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Title: Rapture by Susan Minot ISBN: 0-375-72788-4 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 08 April, 2003 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 3.04 (24 reviews)
Rating: 3
Summary: Sex "lite."
Comment: 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.
Rating: 4
Summary: More communication than titillation
Comment: 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.
Rating: 4
Summary: Why not to take an old lover back into your bedroom
Comment: 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.
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Title: Lust and Other Stories by Susan Minot ISBN: 0375709258 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 08 August, 2000 List Price(USD): $11.00 |
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Title: Evening by SUSAN MINOT ISBN: 0375700269 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 07 September, 1999 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Monkeys by SUSAN MINOT ISBN: 0375708367 Publisher: Vintage Pub. Date: 08 August, 2000 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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Title: Poems 4 A.M. by Susan Minot ISBN: 0375412581 Publisher: Knopf Pub. Date: 07 May, 2002 List Price(USD): $18.00 |
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Title: Breakup : The End of a Love Story by Catherine Texier ISBN: 0385495234 Publisher: Anchor Pub. Date: 17 August, 1999 List Price(USD): $11.95 |
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