Marijke Carson's Reviews > Shoeless Joe

Proving my theory that some books need to happen for the reader at just the right time, Shoeless Joe finally happened on my clock. So, you have to know that whenever I fly I have a tradition of stopping at the airport bookstore and wandering through their offerings until some book title strikes me. I buy it and read it on my trip, starting there at the gate. It’s way fun. Usually. I bought this book on a trip like that. I started it, but never finished. There were lots of reasons for that, but in the end it just came down to it not being the right time.

Well, you also need to know that I almost NEVER DNF a book. It runs counter to the whole of my being. So, eventually I picked it back up again and this time, it was right. Everything about it was right. I love this story. Yes, I do love baseball. And yes, I did love the movie - so much so, in fact, that if I get pressed to choose my favorite movie of all time, this is the one I will pick. And yes, I live in Iowa and I have set my feet on the Field of Dreams diamond, run the bases and have the pictures to prove it. It is hard to separate the book from the movie looking back on it from this place in history. And I suppose I bought and started the book way back then because of all of that. But I can say now that the book stands on its own.

The theme that has always struck me from the moment I saw the movie for the first time to now, having turned the last page of the book, is that of having the courage to listen to the voice that speaks to you - as unexpected, unreasonable and inexplicable as it may be - and following its call on your life. Maybe with questions. Maybe with no idea what the outcome will be. But being willing to follow anyway. There is no escaping the spiritual implications of that, at least not in my life. Ray Kinsella heard it, took a step in the direction it took him and then invested himself in it to its completion. That is the definition of being called. The fact that it took him on a journey that was just a little “outside” of this world just adds to the spiritual nature of the story. With that foundation, the story’s subject could have been about anything. But, happily, it was about baseball.

Not being a person who ordinarily dwells in the surreal comfortably, I probably would have struggled with that aspect of the book if I had not already seen it set in film. And on the page it worked for me. Only near the end did it’s magical elements get a little over the top and disjointed for me, but it all came together well. I was also happily surprised by the depth of the love story here. Everyone knows about Ray Kinsella’s deep love for baseball, rooted in the unexplored depths of his love for his father. But the love story between Ray and his wife, Annie, is quite simply beautiful. It is loving with wisdom, with trust, with abandon. And the Epilogue made any rough places in the writing worth it. It was my favorite section (of many favorites). Reading that last bit of the story made me feel like I was standing there in the twilight, feet in the grass, under the lights, watching the players take their walk through the right center field fence and out into the late summer Iowa corn. It was so good that I did what I almost never do. I read it out loud to myself…if the writing can make me do that, then the time for this book was perfect.