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jonh's review
3.0
It's not as good as I remember it being, but there's still some things to like.
I went through a "provocative" phase at the end of high school, beginning of college, drawn to the most extreme and controversial books, plays, any works of art. I felt jaded ac society's apparent consumption of art without investing in it. My friends and I would submit to the high school literary magazine, and nobody seemed interested. I wanted to write things that grabbed people's attention, made them think. And so I voraciously read anything that pushed buttons.
Only later did I realize that no one was interested in what I was putting out, and I was just projecting that rejection onto literature as a whole. But in recognizing that little tidbit of egotism, I also realized that provocation has its place, but that provocation for the sake of provocation usually doesn't last.
Which brings me to Adam Rapp. I think Adam Rapp is a fine writer: a damn good one, even. Known primarily for his short-listed play Red Light Winter, Rapp has written numerous theatrical works, a handful of young adult novels, and a graphic novel or two. His is not the most extreme work out there, but it is provocative and chock full of "big" ideas. Rapp clearly has something to say, and he's got the chops to succinctly and clearly make his point. That writing is not always consistent, however, and at times what's meant as a subtle theme becomes increasingly didactic. Clever ideas interfere with good storytelling, and the whole affair becomes just . . . so-so.
In short, when it works, it really works. And Essential Self-Defense, for the most part, does work.
It's a love story, basically, centered on a paranoid children's book publisher (Sadie) and the human dummy at her self-defense class (Yul). After knocking out his tooth, Sadie calls Yul to make sure he's okay, invites him out to dinner, and the ball continues to roll. But there is more to Yul than meets the eye: frequently railing against the government, he lives by himself in a bunker, spending his spare time pumping hard-boiled eggs full of mysterious chemicals. When children start to go missing from the local junior high, is it any wonder why he'd be a suspect?
Essential Self-Defense, as elaborated on in the introduction, is a play about paranoia: in particular, how a whole society responds to a tragic event, whether it be 9/11 (Rapp's example) or the serial kidnapping of children. Society needs a villain, and who we choose to blame says a lot about who we are as a people, a town, a nation and so on.
And that element of Essential Self-Defense IS intriguing, but too quickly does that theme get bogged down in the "preciousness" of its characters. Yul and Sadie meet for drinks at a karaoke bar, also attended by the town butcher and his stereotypical displays of hyper-masculinity. The joint is operated by a punk rock librarian (always quick to drop the F-bomb) and her Russian poet husband, whose non-sequiters are interpreted as "deep".
There are connections between these characters, but they don't feel fleshed out. There are multiple facets to their personalities, but those personalities, every single time, are dominated by exactly one character trait. It gets exhausting. AND. To emphasize the uniqueness of these characters even further, the karaoke bar hosts a "make up your own song" night, with each character professing their deep-rooted psychological quirks over drum and guitar.
It's one thing to build an eccentric world, populated by quirky characters. But to have those characters "improvise" these complex, poetic self-analyses in perfect time with "improvised" music is hard to believe. Which, in and of itself, is not necessarily a problem. I personally don't cotton to the "inconceivable" critique of creative writing. If an element of a story is outside your realm of comprehension, it is your responsibility as reader (not the author's responsibility as creator) to try and understand what is being presented to you.
But there is something to be said for elements that don't jive together, and a difference must be made between things that aren't believable to YOU specifically and things that aren't believable within the world of the story. And that's where Essential Self-Defense trips me up. The grimness of kidnapping children suggests that we're operating within a semi-realistic, albeit eccentric, world. Yet the goings-on at the karaoke bar suggests something meta-theatrical: an awareness of how we perform, like the works of Bertolt Brecht. If that's the case, then the performances at the karaoke bar seem less precious and more, for lack of a better term, expressionistic, the world of the play reflecting the mental state of its characters.
I get that impression a lot when I read Adam Rapp, but I'm not entirely convinced it's intentional. Essential Self-Defense is good, but I think it imagines itself "more" than what it actually is. To not spoil too much, the kidnapping of children plot turns out to be less than what you'd expect it to be. Which works, but I'm just not sure what purpose that serves regarding the overall narrative.
Like I said, Essential Self-Defense is enjoyable and worth a read. But for me, at least, it does not hold up as well as I would have liked.
