Generally, I do not like sex in the novels I read. It irritates me. Usually it consists of gratuitous, titillating descriptions which have little to do with the plot line. "And then she reached for a certain part of his anatomy..." Hubba, hubba. I know what sex is like, you don't have to tell me. So it is unusual that I picked up Rapture by Susan Minot. But I was impressed that the jacket flap was straight forward about sexual content. More or less it said, this book is about these two characters having sex one afternoon. I appreciate when people and dust jackets are up front.
I read it. This is another short read. Better than Amsterdam. Mostly she writes like a novelist, which is an okay thing, as the book is a novel. And writing like a novelist can produce lyrical descriptions or penetrating insights, and in them you can recognize a bit of truth. What is a little different about Minot is that she captures lines here and there which are very honest. I think that's pretty rare. For example, there's this part describing Benjamin's perspective of meeting Kay for the first time. The paragraph is concluded with this sentence, "He wanted to keep making her laugh." There's no fifty cent words or artistic adjectives or similies or metaphors. No allusions to great literature or nature or philosophy. Just a simple expression of desire that somehow carries with it the excitement and anticipation of someone new.
So these two, Kay and Benjamin, are having sex the whole book (or not, if you use Bill Clinton's definition.) The uh, blow by blow descriptions are very short because the rest of the book is taken up with flashbacks of their entire relationship - alternating with the his and her perspective. {Apparently, this is a popular format? I would like to know since when. It's very annoying at first because it means I, the reader, have to work. Jeez.} Anyway, as far as the plot and character development is concerned, I think she does a very good job of depicting the sorts of games people play with themselves. You know, those rationalizing, justifying, second-guessing sorts of games. Oh yes, this is a really happy book.
I guess I am a bit of a simpleton, because partly how I judge a book is if I like the characters. These two are not necessarily people I would want to hang out with - but Minot does an excellent job of relaying thier motivations and miseries. Unfortunately, I can relate to some of it, so they can't be all bad, right? Which reminds me of another most excellent quote from this book, "The only things truly in the past are things completely forgotten." I am still trying to decide if this would be worth reading again, and if I have to think about it, the answer is probably no. But not bad for a few hours worth of somebody else's psychological and emotional convolutions.
By adriennelibrarian at 12:01 AM