The Hustler

The Hustler is one of those "near perfect movies" that is so focused on the charaters that it becomes irresistable. The Hustler film adaptation gets very close to perfect. Paul Newman, Jackie Gleason, George C. Scott,Piper Laurie and Murray Hamilton,the universal character actor seen in everything, fall right out of the pages of the novel. Apparently the producers needed that little bit of extra drama so they had to kill off Susan after she was seduced by Bert the family businessman. Now, after reading the novel, I don't buy it. It's out of character. The Hustler the novel like many a will written work gone to film is far better and more subtle than the film. Eddie's character is fully developed and the story read so smoothly and seamlessly like a tale from an accomplished story teller, not a word wasted.

For fans of the classic movie, this is an interesting read. The plot is the same as the film, but for a very different ending. It’s not great literature but there are a couple compelling characters and descriptions of pool that players will appreciate. The movie is very much the better of the two.

You probably know the story of “The Hustler” from the 1961 Paul Newman movie of the same name. It’s the tale of small time pool hustler Eddie Felson who wants to move from the small time to the big time by playing the best pool player, Minnesota Fats. He loses to Fats, falls for a woman, gets his thumbs broken, is taught how to win by gambler Bert, and has a rematch with Fats. It’s all there, the pleasure comes in the prose of Tevis’ writing. The prose is sepia tinged as it should be for the world it’s conjuring for the reader. Tevis uses highly descriptive language, he‘s painting the words on thickly. I recently read Tevis’ “ The Man Who Fell to Earth ” which was written only about five years after “The Hustler” and he doesn’t use the thickly descriptive adjectives as he does in “Hustler.” It’s obviously a choice Tevis made in the writing. The conclusion of “The Hustler” is a little more straightforward than the movie, and leaves you a bit more in limbo, because that’s where Tevis’ leaves Eddie, in limbo with Sarah. Are they made for each other? Are they both locked into their “contract of depravity” and they can only be with each other? After the second match with Minnesota Fats has Bert sunk his claws far enough into Eddie to keep him hustling for him? “Walter Tevis’ “The Hustler” was an instant classic. It received critical acclaim at it’s publication and of course being made into a movie. Tevis’ may have been a bit out of step with his contemporaries in incorporating a more traditional writing style than Jack Kerouac or The Beats but Tevis’ style holds up after almost sixty years and still reads as freshly as the day it was written.

This book by Walter Tevis truly evokes the sights, smells and sounds of the old-time pool halls. If you grew up shooting pool in the 1960's, you undoubtedly knew the movie based on this book and quoted it extensively. And knew the names of the real pool hustlers on which the book was based. If you played a good stick, perhaps you had a nickname bestowed on you, like the many characters in the book. The movie was quite faithful to the book source material, though the movie expanded substantially on the Sarah (played by Piper Laurie) character with a more made for the movies ending. At 224 pages, the book is a quick read that vividly evokes the world of the pool hustler. A Walter Tevis renewal is underway with the success of The Queen's Gambit on Netflix, another of Tevis's novels that faithfully describes the environment of high-level competition and the toll paid by the players. While neither chess nor pool are widely played in today's world, Tevis's work is worth studying for the direct way his words create the worlds these characters inhabited. Tevis delves into the recesses of the human spirit in these two books and reveals how character (or lack thereof) is key to winning or losing in the game of life as well as chess or pool.

Walter Tevis' The Hustler is a good story, maybe a great one, about Fast Eddie Felson and how he transforms from a pool hustler to a winner. It is a little overly wordy and it lacks something, not quite sure what, that would put it over the top. It's also just a little too preachy for my taste. Oddly, my memories of the movie with Newman and Jackie Gleason are sharper and have that indefinable something, that glow, that the book comes close to but just misses.

This is a well-written story that gives the reader that emphasizes a man's devotion to the game of pool, the importance of practice, concentration and skill-building, and the inside poop on pool hustling. However, in comparison to the magnificent 1961 film, this reviewer was disappointed with the novel because the characters from the film just aren't there. There's much more description than there is dialogue between characters, and the characters just aren't as intriguing as those in the film.

A terrific book. Really gets into the psychology of becoming a winning competitor in zero-sum contests, among other things. It can also be seem as a illustration of what life can be like without friendships, love, or a positive relationship with God. This is the 3rd book I have read by Mr. Tevis. I have enjoyed and learned from all of them and am looking forward to reading more of his books.

"The Hustler" is related to the movie by Paul Newman, and later the movie "The Color of Money" with both Newman and Tom Cruise. The book is a surprisingly good classic though, since it opens up the hidden struggle of every man: how should we respond to life challenges? Hidden within every man is the secret desire to win and dominate. If there are docile men out there, it is not because they are born that way, but it is because they have subconsciously developed a losing mentality, complete with the accompanying excuses and rationalization. This book beautifully dissect the psychology behind it, but even more than that, strongly suggests a way out of this negative spiral. A very masculine book; I believe every man should read this, and unloose their shackle of a humdrum life and start living life the way it has always been intended to be: victorious, purposeful, and in full. As a side note, most females will not be able to resonate with the concepts in this book, however, it will give you a fascinating insight into the male's psyche, and might make them better understand what is going on in the minds of their counter-gender.