Mic Breaks Only discussion

***Open discussion of THE WHOLE BOOK below, no spoilers needed. Be sure you have finished the book before reading any further! Note: if this is your first visit to this topic I recommend you read this post about discussion ideas, then skip down and post your initial response, then read and respond to other people's posts.***

At the very least check in here when you finish and tell us if you enjoyed the novel. I'll post specific discussion ideas below, along with the general topics we've seen repeated throughout the book.

Full Book discussions:

1)Do you think Henry is making the right decision by staying at Westish?

2) What is your opinion about the major events that happen near the novels end (i.e. **Major Spoilers**: (view spoiler)[Affenlights death and burials, Schwartz's job offer, the final game and Henry's role, etc (hide spoiler)])?

General Discussions:

1) Share your favorite quote(s) from the final section of the book.

2) Share your favorite word(s) from the final section of the book.

3) Who was your favorite or most intriguing character?


GO!

Even though Henry got back in the game, made a sacrifice for the team and ultimately obtained counseling, it would have felt premature for him to go directly to the minors. Henry returning to college baseball at Westish with Schwartz as a coach seemed like the right move to me. I think Henry still lacks a measure of independence which hopefully he might gain by returning to college for a year. With Schwartz now being a coach, Henry might have a chance to really step into a leadership position on the team without being under his friend's shadow.


I feel like the author forced himself into certain plot positions, including killing off Affenlight with a broken heart. Affenlight was not in a sustainable relationship with Owen based on his job and it was unclear where the relationship was going over time. I am glad Schwartz decided to accept the coaching position at Westish, but it was predictable in a "happily ever after" kind of way. Both Schwartz and Affenlight shared a real passion for Westish and I couldn't imagine either leaving for another destination. I think the end of the story was overly romanticized, with everything fitting a bit too neatly.

At the beginning of the book I really enjoyed the juxtaposion between "perfect baseball" and "messy life". I appreciated that characters are multi-layered and not always simple caricatures of what we want them to be. I was taken off guard, in a good, surprising way, by Schwartz's drug addiction. Even though some of the behaviors of a person abusing drugs were mentioned in the plot, I didn't actually view him that way until the confrontation with his orthopedic physician happened.

On the other hand some plot points seemed thrown in or thrown away. Why would Pella have slept with Henry? That scenario seemed wholly unbelievable to me. What happened to David? Why wouldn't he fight harder, or stick around in an effort to remedy his relationship with Pella? His personality gave me the impression of someone who didn't like to lose, so it seemed unlikely that he would leave town after one unsuccessful dinner.

By the end of the book, I knew more about the characters be it good, bad or ugly, but they didn't really seem to grow or overcome or change much. The characters seemed to be making the same decisions they would have made at the beginning of the book before I knew anything about them. By the end of the book we aren't even sure that Henry has solved his throwing problem or in clear terms what the problem was.

Overall I really did like the book, the flawed characters and even the baseball story setting. I did come away feeling like major events were very orchestrated in an artifical way.


My favorite quotes include: " They idled down Groome Street, Schwartz's foot never touching the gas, silently scanning the bushes like a couple of cops who've been partners forever."

"In person, David looked less substantial than the fellow in the photo on his firm's website.."

"The waiter appeared to silently top off her wine; she liked when that happened, because you couldn't count how many glasses you'd had."

"There weren't many electric lights nearby, and the moon that hung between banks of clouds was as slender as an eyelash".


My favorite words include: magnanimous, malady, punctillious, portentous, ennui-riddled, omnicompetent, strafed, tableau, moseyed, ire.


My favorite characters this section involved people in very specific moments or very specific actions. Henry putting on his weighted vest and going for a swim in what I was absolutely certain was going to be a Virginia Woolf end. Pella making regular soup deliveries to very depressed Henry. Doctor Rachel's opinion of Henry and Schwartz and baseball.

This novel is a quandary for me since I liked it a lot... but felt little emotional connection to the characters. I felt like there should have been 50-100 more pages in the book fleshing out various characters. It is so rare that I think a novel is too short that it is a discombobulating feeling.

Westish: I do not think Henry should have stayed. Henry's circle should have been somewhat closed with his facial injury. Westish always seemed unhealthy for Henry and I'm not sure Schwartz didn't add to that problem. Henry is undeniably going to become a baseball player, he should take advantage of the current opportunity and move towards his goal.

End Plots: I thought Harbach tied his knots too tight and ended up having to make all too obvious cuts to finish the book. Throughout the story I was frustrated with the overt inter-relatedness of the main characters: Henry is roommates with Owen who is Affenlight's lover who's daughter is Pella who is sleeping with Schwartz (and Henry...) who is Henry's best friend. Ugh.

I said earlier that I thought the book needed more pages - one specific thing I will point out is Affenlight's sexuality. I was never certain if the author intended it to be ambiguous, but I always considered him a straight man who intellectually fell in love with a gay student and couldn't express those feelings without making an intimate commitment.

This lack of self confidence and awareness didn't fit in with the rest of Affenlight's character.

In the end Harbach's plot was wound so tight that it resulted in some necessary conclusions. For example, Affenlight had to die. Schwartz had to be offered a coaching job. The finale including Affenlight's second burial felt like an almost tacked on epilogue counteracting these too obvious events.

Quotes: Bella. One of the most ingenious things Harbach did was to have David call Pella "Bella". I hated him for it every time. So irritating.

His whole life had been bachelor transience, rootlessness, one noncommittal night after another in the cosmic boardinghouse.

It's like a gay-porn Groundhog Day.

This one reminded me of my wife: The waiter appeared to silently top off her wine; she liked when that happened, because you couldn't count how many glasses you'd had.

Starblind was Starblind the way a dog was a dog and a shark was a shark. You didn't expect moral distinctions from a shark.

Melville had once called America a seat of snivelization; what Affenlight wanted was a seat of swivelization.

"I nail all your girlfriends!"

Words: malady; magnanimous; portentous; unorthodox appreciations; moseyed; sackbut; and landlessness. Also references to Murakami and Gravity's Rainbow.

Character? I'm going to cheat here and say "being gay". I know, it's not a character. In the last discussion about this I talked about Henry possibly being homophobic. I maintain that the hidden theme of this novel is Henry overcoming the homophobia instilled by his family.

Henry starts by denying it exists during the early phone conversation with his parents. He then throws the errant ball into Owen's face which makes him doubt his true feelings. There is a long period where Henry is struggling internally and becomes unable to throw straight. Then Henry has messy hetero sex on Owen's bed. Henry atones by taking a ball to the face. Henry's ambiguous place is cemented as he sits next to Owen at Affenlight's 2nd burial, almost like a brother. Finally Henry overcomes his familial bias (note the parental tattle tailing that occurs here, arguably killing Affenlight) by choosing to stay at Westish.

I want to point out one more odd quote in this section (note that Schwartz is not present in this scene): Henry took the glass and sipped the light-shot fluid, which perfectly matched the color of Schwartzy's eyes.

Overall: I wanted to love this book, but it made a few too many errors along the way.