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Reviews"A brilliant and unusually fine novel." -- The New York Times "A preposterously readable story about life." -- Time "Malamud [holds a] high and honored place among contemporary American writers." -- Washington Post Book World "The finest novel about baseball since Ring Lardner left the scene." -- St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "A brilliant and unusually fine novel." -The New York Times "A preposterously readable story about life." -Time "Malamud [holds a] high and honored place among contemporary American writers." -Washington Post Book World "The finest novel about baseball since Ring Lardner left the scene." -St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "A brilliant and unusually fine novel." The New York Times "A preposterously readable story about life." Time "Malamud [holds a] high and honored place among contemporary American writers." Washington Post Book World "The finest novel about baseball since Ring Lardner left the scene." St. Louis Post-Dispatch, "A brilliant and unusually fine novel." - The New York Times "A preposterously readable story about life." - Time "Malamud [holds a] high and honored place among contemporary American writers." - Washington Post Book World "The finest novel about baseball since Ring Lardner left the scene." - St. Louis Post-Dispatch
SynopsisThe classical novel (and basis for the acclaimed film) now in a new edition Introduction by Kevin Baker The Natural , Bernard Malamud's first novel, published in 1952, is also the first--and some would say still the best--novel ever written about baseball. In it Malamud, usually appreciated for his unerring portrayals of postwar Jewish life, took on very different material--the story of a superbly gifted "natural" at play in the fields of the old daylight baseball era--and invested it with the hardscrabble poetry, at once grand and altogether believable, that runs through all his best work. Four decades later, Alfred Kazin's comment still holds true: "Malamud has done something which--now that he has done it --looks as if we have been waiting for it all our lives. He has really raised the whole passion and craziness and fanaticism of baseball as a popular spectacle to its ordained place in mythology.", The classical novel (and basis for the acclaimed film starring Robert Redford) now in a new edition Introduction by Kevin Baker The Natural , Bernard Malamud's first novel, published in 1952, is also the first--and some would say still the best--novel ever written about baseball. In it Malamud, usually appreciated for his unerring portrayals of postwar Jewish life, took on very different material--the story of a superbly gifted "natural" at play in the fields of the old daylight baseball era--and invested it with the hardscrabble poetry, at once grand and altogether believable, that runs through all his best work. Four decades later, Alfred Kazin's comment still holds true: "Malamud has done something which--now that he has done it!--looks as if we have been waiting for it all our lives. He has really raised the whole passion and craziness and fanaticism of baseball as a popular spectacle to its ordained place in mythology."
LC Classification NumberPS3563.A4N3 1952h