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p_t_b's review against another edition
5.0
if you are not slightly a baseball history dork you can probably skip this one but holy crud did I love this book. This novel is about a set of Jewish jeweler brothers and their anguished ways of being men. The narrator is obsessed with Christy Mathewson, the older brother is a degenerate gambler and the younger brother is obsessed with success. Christy Mathewson winds up being both a Christ figure and a fable about how fame corrodes human natures. Also a bunch of weird baseball nerd stuff and John McGraw acting like Mynheer Peeperkorn from The Magic Mountain. Slightly absurd in points but I would definitely put this on any short list of best novels about baseball.
amongthefaithless's review
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
5.0
dejajoue's review against another edition
reflective
sad
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
guinness74's review against another edition
4.0
A great little historical fiction about the Baseball life of Christy Mathewson. It covers the fictional Kapinski (Kapp) brothers whose family immigrated to the States and their lives against the backdrop of Mathewson’s major league career. If you have any interest in baseball history around the early 1900s (particularly the New York Giants) and/or Christy Mathewson, then you may enjoy this book.
resareads's review against another edition
4.0
I'm not a huge sports fan by any means, but I grew up in a family that loved baseball and that's the one sport I've made an effort to keep up with over the years. If you are neither a sports fan nor a baseball fan there is a good chance you aren't going to enjoy this book. I'm telling you that right off the bat (no pun intended). While the book itself is written well and contains some much deeper themes than just "sports" if you don't have a love in your heart for baseball none of that will be enough to interest you.
The Celebrant details the character Jack's relationship with Giants' picture Christy Mathewson. Jack adores Mathewson from affair, turning him into an idol and the ballpark his "secular temple." Jack's family runs a jewelry business and through Jack's love of Mathewson he designs rings that catapult the business to huge success as well as a contract with MLB for championship ring design. This is just part of the story though. While the relationship between Jack and Mathewson, the idololized and the celebrant, is the focus for the majority of the book the text also explores the darker aspects of the game -- ending in the Black Sox scandal.
This book should not be taken as a historical document of baseball in its early years, while the players are real this story is fiction and should be treated as such (although I do believe Greenberg did a decent job of staying true to the facts). Greenberg creates characters you feel you understand and empathize with, especially if you've grown up in a family that loved baseball. Jack's relationships with his brothers feel true to life and when he finally sees Mathewson as just a man it is the same feeling we've all felt when our childhood heroes turn back into mortals. A story of love, consequences, faith, and disillusionment "The Celebrant" is worth your time.
The Celebrant details the character Jack's relationship with Giants' picture Christy Mathewson. Jack adores Mathewson from affair, turning him into an idol and the ballpark his "secular temple." Jack's family runs a jewelry business and through Jack's love of Mathewson he designs rings that catapult the business to huge success as well as a contract with MLB for championship ring design. This is just part of the story though. While the relationship between Jack and Mathewson, the idololized and the celebrant, is the focus for the majority of the book the text also explores the darker aspects of the game -- ending in the Black Sox scandal.
This book should not be taken as a historical document of baseball in its early years, while the players are real this story is fiction and should be treated as such (although I do believe Greenberg did a decent job of staying true to the facts). Greenberg creates characters you feel you understand and empathize with, especially if you've grown up in a family that loved baseball. Jack's relationships with his brothers feel true to life and when he finally sees Mathewson as just a man it is the same feeling we've all felt when our childhood heroes turn back into mortals. A story of love, consequences, faith, and disillusionment "The Celebrant" is worth your time.
zakkramer's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
the_resa_p's review against another edition
4.0
I'm not a huge sports fan by any means, but I grew up in a family that loved baseball and that's the one sport I've made an effort to keep up with over the years. If you are neither a sports fan nor a baseball fan there is a good chance you aren't going to enjoy this book. I'm telling you that right off the bat (no pun intended). While the book itself is written well and contains some much deeper themes than just "sports" if you don't have a love in your heart for baseball none of that will be enough to interest you.
The Celebrant details the character Jack's relationship with Giants' picture Christy Mathewson. Jack adores Mathewson from affair, turning him into an idol and the ballpark his "secular temple." Jack's family runs a jewelry business and through Jack's love of Mathewson he designs rings that catapult the business to huge success as well as a contract with MLB for championship ring design. This is just part of the story though. While the relationship between Jack and Mathewson, the idololized and the celebrant, is the focus for the majority of the book the text also explores the darker aspects of the game -- ending in the Black Sox scandal.
This book should not be taken as a historical document of baseball in its early years, while the players are real this story is fiction and should be treated as such (although I do believe Greenberg did a decent job of staying true to the facts). Greenberg creates characters you feel you understand and empathize with, especially if you've grown up in a family that loved baseball. Jack's relationships with his brothers feel true to life and when he finally sees Mathewson as just a man it is the same feeling we've all felt when our childhood heroes turn back into mortals. A story of love, consequences, faith, and disillusionment "The Celebrant" is worth your time.
