Chosen for Book Riot's challenge of "reading a book about sports". I'm a casual sports person, my recent, if totally understandable, obsession with Sidney Crosby's ass notwithstanding. I was an athlete in high school & college, but never had "a team" until a good friend introduced me to Arsenal in 2015. That said, I know enough about baseball to follow a standard game without needing to ask questions; in addition, I have read two separate mangas about baseball so I'm basically an expert. Many sources on the internet agree that The Art of Fielding is an excellent book even if you're not a fan and after reading it through, I agree. This is a baseball book that is barely about baseball at all - it's definitely happening, but it's almost incidental.

It starts out very familiarly to those us who are sports manga fans - Henry Skrimshander is a tiny seventeen year old with an excess of energy and a very specialized skill as a shortstop. He has dedicated a considerable amount of time in developing an almost preternatural sense of where the ball will go at any point in time, thanks to hours of practice and a dogged belief in the instructional book The Art of Fielding by a fictional ballplayer. He's scouted by Mike Schwartz, sophomore player from Westish College, during the summer after he graduates high school. Henry is immediately drawn in by Mike's enthusiasm for his skill and his intense, take-charge attitude. I've read variations of this before; there are shades of Hinata Shoyu and Sawamura Eijun in Henry, which made him instantly endearing to me.

However, there was a disconnect for me about Henry - he starts as an awkward freshperson and slowly figures his way through college, but we're treated to a relatively short telling of his emerging skills and then suddenly we've skipped over two years of his college life. We meet Schwartz again, and Henry's roommate Owen - neither have changed; they seemed to have fully formed personalities from when we first met them. Henry has changed in undefinable ways, because we didn't get to know Before Henry as much as I would have liked. At most, Henry's relationship with Owen seems to be friendly (likely, who keeps the same dorm roommate for three years?) but outside of that original description in their freshperson year, nothing concrete about the deepening of their friendship.

There's a few threads going on throughout this book that ebb and flow as they fit together - Schwarty's rejection from his top choice law school, Owen's involvement with

the president of the goddamn college

, President Affenlight's prodigal daughter returning to him after a failed early marriage, trying to find out where she fits after basically being on pause for four years. Out of all the characters I wanted to like, Pella was at the top of the list. There was a lot to like about her, a smart young woman just out of a skeezy relationship with a man eleven years her elder. Unfortunately, the way she was written just screams "a man, who almost gets it, wrote this character".

This is a book that happens around baseball; it's about the lives of people who play it and those they love. The chapters that take place during games are shorter, compelling and very much Melvillian in the way they are set up. Due to President Affenlight's expertise being all about The Book (aka Moby Dick, or The Whale), we get to see a constant barrage of references, quotes and stylistic choices that reflect this interest. I don't believe you miss anything by being unfamiliar with the text, but it definitely adds depth - even if that depth is "there it is, they said the thing!"

I will be honest, the way this novel ended for most of the characters brought me, thematically, to the point of "give up on your dreams, because you will fail to realize them".

(see: Schwartzy's inability to get to law school despite the drive to make it, Henry's inability to make a good draft pick despite the talent, Pella's everything, Affenlight's death.)

However, seeing Henry finally make some decisions for himself in the last chapter, Schwartzy taking on a job that someone created for him while he was busy just being the best Mike Schwartz he could be - it felt like a good resolution. Henry and Schwartz, playing baseball together, which is all that matters to me. #ishipit

P.S. I am torn between being entirely grossed out by Owen's relationship with Affenlight and being sympathetic at the same time - after all, how difficult must it be to confront decades of experience in your own sexuality and suddenly doubt you knew yourself at all? Though we only see him from Affenlight's perspective, Owen always seems ethereal and wryly amused, never nervous and uncertain. When Affenlight meets Owen's mother (as the concerned president of the college, not his lover), Owen absently mocks Affenlight's choice in literature: "Whitman appeals to the newly gay. He's like a gateway drug." That power dynamic is what keeps this romance from being entirely horrifying.

P.P.S. this review is a fucking mess, sorry not sorry. sportsball feelings are hard to define

OTHER FAVORITE THINGS
↝ there's a supporting character named DEMETRIUS ARSCH, what's not to love about that name
↝ literally everything about Mike Schwartz, the hulking orphan jock from the South Side of Chicago whose favorite philosopher is Marcus Aurelius.
↝ this quote, because Henry is a sweet summer child: "He didn't like to talk during Professor Eglantine's class, not because he'd get in any trouble but because Professor Eglantine seemed as sensitive as a skinned knee, she frequently cried during class at the beauty of various poems, and Henry worried about disappointing her."