Bernard Malamud’s 1952 novel The Natural, about baseball player Roy Hobbs and his magical bat Wonderboy, is a very different piece of art from the 1984 movie starring Robert Redford. While the movie is ultimately a heroic story of triumph and success, Malamud’s novel is a bleak satire of America.
A friend of mine had read The Natural shortly after reading The Great Gatsby, and it struck him at the time that both novels were about the emptiness of the American Dream. I read The Natural last spring, and shortly after finishing it, I re-read The Great Gatsby, and I agree, there are definitely similarities between the two novels. I don’t know that Malamud was specifically influenced by Fitzgerald, but certainly both authors were approaching their material from a similar philosophical standpoint.
The Natural is really a myth, a fable, a story that exists on a heightened plane of reality. That’s the charm of the novel, but it also makes it hard to relate to the characters. I never felt much affinity for the Roy Hobbs of the novel, as he is an inarticulate lunkhead.
As a baseball fan, it’s always fun to read novels that are set in the baseball world. Although Roy Hobbs’ stunning success at baseball is unrealistic. But we are in a fable, after all. And perhaps the fable-like setting is the reason for this huge error: Malamud describes the fictional New York Knights, a National League team, playing a night game in Chicago against the Cubs. A night game at Wrigley Field in 1952? No way that could happen! As every baseball fan knows, Wrigley Field was the last major league baseball stadium to have lights—the first night game at Wrigley didn’t happen until 1988. But maybe The Natural exists in a reality where Wrigley Field added lights in the 1940’s, like every other baseball stadium.
The Natural is a bleak novel, and it holds out little hope for heroes. Perhaps that’s the point Malamud is making—that we should not try to make our sports figures heroes or models for living. As the great pitcher Bob Gibson once said, “Why do I have to be an example for your kid? You be an example for your own kid.” Great advice. Certainly, the Roy Hobbs of the novel is not someone to emulate.
Malamud’s novel is a fascinating look at America seen through the lens of its national pastime.
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