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Original Title:	The Natural
ISBN:	0374502005 (ISBN13: 9780374502003)
Edition Language:	English

The Natural

Bernard Malamud

Paperback | Pages: 231 pages

Rating: 3.63 | 9788 Users | 799 Reviews

Commentary In Pursuance Of Books The Natural

The classical novel (and basis for the acclaimed film) 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."

Describe Appertaining To Books The Natural

Title	:	The Natural
Author	:	Bernard Malamud
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	Special Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 231 pages
Published	:	July 7th 2003 by Farrar Straus Giroux (first published 1952)
Categories	:	Fiction. Sports. Baseball. Classics. Literature. Novels

Rating Appertaining To Books The Natural

Ratings: 3.63 From 9788 Users | 799 Reviews

Assessment Appertaining To Books The Natural

This was a bit of a tough read because I really don't know that much about baseball and I don't really understand the rules of the game beyond my rudimentary knowledge of schoolgirl softball. But the book had good pace and a good story. I didn't warm to Roy that much - despite his age, Iris had pegged him perfectly when she had asked 'when are you going to grow up'? His obsession with Memo, from the outside, was more than just damaging to him - it all but destroyed him. And sadly, for much of

I mostly read this because I somehow had it in my mind that I was remiss in not having seen the movie starring Robert Redford, and since I like to read the book a movie is based on first, well. It had to be done. And it is done. Except now I don't want to watch the movie.Roy Hobbs is, as the title suggests, a natural in baseball. He goes around talking pretty big about how bad-ass he is and how badder-asser he will be once he makes the big time... and then he goes and gets all involved with some

Those who have seen the movie but have not read the book will be surprised. Bernard Malamud paints a much darker picture of the odyssey of Roy Hobbs. The book takes the arc of one person's career--Roy Hobbs--and weds it to a couple grim episodes in baseball's history: Eddie Waitkus and the Black Sox. The Hobbs of the novel is wonderfully talented--but very human. In the movie, there is a prolonged slump after Hobbs links up with Paris Memo. In the novel, he sometimes simply has a slump. In the

Hm. Apparently, I do not have a shelf for this book. What sort of shelf would that be? Baseball fiction? Books That Use Baseball as an Interminable Metaphor? Books that Express Disillusionment with the American Dream? Because it definitely belongs on those shelves. But I think the shelf this book fits best on is "I Liked the Movie Better."Because the movie was awesome.

I've never seen this movie.This book is vivid and summery. Full of baseball and its superstitions and lingo (I love the word "stuff" and what it means in baseball and I think nowadays it means even more). Malamud doesn't use contractions in his dialogue here so there's a '50s formality to the mood. Seems like all the men's names are one syllable and all the women's names are two. I like the name Memo for a character. Never heard that one before. Roy's appetite and all the food he consumes: some

Important book on baseball, rife with fun clichés (essential to our nation nonetheless...?). A cool view from the top of that profession, with social drama going by at a largely brisk pace. I am not compelled to see the film, though...

One of the most over-rated novels in all of American Literature. Malamud cannot write. Or he writes like a 13-year-old boy would write. It baffles me -- baffles me! -- why this book is considered a classic and why on earth we would teach it to high school students. It must be because it's about baseball. Big farkin' deal. Do yourself a favor -- skip the book and watch the movie. Redford is excellent in the film and gives the story more depth than the author ever could.