The Art of Fielding

Review

This book falls into the category of books that I really like even though it's hard to explain why. It had the sharp quality of well-written novels and various literary references I caught (and certainly more that I didn't), but it also had a lot of heart to it. My favourite elements were the friendship between Henry and Schwartz and the reflections on philosophy and sport as an art; my least favourite was the relationship between Owen and Affenlight, which felt extremely unbalanced. It was also on occasion extremely funny, which is always a good trait in a novel.

He knew it sounded crazy when you put it like that. To want to be perfect. To want everything to be perfect. But now it felt like that was all he'd ever craved since he'd been born. Maybe it wasn't even baseball that he loved but only this idea of perfection, a perfectly simple life in which every move had meaning, and baseball was just the medium through which he could make that happen.