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Fantasy. Fiction. Literature. HTML: Shoeless Joe, the soul-stirring novel on which the movie Field of Dreams is based, is more than just another baseball story. Kinsella captures the spiritual dimension that baseball represents for its most determined devotees in this tale on love and the power dreams have to make people come alive. "Shoeless Joe" is the great Joe Jackson, one of the eight members of the 1919 Chicago White Sox who were banned from baseball for throwing the World Series. One day, while out in his cornfield, Iowa farmer Ray Kinsella hears the voice of a baseball announcer saying, "If you build it, he will come." "He," of course, is Ray's hero, Joe Jackson. "It" is a baseball stadium, which Ray carves out of his cornfield. In doing this, he also inadvertently provides us with an amazing and somewhat nostalgic story on America's perhaps most beloved national pastimes, baseball..… (more)
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On the surface the book is obviously about baseball, but as someone who isn’t a fan of the sport, I can promise it’s really about so much more. It’s about dreaming big, supporting the people you love and finding your true home.
The writing is lyrical and nostalgic. I love Kinsella’s reverence for the sport. He treats both the game and the Iowa cornfields like they are something holy and precious. I’m sure that reading it as I drove through Iowa played a big part in the fact that I felt so connected to the story. We are travelers right alongside Ray on his quest to follow the instructions being given to him.
Some people around him can see the magic and some can't. This aspect of the story made me think of reading. Some people pick up a book and are carried away by the beauty of the story, others get nothing from it and the experience is forgettable. I'm so grateful to be one of the ones that can see the magic.
BOTTOM LINE: Pack this book in your suitcase the next time you take a road trip through the beautiful Midwestern states. It’s a reminder to appreciate all the things you love in your life and to always notice the magic.
“My impulse is to turn back, but I know I won't, even though it is so easy not to do something.”
“Growing up is a ritual -- more deadly than religion, more complicated than baseball, for there seem to be no rules. Everything is experienced for the first time.”
“America has been erased like a blackboard, only to be rebuilt and then erased again.”
"Iowa City is a town of grandfathers fighting a losing battle against time. We have a drugstore with a soda fountain," I say. "It's dark and cool and you can smell malt the air like a musty perfume. And they have a cold lemon-Cokes and sweating glasses, a lime drink called Green River, and just the best chocolate malts in America."
**One major change from the book to the film is the character of the reclusive writer. The role is beautifully played by James Earl Jones in the movie, but in the book it’s J.D. Salinger!
The story is a deliberate and passionate journey
Ray Kinsella, an accidental farmer, lives with his wife and little girl on a rented Iowa farm. Ray is still learning on the job, and things are not going well. But despite the family’s financial problems, Ray is willing to plow up a substantial portion of his cornfield when he hears what seems to be the voice of a baseball announcer saying to him, “If you build it, he will come.” Weird as that is, Ray instinctively knows that he is Shoeless Joe Jackson, one of the disgraced Chicago White Sox players accused of throwing the 1919 World Series (and his father’s favorite baseball player). So build it, he does.
Building the stadium, though, is just the beginning of Ray’s quest, a quest that will lead him on a cross-country road trip to the hideaway home of reclusive author J.D. Salinger. Ray knows that he needs to bring Salinger back to his little Iowa ballpark, but he does not know why – and Salinger is having none of it, so Ray kidnaps him. On the way back to Iowa, Ray stops in Boston to deliver on the promise he made to Salinger to bring him to a game at Fenway Park if he would just get in the car. Late in the game, Ray’s personal announcer makes another appearance to give Ray and Salinger a hint about what they need to do next.
Shoeless Joe is, especially for hardcore baseball fans, a thing of beauty. It is primarily a novel about the beauty of second chances. Shoeless Joe Jackson and the Black Sox get to play baseball again; Ray reconciles with the twin brother he lost track of years earlier; old men who barely missed out on the opportunity to play major league baseball get a chance to see their younger selves compete with and against ghost players from the past; Ray gets to see his father as a young man. And Ray gets a second chance to save his farm from his scheming brother-in-law.
