Review: The Bassoon King by Rainn Wilson

Reading this book was a contradictory confusing jumble of an experience.

This is not to say the writing was terrible; it wasn’t. Rainn Wilson writes in a clear, conversational style that is very easy to intake. The ideas of the book are what put me off.

The more I read, the less I enjoyed. If I hadn’t been listening to an audiobook and largely without WiFi I might have DNFed it.

The book heavily espouses being a nonjudgmental person. This idea is reinforced my storied Wilson tells about times he was judged or times he misjudged others. They are primarily nice uplifting anecdotes. But, and there is a massive but. This book is so judgmental. Wilson reminds the reader constantly that we as a collective public are too consumed by the material world, we use Wikipedia too much, we aren’t educated enough to enjoy certain media, we do not create thus our opinions on works of creativity are worthless, we make words meaningless with dilution and exaggeration, we are the wrong type of nerd, we had to narrow an upbringing. It drove me nuts.

I also don’t think Wilson always hit the tone he was striving for. He talked about being a champion of racial and gender equality and then talked about people of color and women in a clunky paternalistic way. Others racism is terrible (for the record I obviously don’t support racist dogma and think we as a society need to break down the structural barriers in place that uphold white supremacy), but Wilson seems to be unaware of his own. I just feel like he should have done a little more sorting through unconscious bias while choosing what exactly he would write about. And maybe think more about the white savior thing before he chose a mode of speaking about other cultures. This was something I thought a lot about in the first half of the book. Weirdly enough when we got to the activism in Haiti part of the book, it didn’t jump into my mind as often. I will be looking for other reviews of this book to find more educated opinions on this if I can.

Obviously, I read this book for The Office stories. There are some, and they are funny and interesting, Dwight is mentioned throughout the book at regular intervals. I would have liked a little more The Office stuff (and maybe a little less vitriol towards The Office UK fans who hated the show from someone who keeps espousing that we should lead with love), but ultimately this is a memoir of Rainn Wilson and not a memoir of Rainn Wilson’s time on The Office.

I found his life story compelling. It was varied, full of interesting characters, and took place all over. I found much of this part interesting and funny.

Wilson rockets (for me, I am not claiming my opinions to be a universal truth) between likable and interesting to being that dude I hated in undergrad who was self-righteous, sure he knew more than the professor, and obsessed with playing devils advocate not because it was his opinion but to “help us strengthen our points of view”. Basically, I felt icky.

I was especially confused by the way Wilson derides nerd culture. Nerd culture is the entire reason he was able to be paid to write this book. His critique of materialism in nerd culture didn’t seem self-aware and was not as in depth as I think he thought it was.

Also, nerd culture thing that I am super not into the where a big nerd derides nerd culture in a manner that lets you know that some nerd types are correctly nerdy and some are gross and weird while others are fake or too mainstream. This is especially annoying when the book is full of Game of Thrones, Harry Potter, and Star Wars/Trek references. Those are some of the most mainstream nerd references for a nerd hipster to be derisive to the opinions of the masses and also play to them was annoying.

I will say that I think he is correct that it is easier to review something negatively. I believe that if you read the reviews of books, I did not like that they are mostly longer and more detailed than reviews of things I did like. This is not always the case; I love some of the reviews of books I loved. But often it is easier to find more varied ways to talk about things we dislike. One of my least favorite aspects of fandom is how much it surrounds intensely disliking something or someone. I do genuinely make an effort to read/watch things that I will and do like. I don’t hate-watch shows; I don’t pick up books I know I won’t like. And I try to always talk about the parts of a book that maybe someone else will like when I don’t like something. And I am actively working on talking about things I love better.

I just, unfortunately, didn’t love this.

I gave this book 2 stars on Goodreads.