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Start discussion here for The Art of Fielding by Chad Harbach.

from LitLovers


Summary

At Westish College, a small school on the shore of Lake Michigan, baseball star Henry Skrimshander seems destined for big league stardom. But when a routine throw goes disastrously off course, the fates of five people are upended.

Henry's fight against self-doubt threatens to ruin his future. College president Guert Affenlight, a longtime bachelor, has fallen unexpectedly and helplessly in love. Owen Dunne, Henry's gay roommate and teammate, becomes caught up in a dangerous affair. Mike Schwartz, the Harpooners' team captain and Henry's best friend, realizes he has guided Henry's career at the expense of his own. And Pella Affenlight, Guert's daughter, returns to Westish after escaping an ill-fated marriage, determined to start a new life.

As the season counts down to its climactic final game, these five are forced to confront their deepest hopes, anxieties, and secrets. In the process they forge new bonds, and help one another find their true paths.

Written with boundless intelligence and filled with the tenderness of youth, The Art of Fielding is an expansive, warmhearted novel about ambition and its limits, about family and friendship and love, and about commitment—to oneself and to others. (From the publisher.)

Discussion Questions

1. Does male friendship always involve competition? In what ways? Can men ever be just friends? Are their relationships more competitive than those between women?

2. After a long streak of errorless games, why does Henry lose his once-effortless throw? What has changed in Henry? Do you think this sort of crisis is unique to athletics? Could, say, a painter go through a similar crisis?

3. Harbach never writes from Owen’s point of view. In what ways did this affect your understanding of Owen’s character? Of his feelings toward Guert? Is their relationship one-sided, or perfectly reciprocal?

4. Mike devotes much of his time and energy to mentoring and helping Henry. Does he give Henry too much of his time and energy? Can someone give too much?

5. After hitting Owen and losing his accuracy, Henry immerses himself in grueling physical activity: running the stadium steps, racing Starblind, doing endless chin-ups, swimming in the lake. Why does he do this? Is his body to blame for his throwing problems? Discuss the relationship between the body and the mind in The Art of Fielding.

6. Are Pella and Henry in love? What brings them together? Why do they stay together?

7. Guert is decades older than Mike, Henry, Owen, and Pella, but in what ways is he similar to the students, despite his age?

8. “Monomania”—the obsessive pursuit of a single thing—is one of the major themes of Herman Melville’s Moby-Dick. Is it also a major theme of The Art of Fielding? If so, for which characters, and in what ways?

9. The athletes talk about sacrificing their bodies to get better, and the "sacrifice bunt" is a baseball term that comes up frequently. Is Henry sacrificing himself when he stops eating? Why? Is his last at bat a sacrifice?

10. Are Mike, Henry, and Pella all striving for perfection? Is perfection possible? Is it worth striving for, even if it’s impossible? Why or why not? Do their desires evolve over the course of the novel? In what ways?

11. When Affenlight is confronted about his relationship with Owen, he thinks: "What kind of conversation would they be having if Owen were a girl? Bruce would be using the same legalese, the expression on his face would still be stern, but he’d be pouring himself a scotch. The gleam in his eye would say, Good for you, Guert. Still got it, eh?" Do you think this is true? Would you have seen Guert differently?

12. Why does Pella exhume her father’s body and bury it in the lake?

13. In Aparicio Rodriguez's The Art of Fielding, he writes: "There are three stages: Thoughtless being. Thought. Return to thoughtless being." He adds: "Thoughtless being is attained by everyone, the return to thoughtless being by a very few." What do you think this means? How does it relate to Chad Harbach’s book?

14. It has been said that baseball is a metaphor for life. Do you agree? Why or why not?
(Questions issued by publisher.)

Yeah, my book was was chosen. I have had so many chosen this year, but I never seem to get to them.

It is a really good book, too. I didn't think I would like it since baseball is a major theme, but I was pleasantly surprised.

Got the book but won't be getting to it a week or two. Looking forward to it.

I'm about half way through it and am enjoying it although I'm not sure where it's going. Harbach has done a really good job of introducing readers to the five major characters. He gives us a great sense of their hopes and fears and in so doing, they become real.

It's interesting that I read two reviews of The Art of Fielding recently, one rave and one tepid 2.5 rating. The female reviewer was fascinated in the book's portrayal of men and seemed to think that it was a revealing exposé into life in the locker room. Being a man, none of this strikes me as a revelation though so I'm not quite ready to give it a rave review. We shall see what the second half brings.

I finished this this evening. While it was not what I would call a thrilling book I did enjoy it and gave it a four. Here's my review:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

Regarding question 1. (Does male friendship always involve competition? In what ways?) To an extent I believe that the answer is that it is important to men to win. From the earliest times the survival of the community has depended on the man's success in hunting for food and defending against enemies. Women, from earliest times, have based their success on their ability to mate with the best hunter or warrior. This brings to mind an old saying about how men and women differ. "Men always insult each other, but never mean it. Women always compliment each other, but never mean it." It generalizes and oversimplifies the differences between the sexes but there is some wisdom in it.

I finished this novel yesterday, and overall I liked it. I enjoy baseball, so I expected to like it but it was a little different than I thought it would be.

It never occurred to me until I read the questions above that Owen's viewpoint is never given unlike all the other main characters. I think this was to help him remain an enigma to the readers the same as he is seen by all of the characters.

I got disgusted with Henry when he quit the team because I don't understand letting everyone down that way simply because he discovered he wasn't a perfect shortstop. Of course he didn't see himself as perfect, but for a baseball player to go errorless, that is essentially what he was. I guess I don't understand falling into the kind of depression that Henry fell just because my dream didn't live up to the reality. I know his breakdown happened at a crucial time for the team, but his reaction was so extreme. But I think that he was also feeling the death of Mike's dream to go to law school as a contributing factor. So there were other reasons involved in his breakdown.

What I enjoyed most about the novel was the difficulties all the characters faced and how they each dealt with the problems. I think the penultimate chapter with the reburial (of sorts) of Affenlight was ridiculously unrealistic, but not outside the drastic actions that the characters had shown on other occasions.

I'm almost halfway through and so far this is definitely a "guy" book. Updike's Rabbit books' prints are all over this. Enjoying the baseball field chatter. Lots of stereotypes - make and female - which I get the humor of, but its not my thing.