This is a book about following one’s dreams, taking chances, and joyously living the only shot at life any of us will ever be blessed to have. When I need to remind myself of these principles, I reach for Shoeless Joe. It has done the trick for three decades – and I hope there are still several more re-reads in my future.
Rated at: 5.0
The book is okay, but it does not have
But I am not an American follower of Baseball so along with Underworld by Don DeLillo it went over my head
Think I am being harsh? Well I look forward to a story based of a brickie who puts a goal up in Norfolk. George Best then appears to help him build the football pitch and gradually all the world ** players appear (Lev Yashin as goalie, Carlos Alberto Torres, Nílton Santos as full backs, Franz Beckenbauer, Bobby Moore as centre backs etc for one last game with the Brickie’s long lost father as the ref. That I would understand so Nick Hornby get writing it.
But for the moment I am sticking to the film of the book-Field of Dreams. And making a mental note to be wary of any book that has a sports theme!
** run past me again how in Baseball one country = a world series whilst the 2006 World cup has 198 counties competing and over 700 million people watched the actual finals
OK, so the writing is nice. A little flowery, a little over-poetic with the metaphors, but very readable & I had trouble putting it down. The getting over the 60's thing wasn't in the book. So I was feeling positive toward it.
But there are 2 problems. One is that the nostalgia thing is
Once the field is built, many former players come from the field to play ball. By former players - I mean dead players - who are led by a man who is possibly the greatest baseball player of all time - "Shoeless" Joe Jackson. Also - Ray Kinsella, the main character who built the field, gets a chance to see his father come back from the dead to play catch again.
There are a few differences, the author that Kinsella goes to meet in Boston is JD Salinger, as opposed to the fictitious Terrance Mann played by James Earl Jones in the movie. And the book really shows more character development in Ray, his wife, JD Salinger, and "Moonlight" Graham.
If you love baseball and movies, this is a must read. This book will give you a new appreciation for baseball and the small nuances of the game.
Ray Kinsella’s journey, from his cornfield-turned-ballpark to Fenway Park and then to the Iron Range and Moonlight Graham’s Chisholm, Minnesota is the story of man longing for meaning in his life. He never really wanted to be a farmer, but fell in to the profession when he married a young Iowa girl and found himself incapable of leaving. When a voice tells him to mow down his corn and build left field so that, “he will come”, Kinsella does not hesitate in the slightest. He follows of the voice’s commands to the point of kidnapping JD Salinger from his secluded New Hampshire home. Kinsella needs purpose in his life beyond the day-to-day business of running his farm. Ultimately, he finds in purpose in the realization that “he” was not Shoeless Joe, but Ray’s own father, and he realizes that his entire journey brought him back to his family.
W.P. Kinsella has written many books and as far as I know, is an acclaimed writer. But this audiobook, on 9 discs, was almost painful to listen to. For one thing, it is unfortunate (and no fault of the author) but I didn't like the reader's voice. It was kind of nasal and whiny and just grated on my ears. But the major thing that bothered me was the writing style. Someone must have told Kinsella when he was young to use lots of description in his writing. He listened. Nearly every sentence was filled with adjectives, metaphors and similes to the point where I was cringing. It's one thing to paint a picture in words for a reader. It's quite another to go completely overboard. What I knew as a lovely tale (on film) turned out to be a story told in florid language that just went on for far too long.
Perhaps Kinsella wrote other, better stories. But I doubt I'll be seeking them out. I would see the film again, though.
I loved this read! Almost all of the great lines from the movie are pulled right from these pages! It's like a long love letter to the game of baseball! Having the author be J.D. Salinger was awesome! And I loved "The Oldest Living Chicago Cub" too! Just a great baseball read! I hope Mr. Kinsella is now in his own, well deserved, field of dreams!