I'm sure most of you have heard about Chad Harbach's The Art of Fielding. If you've been to London in the past few years (or probably New York), you'll have seen it plastered all over the walls with quotes saying it's the best debut novel since yadda yadda yadda. So naturally, I was intrigued. Even an endorsement from rent-a-quote Jonathan Franzen couldn't put me off. I had to see what the fuss was all about.
So I'm a third of the way through, and while there are some nice observations about baseball, it's really quite astounding that this is what passes for a masterpiece nowadays. It's just totally unbelievable in its portrayal of a bunch of jocks as enlightened, well-adjusted, sensible, mature, heroic souls. There are hundreds of passages about their dedication and friendship, but none which have so far mentioned spit-roasting chicks in a dorm room. Plenty of passages which note the meat-head backstop at some provincial college's favourite ancient philosophers and how he always makes time to study them even after twelve hours of solid (voluntary) fitness training, but remarkably little talk about booze or boning chicks or questioning his team mates' sexuality. Best of all, there's a character (read: caricature) who is openly gay, and makes his introduction to the team coach by saying "I hope you don't mind having a gay man on the team." And nobody bats an eyelid. Seriously, that actually happens. There is also reams more shit that I've read and thought, does the author seriously believe this has any precedent in the history of college sport? I'm talking about, for instance, that same meat-head stopper going out of his way to get an opposition player into the same college because he admires his style of play; and then driving five hours to take the kid's father out to lunch and convince him that his kid ought to go to college, which of course totally wins him over, o mature college football player (because he plays football too); and then pulling all manner of strings with the president of the college to get this kid, whom he barely knows, a scholarship to his college, all out of philanthropy and pride and responsibility in trying to improve his college's rankings, for this grand noble American vision of a better society, etc. A college douchebag actually does this. It's beyond unbelievable.