You don't get to choose where you're from. Fate puts you where it pleases, and that's that. I didn't choose to grow up in Upstate, to think that sausaYou don't get to choose where you're from. Fate puts you where it pleases, and that's that. I didn't choose to grow up in Upstate, to think that sausage and peppers were a national delicacy. I could've been born two streets over, where I would've learned to skate as soon as I could walk. Instead, I rode the bus an hour to podunk farming towns like Camden and Holland Patent to play basketball in decrepit gyms against thick farm boys whose shorts were too tight and who sweated too much. All those pasty moon-faced girls in the crowd, close enough they could trip you as you ran past.
I didn't choose to grow up trudging through the three feet of snow, down the steep icy hill on which my dad insisted on parking, to watch Sherman Douglas and Rony Seikaly play in the Carrier Dome. It was what I'd always known, like Cosmos Pizza and Eerie Boulevard and away games at New Hartford. It was simply home.
Scott Raab didn't choose to be from Cleveland anymore than he chose his mother or father. He didn't set out to know the suffering of the Cleveland fan, he was born into it. But once born a Clevelander, Raab embraced it. He witnessed the last triumphant moment in Cleveland sports, the 1964 NFL Championship Game, and he's not forgotten it, carrying the ticket stub of the game as a talisman of sorts, a charm meant to bring forth another championship.
The man who was supposed to deliver that championship was LeBron James. James was born in Akron, and like us all, he didn't choose that. But unlike Raab and other decent people in the world, James didn't respect that fact. He didn't understand that where you're from, in a lot of ways, is who you are. You can go where you want to go and do what you want to do, but you can't change that fact. It sticks.
Maybe it started, as Raab says, when he wore that Yankee hat to the Indians' playoff game. Maybe it started years before that, when he chose to root for not just the Yankees, but Duke and the Cowboys, as well (And I'd guess that if he didn't play in the NBA, he'd root for the Lakers, too). Whenever it started, it reached its apotheosis with "The Decision," the moment LeBron decided to turn his back on his hometown, and in the process, many of the rest of us, as well.
No, LeBron James should've known better. And that's what makes this book, this rage-fueled ride, so satisfying. Raab takes him to task for 300 plus pages, pointing out his every shortcoming, his every arrogant flaw. If this sounds unfair, consider that James set himself up for this with his actions, and then doubled-down on that when he fired off his ill-considered "Tomorrow, they have to live their lives with all their problems." Translation: I'm rich, so you can suck it, nothing bothers me. This book is one fan's way of saying "Go fuck yourself" to that.
It's also a brilliant meditation on the things we don't choose -- home, family, ancestry. It has hilarious moments, it has heartbreaking passages. It's raw and visceral as few books are, and as I said on The Millions earlier this month, it's the best book about sports fandom since A Fan's Notes.
As an addendum: I read a lot of books on my phone this year, and holding this book in my hands, feeling its pages and its smooth cover in my hands as I read it on the bus was such a joy. That it had a provocative title and a bunch of Star of Davids on the cover was a bonus -- lots of odd looks on the bus. In a year when I succumbed to the conveniences of digital reading, this book, as well as the Grantland Quarterly and The Art of Fielding, have reminded me that -- cliche though it may be -- I still really do love the feel of books, that holding the object in my hands is a sensation unto itself....more
I really enjoyed this book. Perhaps that's because I wear straight-leg dark wash jeans and use Bumble and Bumble hair product (both endorsed by Mindy I really enjoyed this book. Perhaps that's because I wear straight-leg dark wash jeans and use Bumble and Bumble hair product (both endorsed by Mindy Kaling). Or perhaps it's because it's a smart book of comic essays. Probably a little of both.
My favorite essay, I think, is the titular essay, about her high school posse of friends and the moment she knew she was drifting away from them. If you can't relate to that essay, I suspect you went to one of those boarding schools in Switzerland. with the oil heirs. And as such, I hate you. (Just kidding. Loan me some money!)
I also really loved her take on romantic comedies. I love to sit with my wife and watch romantic comedies and just think about how ridiculous they are. My favorites are movies made in the last three years that portray the magazine or book business in a crazy glamorous light. Oh yes, I'm sure the associate editor at that publishing house has a 1,400 square foot office with a view of Central Park. There's no way she tends bar to pay her bills and lives in Jersey City, right?
