Shoeless Joe by W. P. Kinsella Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Shoeless Joe
Book Review: Anyone who reads this will love Baseball
Summary: 5 Stars
I grew up watching Field of Dreams. I remember the remakes on the commerical from Baseball tonight. I can quote Terrance Mann's speech by heart. But this book blew my mind away. I finished reading it while waiting to have my tires rotated and I was sucking back my tears like always from Salinger's speech. Not only do I recommend the movie, I strongly recommend that any baseball fan have this book on their shelf or on their toliet to read whenever they need inspiration or motivation. For WP Kinsella to write about something as trival as baseball (which i have loved from the moment i was born) baseball which in a society like ours should be the least important thing on a very long list, and for Kinsella to write about a baseball game in a cornfield and for it to stir such emotions even in the blackest hearts of some people is quite a feet. Truly, a must have, along with the movie.Book Review: Awesome, heartwarming story!!!!!!
Summary: 5 Stars
At first glance, Shoeless Joe appears to be a book about baseball. However, as you read on, you realize the author is using baseball, a game of magic to describe the beauty of everyday life. The way Ray Kinsella describes his family, his baseball field when its completed, baseball itself gives you a sense that the world is a beautiful thing. It is a book about magic, love, and realizing deep down who you are. Ray feels guilty about his fathers death and it is very emotional when they meet at the end. Even though it seems fanciful and all that, you still feel that it is real and the book allows YOU to believe in the magic of miracles. I recommend the movie, Field of Dreams as well because you can actually see everything happening as it becomes more real. My favorite part of the movie is when Ray says "Dad, do you want to have a catch?" and Ray and his father throw the baseball to and fro. Baseball is a game of legacy, a game that has lasted through the generations, that loves to be passed on from father to son. The book should definitely be read!!!!!!!Book Review: Baseball and Family Ties
Summary: 4 Stars
Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella; Mariner Books, 1982: If one is patient, persistent, and has faith, even the wildest dreams can come true. This is captured in the magical novel, Shoeless Joe by W.P. Kinsella, about baseball where anything goes. The first publication was in 1982 and was adapted in 1989 into the famous movie, Field of Dreams. "If you build it, he will come." These are the mysterious words Ray Kinsella, a farmer from Iowa, hears from a baseball park announcer that leads him to make a baseball field in his cornfield. Ray, a White Sox fan, hopes his hero, Shoeless Joe, will give him the honor of playing on his field. Unbeknownst to Ray, the mysterious words also refer to his father and brother. Ray's following missions lead him to meet a host of characters which include J.D. Salinger, Archibald "Moonlight" Graham, and the oldest living Chicago Cub, "Kid" Scissons. I find the story to be farfetched, but if you let go of reality, you will find an interesting, compelling novel of a dreamer.
Ray inherited a love for baseball from his father, a person he wishes to have known better. He grew up with baseball and of course, the White Sox. "Instead of nursery rhymes, I was raised on the story of the Black Sox Scandal, and instead of Tom Thumb or Rumpelstiltskin, I grew up hearing of the eight disgraced ballplayers." There are two other loves in Ray's life. One is his family, which includes his wife Annie and daughter Karin. The other is Iowa. This is how Ray describes his beloved Iowa: "Moonlight butters the whole Iowa...Clover and corn smells are thick as syrup. I experience a tingling like the tiniest of electric wires touching the back of my neck, sending warm sensation through me." In W.P. Kinsella's intricate writing many memorable characters are woven in.
The second time the ballpark announcer speaks to Ray, he says, "Ease his pain." Immediately, Ray knows that the announcer is speaking of J.D. Salinger. Ray travels across the country to find the reluctant writer. This then leads to helping "Moonlight" Graham, a player who only played one inning in the major leagues and wishes for one more game. Eventually, Ray takes Kid Scissons under his wing and helps this passionate baseball lover. Ray is able to fulfill a life long dream of Kid Scission's. Kinsella's writing is fluid, imaginative and depictive.
W.P. Kinsella is a master story teller whose stories are deceptively simple. He takes a simple farmer with a love for baseball and makes an interesting plot of magic and family ties. This book is about family relationship just as much as baseball. Ray is able to learn the truth and resolve his own problems through baseball. The story is not one easily forgotten but it was hard for me buy in to the magic of the book.
The author knows the ins and outs of America's favorite pastime. He relates compelling facts and a give the reader a genuine feel for the game. A person with no preconception of baseball could understand and become interested in the sport. This book could make anyone want to cheer on the home team. Here is one of many passages that gives an aurora to baseball. "Take in everything!.. Look! Look at the yellow neon running up the foul poles. You won't see that anywhere else in the majors. Watch the players, white against green like froth on waves of ocean, Look around at the fans, count their warts just as they count ours; look at them waddle and stuff their faces and cheer with their mouths full. We're not just ordinary people, we're a congregation. Baseball is a ceremony... a ritual." The magic of this novel and of baseball is something that will stick with the reader long after finishing the book.
-C. Wilson
Book Review: Baseball as Embodied Myth
Summary: 5 Stars
... . This is, in fact, a wonderful, imaginative, sensitively written novel about the lost dreams of the greatest player not in the Hall of Fame. It's also about the courage to pursue one's vision in this life even if people think you're a little wacky. I read "Shoeless Joe" 15 years ago and consider it on a par with Malmud's "The Natural" (another book I'm sure certain adolescent "reviewers" would find "pointless" and "repetitive"). If you like baseball and are open to a willing suspension of disbelief in the pursuit of a personal dream, you'll enjoy this novel.Book Review: Brilliant and evocative
Summary: 5 Stars
The prose may be over the top at times, but what a preposterously brilliant, creative book: can one even conceive there would be a book where two of the principal characters were JD Salinger and the ghost of Shoeless Joe Jackson? As absurd as the plot is on its face -- an Iowa farmer is ordered by a "voice" to build a ballfield so the tortured soul of Shoeless Joe Jackson can play once more -- we are gladly swept along in a willing suspension of disbelief, as this marvelous, mystical, beautifully told tale unfolds. As much as I loved the movie Field of Dreams, the book is much much better, and is a true work of literary imagination, not just a book about baseball, although it is that too.