This is technically Coover's most brilliant achievement in the novel form, rivalling his stories "The Babysitter" and "A Pedestrian Accident" in originality and effectiveness. Coover's technique is to blur deliberately the distinctions readers can make between the world Henry inhabits and the one he creates. As critics often note, when the novel opens, readers seem to learn of the description of a literal baseball game — as if they were at a ballpark.

When the hero steps out to get food and beer, readers must change their perspective; now perhaps they are watching someone watch a game on television, even if the team or player names are unfamiliar (most mimetic baseball novels, like Bernard Malamud's The Natural (1952), use recogniz able teams); eventually, while Henry eats his sandwich and handles the dice, readers realize what kind of game is being played.

Similar confusion about which is more real, the...