I've been a huge fan of n+1 since Issue #1, and so I was excited to see the wide appeal that The Art of Fielding seemed to have. That, and the baseball aspect, and this was presumably a match made in heaven. Reality didn't quite live up to my hopes. I felt like I was reading a slightly watered-down version of Freedom, in which the writing was plain, the characters familiar if annoying, and the decisions they make irritating but symbolic. This was naturally offset by the verisimilitude of the baseball scenes, in which Harbach gets the details right: how much a third round draft pick might expect to make; the funny references to Peter Gammons and Scott Boras; the angles of an outfielder's body as he takes two hops in preparation for a throw to first. 
 But, unlike Freedom, which ended up on my did-not-finish list, I stuck with this one and was rewarded with a stirring conclusion and some quality reflections on the nature of freedom, power, self-overcoming, etc. Here come the spoilers: (view spoiler)[ 
 -- Affenlight's ruinous love never seemed convincing. I appreciate how it foils the homoerotic ties between Schwartz and Henry, but that is about it; 
 -- After all, why leave the happy heteros intact while destroying the queer love? Isn't that anti-gay punishment? 
 -- The rest of the Westish Harpooners seemed to exist only to be beat up by Schwartz at opportune moments; 
 -- Which reminds me of the parallels between Schwartz/Henry and Gately/Hal. I kept wondering if Affenlight had a cartridge in his head, or in his casket, to be dug up in the final scene? I thought at some point that the reader might slip up and have Pella refer to her Dad as "Himself." 
 -- All of which does not minimize the greatness of, for instance, Chapter 50, connecting Steve Blass disease to the publication of Gravity's Rainbow as a defining moment for the emergence of postmodernism, I mean, wow. (hide spoiler)] 
 -- Do I need to re-read Moby Dick to get this book? I wonder....