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With a feeling something like the satisfying soreness of muscles after exercise you know you needed, or the pleasant exhaustion after a night spent adventuring rather than spent sleeping, or the first smile that crosses your face after a good cry, I finished The Art of Fielding this afternoon. When I hoped in my early October "mid-week Slice" for this new author's first book to be "a much-needed reminder to l-i-v-e and l-o-v-e now, at this very moment," I didn't know how dead-on my quoting of John Lennon's lyrics ("Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans...") would be.
The Art of Fielding is utterly about encompassing and enduring friendship. The characters, Henry, Schwartz, Owen, Guert, and Pella, are all knit together, like parts of their dreams, happiness, and most basic needs are inseparable rainbow-colored squares in a crocheted afghan. Their interlocking feelings, desires, and experiences grow throughout the novel in such a natural, human way truly echoing the genuine dedication and love that exists in the core relationships of our lives; Harbach's book reminds us of those family members and friends who we can turn to, give to, and rely on at any point in our lives, the people it seems we are destined to know.