| The Natural (Time Reading Program Special Edition) |  | Author: Bernard Malamud
Publisher: Time-Life Books
Buy New: $24.98
New (2) Used (4) from $1.90
Rating:  100 reviews
Sales Rank: 3319159
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 241
ISBN: 0809435934
EAN: 9780809435937
ASIN: 0809435934
Publication Date: January 1980
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: International shipping available
Condition: Book is brand new, and has never been opened. Thousands of satisfied customers!
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Amazon.com Review
Roy Hobbs, the protagonist of The Natural, makes the mistake of pronouncing aloud his dream: to be the best there ever was. Such hubris, of course, invites divine intervention, but the brilliance of Bernard Malamud's novel is the second chance it offers its hero, elevating him--and his story--into the realm of myth.
Product Description
Considered by many to be the greatest baseball novel ever written, this classic morality tale features one of the most memorable characters in all of literature, Roy Hobbs -- a talented athlete whose promising career is derailed by a youthful indiscretion. When Roy makes a comeback as an aging player, his struggle to achieve greatness in the midst of recreant temptations becomes the subject of an epic story about our national need for heroes and our simultaneous desire to see them fail.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 95 more reviews...
 A must for any literate baseball fan September 21, 2008
My father was an English teacher who also happened to be a baseball fanatic, and I still have his marked-up copy of "The Natural" somewhere in the basement. He actually built an entire English class around baseball fiction, with this book as its centerpiece.
You can't help but appreciate the humanness of Hobbs as the book moves along, picking up steam much like the locomotives that are often used as a metaphor.
My favorite character is probably Pop - what a great, colorful caricature of a crusty old manager who lives and dies with every batted ball and terrific throw.
"The Natural" is the standard by which all other baseball novels - including mine, The King's Game - are judged. And that's how it should be.
And other reviewers are right - you'll never see the book's ending coming if you saw the movie first, but that's a good thing. This ending feels more real, more true, more human.
A classic!
-- John Nemo, author of the baseball novel The King's Game
Not so sugary sweet August 5, 2008
I thought the movie "The Natural" was great. The story the book tells is even better. I think that each of the different tellings works for the different medium in which it is presented. I won't ruin it for readers by giving it away, but it's worth a read.
The only criticism I have with the book is I'm not a huge fan of Malamud's writing style. I have read several of the reviews stating that's the best thing about the book, but I don't see it. I sometimes felt like the writing got in the way of the story, rather than moved it along.
 A hideously BAD book June 20, 2008
3 out of 8 found this review helpful
I love books. I collect, preserve, protect and treasure books. After reading this one, I immediately threw it in the trash.
This may well be the most badly written book in the history of the planet. Should there turn out to be alien civilizations elsewhere in the universe, and they've written books, this would also be far worse than anything they ever wrote.
The language, sentence structure, plot development (or extreme lack thereof), pacing and narrative could not possibly be worse. The 'author' should have been jailed for fraud and crimes against humanity.
order never arrived January 22, 2008
1 out of 9 found this review helpful
The book I ordered never arrived. I checked tracking and DHL passed it off to USPS who delivered it somewhere on 12/28/07. The end result is "Sorry Charlie"
The Defining Work November 15, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
The Natural is the very best that baseball novels has to offer. As a reader, one follows the sordid life of Roy Hobbs as he tries to rebound from an indiscretion of youth that has derailed his career for many years. Just as in Frank Nappi's novel The Legend of Mickey Tussler, [[ASIN:0312381093 The Legend of Mickey Tussler], you find yourself cheering and rooting for this phenom to attain all sorts of baseball glory. But regrettably, there is something about the character -- a flaw or imperfection if you will -- that holds him back from grabbing the glory that by all means should be his. This great work reminds us that we as humans are all flawed and vulnerable, despite our physical skills and prowess. Frank Deford's novel The Entitled [[ASIN:1402208960 The Entitled]does the same thing on a more modern level. I found myself is all three cases, but mostly with Malamud's work, frustrated but riveted to the idea that these baseball stars just could not get to the level that their ability seemed to portend.
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