The Natural

Rating:
Summary: Not the ordinary sports story
Review: Struggling to pursue a professional baseball career, Rob Hobbs, a character in The Natural, overcomes many obstacles in his first year as the Rookie. Roy moves to the crowded and sleepless city of New York as he adapts to the celebrity lifestyle of parties and meeting new people, most of them being girls. It is successful in creating a realistic setting through the use of hectic moods and a party-like atmosphere. As Roy takes on new responsibilities, his main struggle is trying to balance everything while still playing a spectacular game night after night, a stability that not everyone is able to achieve.
Roy enters the baseball world with a great deal of early criticism but besides all that, he is an immediate success. After finally gaining support of the coaches, teammates, and local fans, he begins to grow older and more experienced yet still continuing to pile on the pressure to do well. In fact, they demand perfection. The media is after him wanting to know all about his history, as Roy does not want the public to know about his personal stories. As a leader of the team, he brings them up from last place to being in the World Series. Roy has a passion for the game that no one could ever change, as I respect that in an athlete. Throughout his injuries and slumps, he would still put on his glove and go out and play, which is very practical as that is the life of professional athletes. Memo, one of Roy's friends, make a comment to him that could be used as the
theme of the book, which is, "Experience makes good people better.... Especially through their suffering."
I believe The Natural is an entertaining book for audiences of different generations as it interweaves a love story with an intense sports tale. As stated earlier, Roy Hobbs is a fighter who wants to keep his past a mystery. Readers from all backgrounds can relate to the struggles of the everyday perfection others expect out of you, and as we can see, what doesn't kill you, makes you stronger.


Rating:
Summary: An Excellent American Story
Review: The book, The Natural, is an excellent book because of the valuable lessons that the reader learns from reading the book. Bernard Malamud creates very realistic characters in a realistic plot to teach the reader that you need to step up to the plate in order to be successful in life. In the beginning of the story, Roy uses his inexperience to strike out the Whammer, who at the time was one of the greatest baseball players in the world. Unfortunately, Roy is shot by a woman, keeping him out of baseball for fifteen years. When he returns to baseball at the age of 34, he joins the struggling New York Knights and leads them to win the pennant. The conflict in the story that makes it a good read is that Roy is very susceptible to women and this causes him to go into a slump. At the end of the book, Roy is now faced with a phenomenal rookie, who symbolizes Roy when he was young. Roy is unable to step up to the plate, and the rookie pitcher ends up striking out Roy, showing that Roy had given up on baseball and on life. I definitely recommend this book to anyone who wants to read it because it is not just about baseball, but it is about valuable lessons in life that Roy learns in order to be successful in the real world.

Rating:
Summary: The Natural--very overrated and depressing
Review: Malamud's novel brings forth what all of what is good about literature and all that is bad about some fiction.
Malamud's prose is certainly qualified and capable. He writes in a terse voice and conveys the story quite effectively.
However, if you are expecting this novel to resemble the movie, you will be sadly disappointed. The book chronicles the life of protagonist Roy Hobbes as he strives to make his way into the immortal legends of baseball. Some might say that this novel is more realistic than the movie of the same name, and with that I will not argue. But, the movie differs from the book almost completely in tone.
This is a much darker and more depressing novel than most would expect. The travails of Hobbes's life have clearly made him jaded and suspect, the final proof being his willingness to sell his dignity and glory of the game for personal profit.
While I was not entirely expecting the Hollywood fantasy that was portrayed in the movie, I had hoped for something more than this dreary piece of literature that Malamud has offered.
Hobbes is a character with few qualities to admire, and a protagonist that makes it hard to feel sympathy for.
If you loved the movie, do not read this book--you will be dismayed, at best.



Rating:
Summary: The Fool on the field
Review: Cynical and surrealistic, Bernard Malamud's commanding 1952 baseball novel "The Natural" presents the dark side of America's sunniest pastime. The central character Roy Hobbs never becomes a hero in the conventional sense, and his name (Roy = King, Hob = clown) implies an enigmatic contradiction. Indeed, at the height of his fame, it's revealed that the King of the Game has worked as a circus clown. As a youth, Roy is all set for the majors until a strange attack from a Kundryesque temptress leaves him wounded; and for fifteen years he wanders aimlessly, to all appearances lost. {The novel opens on a speeding Pullman, and Roy is described as "traveling (on the train that never stopped.")} When finally he re-enters the profession, he joins the Knights led by Pop Fisher. This "jinxed" team is going through a wasteland of a season, "glum and red-eyed ... they moved around listlessly and cursed each step." The knight errant proves to be their salvation, depicted in one scene as being "in full armor, mounted on a black charger". He will only step up to the plate with his own bat, an Excalibur-like weapon called Wonderboy. Roy becomes increasingly popular and powerful (he, of course, has a "day"), but he also becomes more demanding. (His greed is symbolized by a voracious appetite: after stuffing himself at a rich buffet, he goes to a coffee shop, where he downs six hamburgers at one sitting.) You just know a slump is coming, and when it does Roy resorts to medieval superstitions, spitting when he sees a black cat and sewing amulets inside his clothes. Then the inevitable temptation to his greed is offered, and Roy is too far corrupted to completely resist. In a sense, he is sacrificed, as the Clown or Fool must be. The admiring introduction to this edition was written by Kevin Baker, who points out that the novel is "juiced with the cynicism and disillusionment that permeated American letters in the years after the war." He notes, "It is hard to find a truly likable character in the book", and this is true. A cityscape populated by figures deranged and deformed, "The Natural" reminds one of a powerful canvas by George Grosz. Incidently, I missed the 1984 movie version, but it's probably just as well. Robert Redford would be all wrong as Roy Hobbs. And I hate to break this to Kevin Costner fans, but this book is not dripping with Karo syrup, nor is there a "magical" conclusion in which a hero plays catch with his long-dead Dad.