Customer Reviews

Rapture

5 star:		(0)
4 star:		(11)
3 star:		(12)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(5)

 

 

Susan Minot is one of my favorite writers mostly because her characters inhabit a world that seems so alluring and foreign to me. They are super-educated, rich (sometimes they struggle to make their low budget independent films), beautiful, thin, live in New York City, vacation in New England, Europe or the Carribean, have interesting, creative jobs, own fabulous wardrobes and Pottery Barn-like digs. But no one can seem to get their love lives in order. And therein lies the appeal and universality of Minot's writing. Rapture is the story of a man and a woman who at first rush to each other and then, just as quickly, flee from a relationship that has yet to begin. The main draw of this book for me were the raw, exquisitely crafted descriptions of love and desires lost. I identified too well with Kay who is at first wary of sleeping with the engaged Benjamin and when she finally does, he can't leave his fiance or Kay. He wants it both ways. She tries to keep her distance but eventually gives in and their twisted dance comes to a head. Anyone whose had screwy relationships will relate. But it is a novella and the details as to why and how these characters are what they are are mostly absent. Rapture does however searingly describe the contradictions and loneliness sometimes inherint in sex. Minot's comparison of lovers to warriors having just barely survived a battle isn't at all off the mark. A good read for tearing at old or fresh wounds.

Chalk is to cheese as men are to women.

The difference between the genders is put on full display in a new novel that is grabbing the attention of the book world.

Susan Minot's "Rapture" finds two former lovers, Benjamin and Kay, in the midst of a reunion.

In a decision that explains a lot of the fervor over her book, Minot sets the entire novel within this encounter, entering the characters' heads as they have sex, in the Bill Clinton definition of the word.

Two bodies can hardly be closer, while two minds couldn't be further apart.

Kay romanticizes the encounter, and thinks about her addiction to Benjamin, how she likes all the things about him that she isn't supposed to and even telling him that her act is an act of "worship."

Benjamin, meanwhile, seems distant during the whole thing, as he contemplates Vanessa, the woman he can't get out from under his skin and wonders what Kay is thinking.

While all of this is going on, Minot has the characters remember the chain of events that brought them together, as well as the reasons they broke up.

"Rapture" is a daring work, to be sure, and Minot takes her time in telling the story of Benjamin and Kay's relationship.

But there's something missing. We never really connect with her characters as they rendezvous.

Ben, in particular, seems like more of a jerk than anything for leading Kay on, and we wish Kay were not so stupid as to fall for him again.

Which is exactly Minot's point in showing the differences between the man and the woman, but it leaves the audience without someone to root for.

Still, "Rapture" is short in comparison to some of the other lengthy tomes currently rocking the literary world (Jonathan Franzen's "The Corrections," for instance) and can easily be digested in one setting.

But readers will still be hungry after finishing it.

Is it possible to write a book in which a single sex act encompasses the entire story, and yet have that same book be about much more than sex? Susan Minot proves that it can be done in "Rapture."

Let's be clear here: "Rapture" is not a book about sex. At least, it's not only about sex, which seems to disappoint some readers, given the premise. It's also a book about relationships between men and women, about misunderstandings that can occur between them, about love and intimacy, about distance and disappointment. It's essentially about the things that can go right and wrong in a relationship, and about how very different one person's perspective can be from another's.

As "Rapture" opens, the reader observes a rendezvous between two former lovers, now together again unexpectedly, just beginning a sexual interlude. As it progresses, we are given insights into their past from the perspective of both the man and the woman, and we can see how each interprets the same events. Sometimes their take on their shared past is similar, but other times (more often), they see it in widely disparate ways.

As the act progresses towards its inevitable conclusion, the story takes surprising turns. While at least one aspect of the ending is somewhat predictable (how could it not be?), the tone and mood established by Minot's tale at that point give even that a new angle. What would likely be a trite and pithy conclusion in most authors' hands becomes refreshingly new again in Minot's treatment of it.

When all is said and done, "Rapture" is an insightful look at relationships and modern attitudes about love and intimacy, and at how sex can color one's view of these things in surprising ways. It is not intended to titillate its readers, but rather, to communicate to them. It's not a particularly happy book, nor is it sad. It is, however, a compelling story, elegantly told, and unremorsefully observant. Minot proves her skills here, both as a storyteller and as a canny observer of human nature.

Ms. Minot's previous work has been so fantastic, so rich, so full and complex, that I was anxious to get my hands on her newest effort. However, using a sex act as the present-time premise of the entire novella proves itself an unstable, weak, and ultimately tiresome conceit. The "goods" of the piece all take place in the past tense, in reverie and flashback. This keeps the reader away from feeling any urgency in the text, and ultimately, nothing is at stake for these characters. Ms. Minot's writing is sharp, and her power of description formidable, but the characters remain cardboard, and the premise feels empty and vacuous.

