The Art of Fielding

Okay, having mentioned last post how avidly I was reading Chad Harbach's The Art of Fielding, I have to admit now that B R Myers, writing about the novel in the Atlantic, is right. The Harbach novel kept me interested -- I read it in 24 hours -- but it is slight. At the end, I'm not even exactly sure who I'd say the main character is. Was there even one character I'd want for a friend? Is there any consistency or obvious growth in them? Not really.

And Myers' point is: This is what we call literary fiction? He says, "As long as the classics remain more deeply relevant to our lives than the novels our own time produces, we should remain 'untimely,' in Nietzsche's still-dangerous sense of the word."

Agreed.