Rapture

Book Review by The Uncultured Bacterium

RAPTURE
by Susan Minot
Alfred A. Knopf, 2002

It's more than just a book about a blow job.

RAPTURE is a remarkable little novella. Only 116 pages long, it is a stunning description of how, even in moments of supreme intimacy, people can still be completely disconnected from each other. The author, Susan Minot, is best known as the screenwriter for Liv Tyler's breakout movie "Stealing Beauty," and while her prose doesn't flow smoothly, her intimate knowledge about - intimate knowledge! - is insightful, deep and cunning.

The story covers only 7 minutes of real time. Kay, an attractive 34 year old production assistant, has invited her ex-boyfriend Benjamin, a budding indie film director, up to her apartment for lunch. Benjamin is engaged to Vanessa, but he's curious to see what's new with his old girlfriend Kay, so he consents. We find this out in retrospect, for the novel begins with him flat on his back while Kay lip-whips his glad handle, and from there to the "climax" of the story, we shift back and forth between the thoughts of the two lovers.

SHE'S GETTING INTO IT

Of the two partners, Kay is the most interesting. Putting aside all doubts about her relationship with Benjamin, Kay approaches her task as if she were taking Holy Communion. Anybody who has studied acting will recognize what Kay is doing - by "getting into the moment," her past and future, all of her doubts, insecurities and worries, dissolve away. Concentrating only on the moment, the relief Kay feels from having the burdens of her conscious mind removed are even more erotic than what's melting in her mouth, not in her hands. By the end of the story, Kay's mind is empty of anything but the present and what she is doing. Furiously polishing Benjamin's throat-seeking missile, Kay's passion rises until .".. at the moment she was feeling what surely must be the best feeling there was. Rapture."

HE ISN'T!!

Benjamin, on the other hand is so out of the moment you want to strangle him. His mind races with visions of the past, the future, everything but the nice lady between his legs. He thinks he loves Kay but should marry Vanessa, and his self-talk spoils the whole thing with stuff like "I'm such a jerk, and will this film work, did I lock my door this morning, this thing with Kay was doomed from the start, I'm drinking too much, I'm such a horrible person and if I'm ever going to get on with my life I'd better shape up, should I tell Kay what a loser I am," on and on ad nauseum. Grudgingly ("He wondered if she was getting tired...") he finally delivers a weak little climax, that, compared to Kay's worshipful epiphany, is absolutely pathetic. And he immediately ruins even that! "He wondered if Kay had any idea...how wretched he felt, or how polluted he was, or really how bad...because if they did, they'd see what a truly hideous human being he was." Yo, LIGHTEN UP!

Superficially, RAPTURE resembles INNOCENCE, a short story by Harold Brodkey. Reversing roles, INNOCENCE is about Orra, a wasp girl at Harvard who is having her taco munched by Wiley, a nice Jewish boy (VERY nice Jewish boy!). The differences are revealing - INNOCENCE is told from the first person perspective of Wiley, and Orra's reactions to his talented tongue are known only through him. Personalizing the story through Wiley while he eats at the Y would seem to be the better approach, but INNOCENCE is a strangely bland and uncompelling story. Kay and Benjamin's tortured history add a depth to their relationship that Orra and Wiley don't have, and Kay's blast-furnace hot passion while ministering to the one-eyed tonsil tickler dwarfs Wiley's workmanlike approach to the chore of tongue-lashing Orra. RAPTURE is by far the superior story.

THESIS,ANTITHESIS, BUT NO SYNTHESIS

The striking thing about RAPTURE is how Kay and Benjamin are just not on the same page. At a moment when two people should be closer than ever, they might as well be living on different continents. Neither has a clue to what's going on in the other's mind, though Kay gets it right by having nothing there at all. With a little effort, Benjamin could bring the streams of their souls to some sort of junction, but Kay unrealistically idealizes her partner, and that demoralizes Benjamin to the point where he doesn't even try. A statement of profound loneliness, of starvation at a feast, the book's odd ending, bringing both triumph and despair, is a startling denouement.

Writing an entire book centered around a single act of oral sex is not the sort of exercise they teach you in English class, and while it's not a masterpiece, RAPTURE does bring up unsettling doubts that anybody can ever really connect with another human being. Perhaps, we really are doomed to forever be alone with ourselves, left only with our longing and our hope that we can join up with a soulmate. It's the sort of novel you can sink your teeth into. Though if you do, do so gently.