GIF Reaction Friday: THE NATURAL

ESPN is reporting that Ruth Ann Steinhagen, who took baseball fandom to a new level, passed away last weekend. Steinhagen was in love with first baseman Eddie Waitkus until he was traded to the Phillies; the next time he came to town to play at Wrigley, in 1949 she arranged to meet him in a hotel room and shot him (he survived).

This was my face upon finding out THE NATURAL, which I read a few years ago, was based on a true story:

Adjectives on the typewriter, he moves his words like a prizefighter

A few years ago in the New Yorker, Nora Ephron wrote about the pain of losing her rent-controlled apartment at the venerable Apthorp building in an essay more moving, to me, than any of her movies. Freshly divorced with two children, Ephron "was planning to live there forever," but as her neighbors changed and her rent went up, she resigned herself to living somewhere that just wasn't as special. It describes the process by which one becomes attached to a place perfectly, and it's why I still make a point of walking past the Apthorp and peeking into its curved entryway now and then.

The place he lives is also a central preoccupation of Harry Lesser, one of the titulars in Bernard Malamud's 1971 novel THE TENANTS. As with Ephron, keeping his sixth-floor apartment is more than just trying to avoid the hassle of moving: Lesser is running out of money after spending the last ten years writing his third novel, which he needs to be great because his second was a commercial disappointment. The building's owner, Levenspiel, is trying to tear it down and build a new and expensive one, but Levenspiel can't legally evict Lesser so long as he pays his miniscule rent -- he can only come by and offer him buyouts which Lesser inevitably declines. (Incidentally, his building is placed at 31st St. and 3rd Ave. in the charmless Murray Hill -- but there is a six-floor building there on one of the corners.)

Convinced he can't finish the book anywhere, Lesser watches the rest of the building fall into ruin around him and tries to write. Then one day, another writer moves in next door -- an African-American squatter named Willie Spearmint, who parks his typewriter there to get away from his actress girlfriend and work on his semi-autobiographical novel (which at one point is titled BLACK WRITER). Lesser, who rarely leaves the building because of fears as to what Levenspiel will do while he's out, gets drawn into Willie's life to a degree neither man is comfortable with.

I picked up THE TENANTS because of New York magazine's New York Books Canon, which yet again would make an excellent path to follow for a book club. Reading its synopsis though, I can't help thinking the editors got it just a little wrong. This book addresses "the existential precariousness of New York real estate," but I could suggest several just as good, and just might get around to same. The building Lesser is clinging to is just the dilapidated stage on which a larger conflict is set the day Willie asks Lesser to read his book and give him advice on it. The men don't share a class, a race or a lifestyle, but their most fervent clashes spring from the approaches they take to their parallel work. Nothing about that conflict feels dated, or even particularly New Yorkish.

Not surprisingly, I enjoyed this book more than my last Malamud experience with THE NATURAL, although the ending similarly left me a little unsatisfied. The author is probably spinning in his grave knowing that in a 2005 movie adaptation, the tenants were portrayed by the (so not Jewish) Dylan McDermott and Snoop Dogg.

Filmbook: "The Natural" (1984)

Yesterday I wrote about how I felt underwhelmed by the protagonist of Bernard Malamud's THE NATURAL, who alienated me and didn't really prove his so-called abilities. The Roy Hobbs of the movie "The Natural" has the opposite problem: The film pushes so hard to make Roy a hero that I found myself pushing back, probably because I had just read the book which makes clear that he wasn't a hero.

The plot is virtually identical to the book's: Talented older player with murky past finally gets to the majors, performs great feats. The crowd scenes in this book are very cool, as are the old-timey uniforms and the feeling that this team is really uniting behind Hobbs. Major assistance in this department has to go to the score in creating moments like this (not really a spoiler unless you read the YouTube info):

But as the movie goes on that old alienation came back, only I felt disconnected from the character because he was too good instead of being too bad. And the ending, which is the biggest change from the book, just took the hero worship way over the top for me. It's as if adapters Roger Towne and Phil Dusenberry read the book and thought, "Man, this guy's kind of a jerk. Let's make him totally saintly! Much better."

And in that capacity, having Robert Redford playing Roy didn't help matters. I like Robert Redford a lot, but he was 48 when this movie came out, and no amount of soft-focus lighting could disguise that he had a good decade on Malamud's Hobbs. So he goes around with this halo of light on him, which I'm sure was deliberate, but it made me even less inclined to see the movie's take on the player.

Filmbook verdict: Boy. I don't want to recommend the book or the movie. Watch "Field of Dreams" and read THE BOYS OF SUMMER instead.

Previously
Is This The Great American Baseball Novel?
Roger Kahn, A Boy Among Boys

Baseball Week: Is This The Great American Baseball Novel?

One-word review of THE NATURAL: Really?

The natural of the title is Roy Hobbs, a promising young pitcher headed to a tryout with the Cubs who has a little run-in with destiny along the way. 16 years later, he is finally signed to a major league team, the lagging New York Knights, and becomes not only its box-score salvation but the great batting hope for the sad-sack team manager. Not everyone on the team is happy about his success, though, particularly erstwhile star Bump Bailey, who's dating the manager's niece (with whom Roy is also in love). He finally has his chance at the major leagues, but it may be shorter than even he feared.

It's hard for me to pinpoint exactly what I didn't like about this book, but I'll start here: We don't see enough of Roy's abilities to really understand why he's such a big deal. Except for one quick burst in the prologue (if you will), the guy acts like a brat in the dugout and keeps proclaiming how good he is. When the turnaround comes and his "powers" (such as they are) are evident, I didn't really want to root for him after all that.

The relationship between Roy and Memo, the manager's niece, I found pretty off-putting overall, mainly because Roy acts like an entitled jerk around her and expects her to give up her other interests and serve him. Yet I don't think Malamud was trying to make the point that talent corrupts; I think we're supposed to understand that Roy has had a long and difficult life and is on the uncomfortable bleeding edge of greatness. But when there comes a time when Roy has to, ah, choose between divergent paths and his conscience comes into play, I didn't really empathize with him. (More on this tomorrow, when I talk about the movie.)

And there's all this Mystical Stuff With Girls. This book was actually mentioned in passing in THE BOYS OF SUMMER because it came out when Kahn was with the Dodgers, and he talked up its sex scenes to one of the players, but they aren't "sex scenes" per se, more like Totally Weird Interludes. Especially the one by the lakeshore -- anyone want to explain that to me?

Despite all this I did want to find out what became of Roy Hobbs, or maybe I was just waiting for something spectacular. In the end, I was underwhelmed.

Tomorrow, I'll talk about the 1984 movie, "The Natural," based on the Malamud book.

Previously:
Baseball Week: Roger Kahn, A Boy Among Boys

NATURAL Notes

• Play By The Book calls THE NATURAL "not your typical sports book." I concur, although this reviewer from the Peabody Institute Library liked it more than I did.


• A current MLB player named Josh Hamilton is compared to The Natural in the book, although I'm not sure the lesson is the same for both. Hamilton was a promising player who got hurt, got addicted, got clean and returned to hit 28 home runs in this year's All-Star Home Run Derby.


• I don't know much about Malamud at all, but apparently he's fallen out of favor; "Malamud's themes, his passions and his style do not come across as old fashioned: on the contrary, they seem fresh and alive," writes the Guardian. Uh, sorry to heap on, sir!


• Listen to the Malamud story "A Summer's Reading" at newyorker.com.