There are plenty of great insider-y things in this book. If you're a fan of The Office, you'll love the behind the scenes glimpses of the writing room. The Saturday Night Live chapter is not to be missed. And I really loved hearing about the Matt & Ben play, which I'd never heard of, and which I now really want to see. Can someone lend me a DVD?
Oh, and did I mention that I hosted a live video chat with Mindy? I didn't? Weird. That's usually the first thing I put in one of these reviews....more
Does it ever seem to you like everything sucks? Not just your own life -- with its minor setbacks and Pyrrhic victories -- but the entire existence ofDoes it ever seem to you like everything sucks? Not just your own life -- with its minor setbacks and Pyrrhic victories -- but the entire existence of mankind. You know, all of humanity? I think that sometimes. When I'm filling up my car with gas, for instance, and I see a guy wearing scarves as shoes. And then later that day, the person in front of me orders a coffee drink with more than two modifiers (half-caff and no foam and part-skim). Or whenever I accidentally listen to sports talk radio for more than ten minutes. I'll sit there in my car, listening to that ad for Dockers and think, "When all of this is over, when the world comes apart and we're back in the streets chucking rocks, I'll throw a freakin' party."
But there are also moments -- tiny triumphs or glimpses of beauty -- that make me think I'll really miss this life when I'm grilling a squirrel in the bombed-out husk of an Albertson's. I'll miss my family, of course, if they don't make it through The Troubles, that should go without saying. But I'll also long for Google Maps and continuously-hopped IPAs and raw denim jeans and all the other accoutrements of modern American life.
Which brings me to Zone One. Zone One is a novel about zombie-like creatures called 'Skels,' a plague of which has destroyed human civilization at some point in the near future. As the plague goes into remission, the survivors begin putting the pieces back together, starting with lower Manhattan, where the military has walled off a segment of the island. Sweeper teams -- civilians with assault rifles -- comb through the city killing any remaining skels and stragglers (half-skel creatures that lurk about the world in a frozen state of unconsciousness). Our hero, Marc Spitz, works with one such sweeper team, and it's through his eyes that we learn about the end of the world and its potential rebirth.
But Zone One is really an elegy for the modern world. Marc Spitz and his comrades reminisce frequently about the good old days, the days before "Last Night," the night when all hell broke loose, literally. Marc Spitz says he misses all the same things that everyone missed -- "the free wifi" and whatnot -- and there's the sense that this is what he misses, the conveniences of life. But its in the moments when he makes a fleeting connection with another person that the book really delivers. In a world where 95% of the people are dead (or worse), finding another person you can love is a rare and precious moment. Of course, the same is true in a world without zombies. And that's sort of the point of Zone One.
Zone One is both achingly, heartbreakingly sad, but also laugh out loud funny (LOL, as they used to say, before the fall). Its sentences will carry you along more than its story, and you can't miss the subtle longing that seeps through every page. It seems to be saying "This place we're living now? This life? It could be so much worse." This is the rare novel that simultaneously critiques the world as we know it today and reaffirms its existence. That it does so while inhabiting the body of a zombie novel is, I think, just another of its many miracles. ...more
William H. Gass writes eloquently about his desire to find his ideal reader, one who was perfectly suited to the material, the tone, the subject matteWilliam H. Gass writes eloquently about his desire to find his ideal reader, one who was perfectly suited to the material, the tone, the subject matter of his work. He writes for this reader, whoever he or she might be, probably never fully expecting to find such a creature. I am the ideal reader for The Art of Fielding. To wit, a Venn diagram:
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I'm sure there are others out there, a secret brotherhood of ivy-loving, two-seamer fetishists, lurking in dank hallways dreaming about spring and middle relief. Perhaps that's why this book is so popular -- perhaps I'm not all that bizarre. It's comforting to think so, actually.
For a book that I was more or less put on this earth to read, The Art of Fielding took awhile to hook me. Partially, I felt that defensiveness that we all feel when someone tells us something is perfect for us, or so funny, or amazing. "Well, we'll see about that." I kept looking for the tiny flaws in the book, the places where my own knowledge of baseball surpassed Harbach's. And there were a few such moments -- it seems unlikely that a Venezuelan citizen like Aparicio Rodriguez would be a record holder at the NCAA level, for instance. A player of that lineage would likely have gone from a baseball academy to the minor leagues then on to the majors without ever setting foot in an Intro to American Lit class. But it's a small thing, and for the most part, Harbach clearly knows the game.
