliked.

I disliked the amount of adjectives and adverbs and unnessecary descriptives in this book. It's over 500 pages and every time I found something unnecessary ("he tossed it through the open window" - of course it's open! How could he toss it through a closed window?) I was a little irritated.

I disliked a lot of the side stories. I liked Pella as a character, she was interesting, but her presence was mostly unnecessary, and it felt like she was thrown in there to make the bug less macho. This book could have been simplified and I think I would have liked it more - usually I love books with multiple characters and intersecting stories.

But this is a book about baseball, and Harbach is an incredible baseball writer. Harbach is so good at writing about baseball that I couldn't put this book down when I was reading those sections. I was as absorbed as if I had been listening to a game on the radio. I hung into every word. I slumped back in my seat and cringed and rubbed my hands over my face when something bad happened. I gripped the book with white knuckles as I waited to find out if the high arc of the ball of the bat would be a home run or get caught and merely be an out. I could not have reacted much more strongly if I had been watching the game. (Slightly embarrassing, as I read some of this in a cafe.)

And when he isn't describing games, he talks about the beauty of the game, and the nuances. He talks about young players for whom the game is so much more than a game, but he also portrays an older man who finds baseball boring and then slowly begins to see some of the beauty in it. The symbolism is present but not overdone, or over-important. You can take it or leave it, symbolism or no, it's also just a game.

So mostly, I wish Harbach had left out a little of the growing pains and the heartache and heartbreak and complicated character web. I wish there had been a bit more balance (at times it seemed like the baseball wasn't necessary). I wanted this book to be more purely baseball.

Maybe if I'm lucky, he'll write another book that will be.

Memorable quote, " Deep down, he thought , we all believe we're God. We secretly believe that the outcome of the game depends on us, even when we're only watching... Each of us, deep down, believes that the whole world issues from his own precious body... And then, deeper down, each of us knows he's wrong."

A new American classic. An absolute must-read for fall and one of the best books I've read in a long, long time.

I cannot remember the last time I enjoyed a book as much as I did this one. The characters, the setting, the dialogue, it all rang true. I found myself thinking about this book when I wasn't reading it and not wanting it to end.

In The Art of Fielding, by Chad Harbach, most of the main characters play baseball, and the title refers to a (mythical) book by a (mythical) professional baseball player on the "art" of playing the game.For amazing shortstop Henry Skrimshander, it's his Bible. Henry is a small-town high school senior discovered by (mythical) Westish (northern lakefront Wisconsin) College Harpooners baseball team captain Mike Schwartz in a summer league. The other main characters in the book are Henry's gay mulatto college roommate and teammate, Owen; the college president, Affenlight (who falls in love with Owen); and Affenlight's daughter, Pella (who falls for Mike). The story is told from the point of view of each of these five characters.Henry's never made a fielding error in a game, but the first time a throw goes awry (on page 69), it sets in motion the events of the remaining 443 (!) pages of the book.I thought the characters were wonderful and very well-developed - even some of the minor ones, such as the other teammates, and the college dining hall supervisor. Yes, it is a baseball novel, but it's more a college coming-of-age story. I thought the ending was a little weak, though, with the scene in the cemetery a bit over-the-top. Still, I'd recommend this book, especially for book clubs with both male and female members.© Amanda Pape - 2013

I read this novel on the heels of watching more baseball than I had in any other year, a hopeful Phillies fan disappointed by the lack of clutch performances. This novel, Harbach’s first, was a nice combination of the allure of sports and being on a team ,combined with a likable campus tale involving many literary allusions. The Art of Fielding is not only the title but also a book referred to throughout the novel, a book written by Henry’s idol, baseball’s greatest shortstop, Aparicio Rodriguez. ( ie. a nod to Luis Aparicio) The book is a Zen-like tribute to the naturalness of perfect fielding. The setting is Westish College, a liberal arts college in Wisconsin, and the stories of the main characters all seem to hinge a bit by the fluke errant throw of Henry Skrimshander. This throw involves, in short order: Owen, Henry’s gay Mulatto roommate who was busy reading, and didn’t see the ball about to strike him in the face, Henry’s mentor- teammate, Mike Schwartz, who can’t believe he has witnessed an error, the college’s president Guert Affenlight who will take all too much interest in the health of the stricken student and Guert’s daughter Pella, who has fled her marriage and finds herself in the middle of all of the above – in more ways than one. Harbach seems to pay tribute to John Irving, both in the use of sports narrative and in the effective way he combines several stories told from several points of view related to a particular time and event. Maybe even Owen’s name is a kind of homage. But luckily for me, I loved many of Irving’s novels and very much enjoyed spending time with Harbach’s story. It’s not often that both sports and literature can coexist effectively but I applaud the author for his efforts here. The Phillies didn’t win, but it was nice to extend the season with the victories of the Westish Harpooners

The story line about baseball, especially the philosophy of the game and the quotes from the fictional book by Aparicio Rodriguez, was engaging; but I never quite believed in some of the main characters. I've heard a lot about fear of success, but most of the information comes regarding fictional characters or popular diagnoses. I can't think it's quite the large problem amateur psychologists would have us believe it is. Three of the characters in The Art of Fielding can't seem to let themselves succeed. That's quite an unbelievable percentage, it seems to me. There's Pella who pretty much stamps her foot and whines throughout the book, Schwartzy, the drinking-drugging motivator, and alas Henry the baseball artiste. It seems to be an epidemic at Westish College. To me none of the romances worked, and I found the May-December fling ludicrous. I wish there'd been more baseball and less romance and drinking.

