Three years ago at dusk on a sunny evening, when the sky was a robin’s-egg’s blue and the wind was as soft as a day-old chick, I was sitting on the verandah of my farm home in eastern Iowa when a voice very clearly said to me, “If you build it he will come.”
As said by the story’s narrator John Kinsella in the magic realism book Shoeless Joe (1982). W.P. Kinsella’s novel, which wonderfully tells of an Iowa farmer building a farm so as to see the spirits of legendary baseball players, was famously adapted for the 1989 film Field of Dreams.
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Haven’t read this book. I saw the movie, but I’m not the biggest fan of it. However, there’s no denying that’s a good piece of prose.
Not a fan of the movie? But it’s great! The book really does have that magic.
You build your blog, Alex, and we come to it. Thanks!
That works too 😃
If you book them, they will come 😉
I trying to think of a line form a cinema has been referenced so much. Jaws, maybe?
We’re going to need a bigger boat!
Exactly. The last one I used was from Witjnail and I. “I think we’ve gone on holiday by mistake”
Mr O can quote that whole film from memory!
I hope he has the finest wines available to humanity.
I love, LOVE the way W.P. Kinsella writes about baseball.
I’ve only read this one. But it really comes through on every page. I’m not a baseball fan, and it’s never been big here in the UK, but he is infectious.
Love Field of Dreams. Oh man, the nostalgia is powerful with this one.
It’s full of nostalgia and sentimentality. And it’s wonderful for it. I do recommend the book of you haven’t read it. There’s enough different storylines from the film and there’s some very evocative imagery.