Thursday, July 30, 2020
Covering the Bases Two Rioters Debate THE ART OF FIELDING
Covering the Bases Two Rioters Debate THE ART OF FIELDING If youâre like me, your first reaction when someone doesnât love a novel you loved is to get defensive. But thatâs not healthy or smart or really very grown-up. So when Rebecca tweeted that sheâd just finished Chad Harbachâs The Art of Fielding, and thought it was more of a swing-and-a-miss than the grand slam I thought it was (hey, might as well own those cheesy baseball analogies, right?), after a few deep breaths, I thought itâd be fun to talk out our differences. And so watch this: Rebecca and I are going to prove you can have a conversation on the internet about something you donât agree on that doesnt devolve into âyour momâ comments and/or suggestions about where to ram things. At least I hope. So, letâs do this thing. GZ: Rebecca, one of your comments was that the novel felt âinsubstantial.â I thought that was interesting, because thatâs the exact word Keith Gessen used to describe an early draft of The Art of Fielding in his How A Book Is Born essay in Vanity Fair. What about the book made you choose that word? RJS: Besides the stupid 140-character limit on Twitter? What I meant when I said that was that it seemed like Harbach set out to land a heavy hit â" and he certainly chose some weighty themes in sexuality, the complexities of male friendship, and the value of sport â" but it didnât quite connect. (In the absence of baseball metaphors, I shall resort to boxing references!) TAOF isnât light, at least not in the sense of being fluffy, but it felt empty to me. GZ: Fair enough. As I read, other than a vague notion of John Irving-ness (as well as all the references to Moby Dick â" and whatever implications you can draw from those), I didnât think too much about how weighty or empty or fluffy or full the novel seemed. I was often so dazzled with the baseball â" that it was actually written authentically â" and so entranced by the story, I just assumed it was weighty enough thematically to pass muster. Plus, Henry (the shortstop) and Mike (the manâs man of a catcher) are great characters â" and I thought their mentor/student relationship was rendered really well. RJS: I did love the baseball writing (Iâve absorbed enough baseball in ten years of living with a St. Louis Cardinals fan to appreciate what Harbach did there), and I agree with you about Henry and Mikeâs relationship. The tension between their mentor/mentee dynamic, that is by nature unequal, and their friendship â" especially as Henry grew into his own and excelled beyond Mikeâs skill level â" was authentic and deeply felt. But I had a hard time buying the rest of the relationships. The Pella/Henry thing came totally out of left field (ugh, sorry), and the Owen/Affenlight bit couldâve gone somewhere, but it wasnât fleshed out. Actually, I didnât really feel like any of the characters were fully formed â" Harbach has the outlines of a bunch of interesting people, but just the outlines. GZ: You know, that criticism about the lack of depth to the characters seems to be a common one among folks like you who werent fans. But I wonder how much of that is because the characters â" especially in the case of Affenlight and Owen â" did surprising things that went against readers initial ideas of them. Or maybe its that there wasnât enough there about them to make anything they did surprising. And therefore they were uninteresting? Either way, to me, there was enough background, and we had enough of each characterâs internal monologue (especially Affenlightâs) to give them the extra dimension. At any rate, we agree on Pella/Henry thing. Really silly. By the way, now seems like a good time to mention that Harbach himself is quite a character. I caught him at a reading in Milwaukee last October â" and he joked that when the signing was scheduled, his first thought was that he hoped no one would show upbecause that would mean his beloved Brewers were playing in a World Series game that night and everyone would be watching the game. Alas RJS: Heh, readers know how to keep their priorities straight! I think youâre onto something with your second hypothesis about where the lack-of-depth criticism comes from. I actually didnât feel like we got much of Affenlightâs internal monologue â" we got Harbach telling us what Affenlight felt, instead. It was ye olde problem of too much telling, not enough showing. Best I can sum it up is this: they are Franzen-esque characters who make Irving-esque decisions, and those pieces just donât work together. Now, speaking of Irving, can you believe Harbach says heâs never read A Prayer for Owen Meany? I mean, how do you write a book in which the first big catalyzing event is a baseball accident involving a character named Owen purely by coincidence? GZ: I didnât know that, but Iâm willing to give a guy the benefit of the doubt who took less money on his advance to work with David Foster Wallaceâs editor Michael Pietsch. You know, like Ken Griffey, Jr. taking less money to play for his hometown Reds, âcause heâd always been a fan. (Sadly, that didnât work out too well.) RJS: I dunno, Greg. That lower advance he took was still huge (like, ginormous) by publishing standards, AND he got pretty much all of Little, Brownâs marketing money last year. Some sacrifice GZ: Yeah, well your mom! (Dammit!) Actually, Harbach did acknowledge at the reading that he went with Little, Brown, in part, because of the marketing muscle. So, youâre right â" not a gigantic sacrifice. RJS: I love you, so Iâmma let you slide with that mom comment. I will say this for Harbach â" when he is good, he is very good. Parts of the book are polished to a near-perfect shine. But as a whole, itâs inconsistent. And in this video (which is equal parts awesome and totally awkward), he says that some sections were edited repeatedly, while others not so much. Iâd have been more forgiving if it were tighter as a whole. But really, I didnât hate it. GZ: Nice back-handed compliment! I have no idea if TAOF will take its place among other beloved baseball novels, like The Natural and The Brothers K, but I do know this â" many of my friends who rarely read, did read this, and, to a person, really enjoyed it. I realize thatâs not exactly proof positive of the quality of a novel, but it is something. Youâre up, readers! Loved it? Hated it? Lukewarm? And more importantly, why? Sign up to Unusual Suspects to receive news and recommendations for mystery/thriller readers. Thank you for signing up! Keep an eye on your inbox.
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