I can not fathom why this book got such glowing reviews from so many. Its characters are stock, its situations banal, its style sophomorish. Or should that be "freshpersonish." Holy cripes.

Every page of the writing in this campus baseball novel is absorbing, every character seems larger than life, and in some cases mythic figures that will live on off the page, and many of the psychological insights into their lives are uncannily observed. But all of this is embedded in a novel that is a little bit too long with a plot and some scenes that are a little bit too trite. But the good aspects more than made up for this and even picking up the book to read a few pages was exciting and enjoyable.The book revolves around five characters: three baseball players at Westish college (a sort of Midwestern Amherst), the President of the college, and his daughter. Their lives collide and intersect in interesting ways after the star shortstop, Henry Skrimshander, makes an error. All of which happens with the contours of a relatively conventional baseball novel and campus novel, infused with homages to Melville (who in the book once visited Westish college on a lecture tour).

A really strong beginning but sagged in the middle and never recovered its momentum. Some memorable characters, some nice writing, but I lost my early enthusiasm for it. Still well worth reading, though.

The book winds through 5 characters, allowing each character to narrate their story and perspective. Melville's Moby Dick weaves through the story enough that I went out, bought the book and finally read it. Back to Art of Fielding, a young talented boy Henry is obsessed with playing shortstop to perfection until he makes the only error in his life (beans a friend with an errant throw) and struggles to pick himself up. This is the same issue with the other characters who exceed at something but struggle to get move forward as they deal with some internal struggle that holds each back. The characters are all very different but yet blend very well together. Harbach writes well, introduces and builds characters up over time. Overall a very enjoyable read.

This multi-layered debut novel is well written. The comparisons with John Irving are fleeting but evident in the character of Henry. Baseball is the major character around whom the others revolve and develop. Friendship is also a strong force in this novel, and the ending is a bittersweet conclusion to the love of each other that these characters share. I look forward to reading future books by this talented writer.

This isn't a bad book -- simply mediocre. Because it was for a book club I forced myself into reading at least but then skipped to the end. Can't define what made this book not compelling -- perhaps the distance the author maintains from his own characters' motivations? Whole book seemed contrived. Cannot recommend with so many other Good books around.

An enjoyable story which takes place on a college campus. The writing is definitely an homage to John Irving even down to a character named Owen.

I liked a book about baseball? I liked a book about baseball! Two quibbles: there were a few moments that I thought were a little cheesy/too neat. And the one woman in the book didn't make complete sense to me (but maybe other ladies will find her convincing?). Overall, this book was totally sweet, well written, and engrossing. It made me tear up in public a couple of times.

Set in the world of college baseball, The Art of Fielding is about aspiration, failure, and recovery. It also tells a compelling story, not only of Henry's challenges, doubts, and triumphs, but also of the love affairs and friendships that tie together the chief characters: Henry Skrimshander, the perfect shortstop until one error leads to a loss of confidence; Mike Schwartz, the mentor and teammate who guides Henry to potential greatness; Owen Dunne, Henry's gay college roommate whose love affair impacts all the other characters; Guert Affenlight, the college president who falls unexpectedly in love for the first time; and Pella Affenlight, his daughter, who is seeking a purpose for her life. All these unfolding stories make the novel very readable. These five characters are bound together in a struggle of love and betrayal that mirrors the art of fielding.

I thought the book was too long but possibly the author felt he needed it so the reader could understand the complexity of the five characters. I didn't love it as much as some of the other members of my book club. I enjoyed the first half but felt let down by the last half. At first I wasn't sure I would like it a book about baseball at all but I believe this is not a baseball novel, but a complex story of relationships and the connections between friends and teammates.

As a Brit, I know nothing about baseball other than it is like rounders played by bigger men who chew tobacco and spit alot! However, this novel held my attention and I learnt a fair bit about the game and the training that goes into making a good player.The characters are well drawn, although I didn't find myself warming to the main character Henry who is somewhat monosylibic and does not seem to have a ny redeeming traits. It is a longish book, but never felt too long. As some other reviewers have mentioned, there are one or two odd plot moments, including the ending, but overall, a good enjoyable read

What a complex and lovely first novel. This is an intricate book with characters deep and simple, each of whom makes choices and takes actions which profoundly change the course of the lives of every other character. These are people I know and their choices make sense yet are not predictible. All that and the writing is so very elegant, very literary but not at all pretentious. My one complaint is the time spent on unnecessary and one-dimensional characters who should have been edited out (Henry's whole family, the coach, the people selling the house and their dog, the dining hall chef.) Highly recommended

An amazing first novel for Harbach. The characters were very richly developed and I felt like they really existed. Harbach poured so much detail into every scene in the book, for example, describing what is situated on the nightstand in a college dorm room. The book did drag on for me though and at some chapters, I felt like, what's the point? So although it's a mixed review, I rated the book very high for the story and character development which was superbly done.