Susan Minot's male characters have always been a mystery. They've obsessed and enthralled and ultimately disappointed her heroines, but we were always left confounded by them. I am thinking mostly of the love interests in Folly and Evening. We only find out through the casual discussions of disinterested characters that these guys are heartless. Finally, we are in the mind of one of these flighty males, and I for one am relieved to know what he's thinking. I understand him better than I thought I would. In that way, Rapture as a whole is insightful and comforting with its universal pain type theme. My only objection is that the whole time they are engaged in an act to give HIM pleasure, and it is in fact only the female who is transported by this, going so far as to call it "worship" (had to stop myself from throwing the book at this point). It heightens unnecessarily the degradation and the disappointment that the woman is facing. However, I really enjoyed this book, and struggled with the star rating. And for once it was nice to know what the man in a Susan Minot book is thinking. He wasn't such a mystery after all. In fact, I recognized myself in him. And of course that is the beauty of this novella- that we will recognize ourselves in both characters.

This is a rather interesting novella. The entire story is set during a rendezvous at the heroine's apartment. During the throes of passion, Kay and Benjamin remember the circumstances that brought them together. Kay is hopeful -- albeit skeptical -- that Benjamin will leave his fiancee of eleven years and move in with her. However, Benjamin is confused and torn between the two women. Kay and Benjamin inwardly analyze their feelings for one another during what could be their final sexual encounter. Will Benjamin sort out his feelings, or does he want his cake and eat it too? There are some interesting revelations throughout the novel.

Rapture shines with its sensual prose and brimming intelligence. Susan Minot does a splendid job in exploring the feelings the two protagonists are going through. She writes with a great deal of insight and prose. The erotic scene is the perfect backdrop for the story. I enjoyed reading this provocative novella and look forward to reading more of her work in the future.

I would agree with the other reviewers that said this book missed its mark. However, I still enjoyed it and am glad I read it. Here is why:

This novella is a very dark treatment of sexual relations and how difficult it is to surrender oneself to a single relationship of fidelity. The major characters are Kay and Benjamin, who go though their relationship that cannot exist. Why? Because Benjamin is engaged to another woman, Vanessa, that he really loves.

Where this book is successful is in exploring the "second guessings" that come with people knowing they are bad for each other... but still craving each others flesh. Minot's writing leaves no question that the characters are connected in a type of love... just not the kind that can go anywhere. Thus, it is an intensely frustrating experience trying to follow them through the encounter that is the backdrop to the story ---> a session of oral sex that will most likely be their last.

Where this story failed for me, is that it seemed to short-schrift the sexual tension. I have never been so unimpressed with a b.j. in my life... yet that is the premise of what the characters "rapture" is. Thus, it sets up a sexuality that is never delivered on, and has a very dark take on relationships.

Again, I certainly understand why people were disappointed... yet I did enjoy it, and would recommend it to those prone to helplessness and dark stories.

This doesn't even make a good short story, never mind a hardcover novella. Woman gives an ex-lover a blowjob, and we get intermittent remembrances and consideration of their neuroses and past. But it's not even an interesting past, just a minor affair! If I have ever read a more mundane book about sex and relationships, I can't remember when.

I thoroughly enjoyed how well Minot portrays what these "lovers" are thinking and feeling, and how those revelations show what an odd word "lover" can be for many (most?) relationships. These are two people who don't know themselves well enough to avoid their destructive attraction for each other. What they reveal to the careful reader about themselves in their memories, and in how they think of the sex act that structures the whole book, is often richly ironic, and sometimes devastating. I think, though, that a bit more character development would help. Benjamin's slide into debauchery, for instance, seemed too sudden, even if its inevitability didn't.

Susan Minot wrote one of my favorite books ever: Evening. The lyrical writing and the sad story were stellar. Rapture, too, is full of lyrical writing, and again it's a sad story, but this latest book just didn't move me the same way Evening did.
It's an old story (told in a very brief book, not much over 100 pages): two old lovers who managed to hurt each other repeatedly and badly in their past affair, meet again and fall into bed. The whole story is book-ended between the beginning and conclusion of that sexual act that was unspoken till Bill Clinton turned it into dinner table conversation. And it points out again how different are the meanings that men give to sex, compared to that given by women. She is dreamy and reminiscent, worshiping by her ministrations, remembering mostly the good times. He, in contract, is detached and focused on other things, remember what a cad he was and how much pain they gave each other. Through the device of alternating interior monologues, Minot has these two people, Kay and Benjamin, recall their past and all the events that have led to this moment. They never say a word to each other until the end of the book, when their differences again become agonizingly apparent.
It's good, it's revelatory, it's beautifully written. It explores the depths of an emotional relationship more deeply than I think I've ever seen done before. But the distance of the people is somehow passed on to the reader, and I felt just that: distanced.