The Celebrant details the character Jack's relationship with Giants' picture Christy Mathewson. Jack adores Mathewson from affair, turning him into an idol and the ballpark his "secular temple." Jack's family runs a jewelry business and through Jack's love of Mathewson he designs rings that catapult the business to huge success as well as a contract with MLB for championship ring design. This is just part of the story though. While the relationship between Jack and Mathewson, the idololized and the celebrant, is the focus for the majority of the book the text also explores the darker aspects of the game -- ending in the Black Sox scandal.
This book should not be taken as a historical document of baseball in its early years, while the players are real this story is fiction and should be treated as such (although I do believe Greenberg did a decent job of staying true to the facts). Greenberg creates characters you feel you understand and empathize with, especially if you've grown up in a family that loved baseball. Jack's relationships with his brothers feel true to life and when he finally sees Mathewson as just a man it is the same feeling we've all felt when our childhood heroes turn back into mortals. A story of love, consequences, faith, and disillusionment "The Celebrant" is worth your time.
ssindc's review against another edition
5.0
What a strange and wondrous, albeit thin and quirky niche piece of historical fiction, and, as a special bonus, a gratifying and fulfilling novel! It didn't surprise me to learn that the original - published now more than twenty years - saw print through a University press; so, kudos to the University of Nebraska Press for recognizing the genius of the work and anticipating that the book could become a gift to those lucky enough to receive it.
I wish I'd made a note as to how it ended up on my reading list. I expect I saw it on the newspaper sports page at the beginning of the baseball season, which would make sense, to the extent that it's on the list of Sports Illustrated's Top 100 Sports Books of All Time. So let's get the obvious out of the way: if you don't know or care about (and, potentially, love) baseball , this book is not for you. It's an homage to the history of the game, if not a meditation or a benediction. If the phenomenon of sports iconography, of unabashed hero worship (particularly of the legends such as, here, Christy Mathewson) means nothing to you, I expect this will leave you cold. But if you love the game, if you've read, I dunno, Men at Work, or Summer of '49, or, Shoeless Joe, or, more recently, Moneyball or, on the fiction side of things, The Art of Fielding, or even the are-you-kidding-me, "is it more bizarre that folks wrote, published, or read this" restropsective Stephen King chronicle The Faithful, ... well, this is a must read.
But ... but ... as geeky and as detailed and as micro and as myopically obsessive the baseball theme dominates, there is ... so ... much ... more to this - both in terms of the history - yes, lots and lots and lots of baseball (in the early 1900's, particularly the professionalization of the league, the leagues, the players, the World Series, and yes, the scandals) but also the immigrant (particularly Jewish) experience, life in New York City, travel (trains and those new automobiles), department stores, hotels, ... and, yes, the story itself, of coming of age, and family, and of expanding horizons, and self-examination, and change, and love, and loss.
Part of me wishes that the baseball minutiae wasn't as dense so that more readers might embark up on the journey, meet the protagonist's family, and wonder at what aspects of the history are real versus imagined. But I can't imagine how non-baseball fans could penetrate the initial layer of breathless recounting (or re-imagining) of individual games (regardless how epic or significant they've become over time).
Which brings me to the conclusion that I'll join those that deemed this one of the best baseball books ever, ... and that's plenty good enough for me.
I wish I'd made a note as to how it ended up on my reading list. I expect I saw it on the newspaper sports page at the beginning of the baseball season, which would make sense, to the extent that it's on the list of Sports Illustrated's Top 100 Sports Books of All Time. So let's get the obvious out of the way: if you don't know or care about (and, potentially, love) baseball , this book is not for you. It's an homage to the history of the game, if not a meditation or a benediction. If the phenomenon of sports iconography, of unabashed hero worship (particularly of the legends such as, here, Christy Mathewson) means nothing to you, I expect this will leave you cold. But if you love the game, if you've read, I dunno, Men at Work, or Summer of '49, or, Shoeless Joe, or, more recently, Moneyball or, on the fiction side of things, The Art of Fielding, or even the are-you-kidding-me, "is it more bizarre that folks wrote, published, or read this" restropsective Stephen King chronicle The Faithful, ... well, this is a must read.
But ... but ... as geeky and as detailed and as micro and as myopically obsessive the baseball theme dominates, there is ... so ... much ... more to this - both in terms of the history - yes, lots and lots and lots of baseball (in the early 1900's, particularly the professionalization of the league, the leagues, the players, the World Series, and yes, the scandals) but also the immigrant (particularly Jewish) experience, life in New York City, travel (trains and those new automobiles), department stores, hotels, ... and, yes, the story itself, of coming of age, and family, and of expanding horizons, and self-examination, and change, and love, and loss.
Part of me wishes that the baseball minutiae wasn't as dense so that more readers might embark up on the journey, meet the protagonist's family, and wonder at what aspects of the history are real versus imagined. But I can't imagine how non-baseball fans could penetrate the initial layer of breathless recounting (or re-imagining) of individual games (regardless how epic or significant they've become over time).
Which brings me to the conclusion that I'll join those that deemed this one of the best baseball books ever, ... and that's plenty good enough for me.
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