The Natural
The Natural by Bernard Malamud is a new edition published by Penguin in 1973, featuring 224 pages in English. This novel, originally released in 1952, explores the life of a remarkably talented baseball player during the old daylight baseball era. Malamud, known for his insightful portrayals of postwar Jewish life, delves into the world of baseball, infusing the narrative with a blend of realism and poetic depth.
Readers will find a rich exploration of the themes surrounding baseball as both a sport and a cultural phenomenon. The story captures the passion, craziness, and fanaticism associated with the game, presenting it as a significant aspect of American mythology. This edition includes an introduction by Kevin Baker, providing additional context to Malamud’s work and its lasting impact on literature and sports.
Official synopsis Publisher
The classical novel (and basis for the acclaimed film) now in a new editionIntroduction by Kevin BakerThe 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 “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.”
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