Shoeless Joe – W.P. Kinsella

For the first foray into the fiction section of the baseball bookstore of life, let’s take a look at W.P. Kinsella’s Shoeless Joe. If you don’t already know for sure, you may see the name Kinsella together with Shoeless Joe and think of Kevin Costner and the movie Field of Dreams. That is no coincidence as this was the inspiration for the movie that many consider the greatest baseball movie ever made.

As much as I’d like to review the book without comparing it to the movie, in this case it is impossible. To start, in any fictional story there is a suspension of disbelief. Obviously, dead people won’t come back to life and play baseball in your backyard if you build a baseball field there (believe me, I’ve tried), but since it’s the premise of the movie, you just go along for the ride. For me at least, this is always harder to do in books. This may partially be because generally books provide a lot more back story than a movie does as well as a much more thorough description of what is going on at the time.

For example, take one of my favorite books turned movie ever, Jurrasic Park. When you watch the movie, you don’t question how John Hammond has a corporation that can afford an island, a full staff and years of research before actually bringing in any money at all. In the book, all this is explained when the prologue gives you a long drawn out history of inGen. Of course, there aren’t any dinosaurs eating people in this section, so it makes sense that it that it was left out of the movie. People just move on because there are pretty things to look at.

In Shoeless Joe, this is also the case. There is a much more thorough description of his financial situation and every step of his way across the country. Because of this, instead of the head in the clouds prophet of the good lord baseball, Ray Kinsella comes off as a creep, an idiot and a felon multiple times over.

Much of his travels across the country that are found in the book are not in the movie and with good reason. They do little to advance the plot or develop characters, in fact Ray’s discussion with Terrence Mann coming back from Minnesota in the movie does more to explain his relationship with his father than anything in the book. Of course, this particular conversation was not taken directly from the source material, at least partly because Mann is not in the book, instead the author he goes East to find is J.D. Salinger, a not so fictional character.

Also missing from the movie were a couple important characters in Eddie ‘Kid’ Scissons, the oldest living Cub, and Ray’s brother Richard. In fact it was Salinger’s use of both Ray and Richard Kinsella that convinced him it was fate in the book, not his father’s name as it was in the movie. The character of Scissons is technically in the movie in an early scene when Ray discusses his voices, but doesn’t play a prominent role as he does in the book. This is just as well as his story isn’t anywhere near as moving as that of Salinger or Moonlight Graham. As for Ray’s brother, his character was removed, for better or worse, with parts of his story and attitude split among Ray and his brother in law Marc.

As Ray comes off a little more psychotic in the book, Marc comes off more evil. He is bad enough in the movie, but in written word he is a true villain. In fact, all the characters are more extreme than their on screen version particularly considering Salinger’s aloofness and Annie’s sexuality. This is both a necessity because you cannot actually see or hear the characters and a case where an author can get away with a lot more in a book than a director can in a movie.

It is possibly my own fault that I didn’t enjoy the book as much as the movie, because I found it harder to suspend disbelief, but in nearly every aspect the movie was superior. A few examples are the field itself, which in the movie was a beautiful full field in the movie, was described as being a bleacher and a left field wall for much of the book. Another is the emotional speech from James Earl Jones at the end of Field of Dreams. While pieces are found in the same place in Shoeless Joe, it was reordered and cut apart to the point that it flows better and sounds much more sincere in the movie.

A final point which can be taken as a positive or negative, there were several anachronisms in the movie, not the least of which was that Swede Risberg, a utility infielder, was named as the catcher, a position he never played in real life. In general, these don’t exist in the book with more information about each of the eight men out and all of them playing the correct position. This is actually integral to the story, in a way that makes more sense in the book than the movie, but you will have to read to find out. It also really brings to light the hero worship of these eight players, who did in fact accept money to throw the World Series. While Shoeless Joe Jackson may have been partially innocent, there is no question that the knuckle baller, Eddie Cicotte and first baseman Chick Gandil were completely guilty. If Ray really cared about the game so much, I could understand allowing Jackson and Buck Weaver to play on his field, but letting Gandil and Cicotte play is just asking for a backyard gambling ring.

I hope I haven’t given away too much, just enlightened those who have seen the movie that there is a book and possibly convinced those who haven’t seen the movie that they need to immediately. As for which to do first if you haven’t seen either yet, I recommend the movie if you want an emotional story and the book if you want one that is more realistic. Because the premise isn’t realistic at all, if you still can’t decide, go for Field of Dreams over Shoeless Joe because once you believe that dead baseball players can play catch in a corn field, you might as well go all the way.