‘‘The Thrill of the Grass’’ is not an entirely realistic story, nor is it a work of pure fantasy. Like much of Kinsella’s fiction, it falls somewhere in between, portraying not the world as it is, but rather, the world as Kinsella imagines it might be. Kinsella writes in his introduction to ‘‘The Thrill of…
Tag: W.P. Kinsella
The Thrill of the Grass – Setting
Baseball Strike and Free Agency The 1981 baseball strike was largely fought over the issue of free agency. Baseball owners had become accustomed to thinking of players as property—assets to be traded at will. However, during the decade leading up to the strike, players had been lobbying to obtain the rights of more modern employees,…
The Thrill of the Grass – Literary Devices
Magical Realism Magical realism is a term used to describe those fictions in which the fantastic becomes part of a story in which events are otherwise narrated using the objective tone that characterizes realistic fiction in general. It is often associated with Latin American writers like Jorge Luis Borges or Gabriel Garcı´a Ma´ rquez, although…
The Thrill of the Grass – Themes
Family The characters in this story are, for the most part, older people for whom family takes a place of central importance in their lives. The narrator not only loves his wife but his love of baseball is closely tied to his relationships with his daughters and granddaughter. One daughter, who lives in Japan, is…
The Thrill of the Grass – Characters
Maggie Maggie is the narrator’s wife, and the mother of his daughters. They have been together for so long that Maggie ‘‘knew me when I still dreamed of playing professionally.’’ Although they have a warm and affectionate marriage, the narrator does not tell his wife where he goes at night because, although she loves him,…
The Thrill of the Grass – Summary
The story opens in 1981, about a month into the baseball strike that truncated the season. The first-person narrator, who remains unnamed, finds the absence of baseball ‘‘a disruption to the psyche.’’ The narrator is an older man who considers himself a ‘‘failed shortstop’’ and who once had aspirations of playing professionally. On his way…