I went through a "provocative" phase at the end of high school, beginning of college, drawn to the most extreme and controversial books, plays, any works of art. I felt jaded ac society's apparent consumption of art without investing in it. My friends and I would submit to the high school literary magazine, and nobody seemed interested. I wanted to write things that grabbed people's attention, made them think. And so I voraciously read anything that pushed buttons.
Only later did I realize that no one was interested in what I was putting out, and I was just projecting that rejection onto literature as a whole. But in recognizing that little tidbit of egotism, I also realized that provocation has its place, but that provocation for the sake of provocation usually doesn't last.
Which brings me to Adam Rapp. I think Adam Rapp is a fine writer: a damn good one, even. Known primarily for his short-listed play Red Light Winter, Rapp has written numerous theatrical works, a handful of young adult novels, and a graphic novel or two. His is not the most extreme work out there, but it is provocative and chock full of "big" ideas. Rapp clearly has something to say, and he's got the chops to succinctly and clearly make his point. That writing is not always consistent, however, and at times what's meant as a subtle theme becomes increasingly didactic. Clever ideas interfere with good storytelling, and the whole affair becomes just . . . so-so.
In short, when it works, it really works. And Essential Self-Defense, for the most part, does work.
It's a love story, basically, centered on a paranoid children's book publisher (Sadie) and the human dummy at her self-defense class (Yul). After knocking out his tooth, Sadie calls Yul to make sure he's okay, invites him out to dinner, and the ball continues to roll. But there is more to Yul than meets the eye: frequently railing against the government, he lives by himself in a bunker, spending his spare time pumping hard-boiled eggs full of mysterious chemicals. When children start to go missing from the local junior high, is it any wonder why he'd be a suspect?
Essential Self-Defense, as elaborated on in the introduction, is a play about paranoia: in particular, how a whole society responds to a tragic event, whether it be 9/11 (Rapp's example) or the serial kidnapping of children. Society needs a villain, and who we choose to blame says a lot about who we are as a people, a town, a nation and so on.
And that element of Essential Self-Defense IS intriguing, but too quickly does that theme get bogged down in the "preciousness" of its characters. Yul and Sadie meet for drinks at a karaoke bar, also attended by the town butcher and his stereotypical displays of hyper-masculinity. The joint is operated by a punk rock librarian (always quick to drop the F-bomb) and her Russian poet husband, whose non-sequiters are interpreted as "deep".
There are connections between these characters, but they don't feel fleshed out. There are multiple facets to their personalities, but those personalities, every single time, are dominated by exactly one character trait. It gets exhausting. AND. To emphasize the uniqueness of these characters even further, the karaoke bar hosts a "make up your own song" night, with each character professing their deep-rooted psychological quirks over drum and guitar.
It's one thing to build an eccentric world, populated by quirky characters. But to have those characters "improvise" these complex, poetic self-analyses in perfect time with "improvised" music is hard to believe. Which, in and of itself, is not necessarily a problem. I personally don't cotton to the "inconceivable" critique of creative writing. If an element of a story is outside your realm of comprehension, it is your responsibility as reader (not the author's responsibility as creator) to try and understand what is being presented to you.
But there is something to be said for elements that don't jive together, and a difference must be made between things that aren't believable to YOU specifically and things that aren't believable within the world of the story. And that's where Essential Self-Defense trips me up. The grimness of kidnapping children suggests that we're operating within a semi-realistic, albeit eccentric, world. Yet the goings-on at the karaoke bar suggests something meta-theatrical: an awareness of how we perform, like the works of Bertolt Brecht. If that's the case, then the performances at the karaoke bar seem less precious and more, for lack of a better term, expressionistic, the world of the play reflecting the mental state of its characters.
I get that impression a lot when I read Adam Rapp, but I'm not entirely convinced it's intentional. Essential Self-Defense is good, but I think it imagines itself "more" than what it actually is. To not spoil too much, the kidnapping of children plot turns out to be less than what you'd expect it to be. Which works, but I'm just not sure what purpose that serves regarding the overall narrative.
Like I said, Essential Self-Defense is enjoyable and worth a read. But for me, at least, it does not hold up as well as I would have liked.
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