5 out of 5

As a reviewy guy, you’d be right to assume that I place value in the power of media.  Once you’ve switched over to viewing everything through the thoughts-to-text lens, one possible result – what I’ve found for myself – is that it enhances the entire experience, which was certainly part of the hope.  Things that could’ve been instantly derided in the past turn out to have merit when further scrutinized and compared to their peers; similarly, things that might’ve gotten glowing praise can be dimmed when you’re brought to realize that one aspect or another didn’t really hit home.  I got to the point where reviewing was appealing when I was consuming enough stuff that it became harder to discern between what was what, and why I liked something or didn’t like something, and I’m the type who wants to be able to justify my opinions.  But subconsciously, I think I was in search of that feeling that inevitably gets harder to trigger as you get older, as your take on life is a tad more steadfast; that feeling that, say, I got when I first read ‘Slaughterhouse Five’ and realized I’d never really read a book like that.  That I didn’t have to think about how I felt about it: it just hit.  I’m constantly on the prowl, hoping, for things like ‘Rites.’

Beyond that magnanimous setup, another large dollop of praise I can instantly bestow upon Baker’s story is that it caught me off guard.  Not in a twisty-turny way, but in that I couldn’t predict what the tone was from the first couple pages.  In fact, I was convinced I wasn’t going to like the story, with its repetitive phrasing, use of the term ‘Internet’ (I have a nit for terms or specifics that instantly date something if the emotional impact is intended to be timeless) and focus on generational aspects of a large family, arguing about someone’s ‘rites,’ which we’ll rightly interpret as last rites.  I thought: Another tale about family, something something, we change as we age but we’re all the same something something.  This isn’t a bad thing when I can call the tone, and sometimes it’s comforting if it’s a writer or genre you dig, but I’m not big on stories about family because we all have those, so unless you’re really challenging some deep-roots concepts… snooze.  ‘Rites’ is about family, and change, but it’s simply not what I thought it was.  And Baker doesn’t abuse the repetition style, properly setting it up for some important sections that called to mind the rattling lists of observations found in the books by my favorite author, Joseph Heller.  The internet call-out also ends up having its place as a simple way of juxtaposing expectations and predictability versus… the lack of those things.

‘Rites’ isn’t what I thought it would be, and it gave me that feeling I seek while I was reading it.  To say more would be to diminish the effect of the experience.  It’s not exactly uplifting, if that’s what you’re looking for, but it doesn’t have to be a downer, either, if you don’t want it to be.  Does this type of open-endedness appeal?  Did you fall in love with a Heller or Vonnegut when you were a youth?  ‘Rites’ is less than 30 pages.  It certainly couldn’t hurt to track it down through One Story and take a look.