Roy Hobbs has a dream to be the world's best baseball player. Before he gets there, his dream is stopped cold. He comes back years later to help the struggling New York Knights. He is a sensation, but that will soon be tarnished by corrupt owners, gamblers, and women.

The novel has a nice look and feel of nostalgia. These are the days when baseball players played for food money, rather than $252 million contracts.

One thing that will trip a reader up is the constant prose Malamud uses. He uses a full page to describe a play made in a game. Another good example of prose used in the book is when Hobbs strikes out The Whammer at a carnival. Poetically, each pitch is described in grandeur prose as if there is some cosmic force behind Hobbs pitches.

I wanted to freak out. The ending is nothing like the ending of the movie. It makes sense. They just used bit and pieces in the film. The ending of the novel was so grim, and somewhat unrealistic to what happens to Roy at the very end.

Bernard Malamud did not like baseball.

If your a fan of baseball, you might want to give this one a look.

This book is nothing like the movie. So if you are a fan of the film, you may want to stay away. It doesn't have the happy ending that will make your eyes light up like the first time you saw the film where Hobbs is having a catch with his son.

I had to read this book in a Mythology course last year. I enjoyed some of it, and since I knew the film as well, I carried a lot of the conversation in class. There is plenty of hidden meaning if you like to dig deep.

Interested in buying this? Support Writing.Com by making your purchase of The Natural   from Amazon.Com!

Created Mar 18, 2003 at 3:06pm • Submit your own review...