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3.0 

The Natural

By Bernard Malamud & Kevin Baker
The Natural by Bernard Malamud & Kevin Baker digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

The classical novel (and basis for the acclaimed film starring Robert Redford) now in a new edition

Introduction by Kevin Baker

The Natural, Bernard Malamud's first novel, published in 1952, is also the first—and some would say still the best—novel ever written about baseball.

In it Malamud, usually appreciated for his unerring portrayals of postwar Jewish life, took on very different material—the story of a superbly gifted "natural" at play in the fields of the old daylight baseball era—and invested it with the hardscrabble poetry, at once grand and altogether believable, that runs through all his best work. Four decades later, Alfred Kazin's comment still holds true: "Malamud has done something which—now that he has done it!—looks as if we have been waiting for it all our lives. He has really raised the whole passion and craziness and fanaticism of baseball as a popular spectacle to its ordained place in mythology."

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68 Reviews

3.0
“I just didn't like the story itself. It starts normal enough, on the train as Roy and the scout work their way towards Chicago and a chance to play for the Cubs. The stuff with "The Whammer" again, so far so good. Even deranged Harriet, fine, she was a nice plot twist, even though I think it would have been so much better if we didn't learn of a "serial killer who went around attacking athletes" and her action came entirely out of left foot, but worst of all why do we move 14 years ahead and pretend like those years were nothing? Malamud sprinkles itinerant odd-jobs he took later in the book, but why does it take him all those years to finally work up the courage to play semi-pro baseball and then quickly find himself with the Knights? A little bit of background writing here would've done wonders to improve the story in my opinion. The book Roy Hobbs, at least, is a selfish, self-centered coward. He might be a natural talent, but in life choice he bats .100.”
“I haven't read this book for about thirty years and decided to pick it up to help pass the time until baseball season begins. A really great book with baseball as a main theme...not quite up there with Shoeless Joe, but close. Now I just need to watch the movie again, which I haven't seen for about the same length of time.”

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