Communication between Bernard Malamud and me doesn't seem to exist. Oh, he talks, and I hear…well, something. But I don't comprehend him. What exactly does he mean?

[The Natural], Malamud's first published novel, is a baseball story. It's about a gifted athlete whose hopes and dreams are derailed. Twice. As a teen from nowhere, being shepherded to a big-league tryout, Roy Hobbs gets a unique opportunity and strikes out—in only three pitches— professional baseball's Top Hitter. That gets him the attention of a seductive seductress, who invites him to her hotel room, accepts his claim that he will be the best player EVER, then shoots him. With a silver bullet. Before killing herself.

Time passes, fifteen years to be exact, apparently without notice. Even a sleazy sportsgossiper, who witnessed Hobbs' three-pitch strikeout of The Whammer, can't place him. But he's been gifted with a contract to play for the sub-basement dwelling New York Knights. Curiously (to me), Roy's first brush with greatness was as a pitcher. Now, he's a hitter exclusively employing a homemade bat. It has a name, Wonderboy, and a home, an old bassoon case. As a hitter, he displaces the Knights' big star, and he goes on, despite a couple of worrying hitting slumps, to carry the Knights into a one-game playoff for the league-championship pennant (and a trip to the World Series).

Throughout, it seems to me, Roy is his own worst enemy. He trusts only Sam Simpson, a baseball outcast and a sneaking drinker, and Sam dies during the awesome three-pitch strike-out of The Whammer. In his second run at greatness, he goes it alone. It reminds me of a line: "I'm not saying you're stupid, I'm just saying you have bad luck when it comes to thinking." He holds virtually everyone at arm's length. Though he wins the hearts of fans, they are fickle. He certainly didn't win the heart of this reader. And so I ask, what exactly does the author mean?

The Natural has many great introspective scenes and a true love of baseball,
but ultimately is too boring due to Roy's obsession with the truly odious Memo.

His sellout did NOT ring true to his deepest Wonderboy character. ( )

Bernard Malamud's first novel, published in 1952, is one of the best baseball books I've ever read, despite Roy Hobbs' being an antihero. None of the characters are likeable, from the owner to many of the fans, but the story of a hardscrabble, gifted ballplayer is hard for a seamhead (baseball fanatic) to put down. ( )

What a strange book...I'm sure my love for baseball earned it an extra star. Lots of awkward moments of cliche and contrivance, but the last twenty pages or so were charmingly odd. I'd be curious to read Malamud's Pulitzer-winning book. ( )

It was a good book, I loved it. ( )