What tripped me up more was the tone of the book. It has a nostalgic mood, one that sometimes felt at odds with the book's humor or irony. As I noted early on, the novel felt like it took place in the 1950s but with iPhones. In a way, it reminded me of another great baseball novel, The Brothers K. But where that book took place in the 50s and 60s, The Art of Fielding happens, more or less, now. The result is a sort of unreality, the feeling that the book takes place in a world much like ours, but not ours at all.
Adding to this feeling are the sometimes outlandish names. There's Guert Affenlight, the president of Westish College, the location of most of the action in the book. His name is the first of many Melville allusions in the book (Guert Gansvoort was a commodore in the US Navy and a cousin of Herman Melville's, or so Google tells me). Henry Skrimshander (another Melville allusion). Adam Starblind, Craig Suitcase, Pella Affenlight, and on and on. Even Aparicio Rodriguez, an odd portmanteau of shortstops, seemed labored. It's hard naming characters, I imagine, and I appreciate a well-named one, like Le Carre's, but sometimes these felt a bit too interesting. I was happy whenever Mike Schwartz appeared on the page, simply for his sturdy workmanlike name.
And despite all of this, I loved this book. It started with Mike Schwartz, a character I wanted to know, wanted, at times, to be. It probably stems from my infatuation with athletes who hit their ceilings at the high school or college level. I'm talking about people who can play well and sometimes even dominate at a lower level but are not good enough to go pro (or on to college, depending). They're poetic creatures, these athletes, and Harbach has created a great one in Schwartz. He's a moral compass, an anchor for his otherwise somewhat light story, and the beating heart of this novel. Much like his name, he felt the most real of any of the characters in the book. He broke my heart.
Guert Affenlight, despite his unwieldy name, came to life, as well. My favorite chapter of the book is probably Affenlight's backstory, how he discovers the transcript of a rare Melville lecture that sets him on the path that would be his life. It reminded me a bit of Stoner, by John Williams, another great campus novel. Affenlight finds more love in his life than Bill Stoner, thank god, and when the novel begins, he's fallen for a boy named Owen Dunne, another baseball player, and Henry's roommate. I know that others have had trouble with Affenlight's plot, deeming it unrealistic, but I found it to be among the more moving parts of the book. I don't know how often men who've been straight their whole lives become gay, but I believed it of Affenlight. And his struggle to navigate his love not just for Owen and his daughter Pella but for Westish College, as well, was engaging throughout.
Schwartz recruits Henry Skrimshander, the greatest shortstop he's ever seen, to come play ball at Westish College, in Wisconsin. There, he molds Henry into a player good enough to do something nobody at Westish had ever dreamed of doing -- turning pro. Schwartz wills Henry to be better, cajoling him into lifting weights, running stadium steps, hitting endless BP. And it all pays off. Henry plays so well that he ties the great Aparicio Rodriguez's streak of errorless games, a great accomplishment for any shortstop. But then Henry hits his roommate and teammate Owen in the face with an errant throw -- the first of his career -- and everything spirals towards oblivion.
Putting aside the issues I had with the tone of the book (as well as the ending, which I'll let someone else decry), Harbach is a sensationally talented writer, and there are more than a few lovely passages. I loved this quote in particular: "The ability to throw a baseball was an alchemical thing, a superhero's secret power. You could never quite tell who possessed it."
I admired so much of the writing in this flawed but heartfelt book that I would recommend it to people who didn't know a thing about baseball. You don't need to know anything about the game to admire writing like this:
Baseball was an art, but to excel at it you had to become a machine. It didn't matter how beautifully you performed sometimes, what you did on your best day, how many spectacular plays you made. You weren't a painter or a writer -- you didn't work in private and discard your mistakes, and it wasn't just your masterpieces that counted. What mattered, as for any machine, was repeatability...Can you perform on demand, like a car, a furnace, a gun? Can you make that throw one hundred times out of a hundred? If it can't be a hundred, it had better be ninety-nine.
Good stuff, and consistently good throughout. As one of his own characters would say, "Chad Harbach, you are skilled. I exhort you."...more
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