“I feel two ways about this book because there are two books here. There is the book by Brock Wilbur, which is more focused on the game, Postal, and thereâs the book by Nathan Rabin, which is more focused on the movie of the same name, made by infamous director Uwe Boll. The way the book works, thereâs about half of Wilburâs book, then the entirety of Rabinâs book, then we go back to Wilbur.
Letâs do all of Wilburâs book first.
I think this comes from a Donald Trump thing. Hang with me. I donât really love talking about this dude.
When Donald Trump got elected, there was a lot of journalistic work along the lines of, âShould someone with this morality be President?â And there was some self-examination we all had to do. Whatâs our part in the fact that this person, with these values and with this mouth, has found himself at the pinnacle of American success?
But then we started seeing more of this happen on a much smaller level. Should someone who says nasty thing X be able to ascend to the level of wealthy celebrity? Midlist novelist? How about the level of owner of a small business? Flipping burgers? Defining people by their worst quality or statement and then deciding their appropriate place in the culture, which was always an ill-defined âworse than current,â was a new form of journalistic sport.
Postal the book presents us Vince Desi, the person most responsible for Postal the game. Heâs kind of shitty. Iâd say the bookâs primary question is: Should someone who is kinda shitty be allowed to ascend to the rank of indie game developer?
I think thereâs a more important question: Is an artistic endeavor that expresses something inappropriate the right or wrong way to express that inappropriate thing?
While Desi has some fairly heinous views, itâs within my belief system that designing a video game to express oneâs beliefs is an appropriate response. Creating art that is hateful is, in my opinion, acceptable. Hateful ideas DO exist, and I donât think we can wipe them out (and whether or not thatâs desirable is debatable). I would consider creating a video game an appropriate way to express oneâs inappropriate views. Writing a novel, creating a piece of visual art, doing a podcast, making short videos, I would consider all of these appropriate forms of expressing these views. Just so it makes sense, I would consider some inappropriate versions of this to be things like creating a high school curriculum, passing legislation, and choosing who to serve in your restaurant based on your personal views to be inappropriate expressions of oneâs views. And, of course, anything violent and anything directed at individuals as opposed to groups or ideas.
Wilbur spends a lot of time explaining to us that Desi is a bad dude. However, I donât agree with the implied premise that this means Desi…shouldnât be allowed to make games? Maybe the thesis doesnât get that far, and itâs more like, âDesi is bad, therefore Postal is bad.â But it doesnât work because Postal is, by design, morally bad. I donât think many out there were under the mistaken impression that Postal was some wholesome game, and the fact that it was made by a bad guy is a surprise to no one. If we were talking about Animal Crossing, yes, Iâd be interested to discover that the creator was a coke fiend or something. Or, if we were talking Postal, Iâd be interested to discover the creator was a thoughtful, gentle, kind person. But the creation matching up with what youâd guess the creator is like doesnât make for interesting or necessary reading.
Plus, Desi comes off in Wilburâs book as a sort of bro douche, he says bad stuff, but itâs not like heâs a criminal. Itâs not like heâs going to rallies and shit. He’s an unpleasant guy, but I don’t find him a dangerous person. Heâs got bad views, but I would say that the outlets heâs found for them are appropriate.
My point here: The President being a douche is interesting to discuss because why did we elect a douche, and why does being a douche allow you to get that far? The designer of a game being a douche is not interesting because itâs pretty reasonable that a douche would get that far, and itâs not like we elected this guy. Bad people make good things sometimes. Or interesting things. Or things that are culturally relevant.
I donât know that Desi being a douche on the level he is says anything new about Postal the game, and I donât think it says anything about us, as a people, at all.
I guess, to put it more briefly, Brock Wilbur seemed to really dislike Vince Desi personally, and I understand why, but itâs my opinion that the disdain for Desi and Wilbur’s desire to distance himself from Desi derailed the book. It became more important for the reader to also dislike Desi than it was to tell us about Postal.
Okay, now the Rabin part.
Awesome.
Iâm a fan of Rabin from My Year of Flops and The Big Rewind, his ICP/Phish book. And his section on the Postal movie was the polar opposite of the other parts. We learn a little about Uwe Boll thatâs unexpected, and we learn that the movie, in some ways, is a secret gem. Unapologetically excessive, genuinely funny in places, and it does in fact have something to say, even if that something is pretty ugly in places. Itâs nothing like the game, and that doesnât really matter.
Rabinâs section does the opposite of Wilburâs. It presents a question: What if Uwe Boll is actually a good director? What if, despite appearances, he does care? What if heâs capable of making a good movie? What if his reputation isnât his reality?
This section takes someone we know as a schlockmeister and presents us with the possibility that heâs an artist where Wilburâs takes someone we know nothing about but would suspect it a little morally off-kilter, and tells us that he is, in fact, off-kilter.
Rabinâs section took a movie I had zero interest in and made me interested. It was fun, breezy reading, and it had just enough of Rabinâs personal life injected into it to make me understand why heâs writing it.
~
From some of the notes at the end and the final chapter, I think Wilbur mightâve really struggled with this project in ways he didnât expect. I respect that struggle, and I appreciate that he worked through it. And while I hate to leave a negative review in this case, I canât honestly say Iâd recommend this book, as a whole, to others the way I often do other titles in the Boss Fight library. Wilburâs style and writing are tight, and the first chapters have a great voice to them. I do want to note that while Postal is interesting in some ways, as a game, as a playing experience, itâs fairly crappy, which makes it a challenging thing to write about. It just didnât come together for me.
I would read something else by Wilbur, for sure. I’d like to try something where I felt he was more at home on the page.
I have the bad habit of reviewing books by almost re-writing them to be different things. And thatâs not really how book reviews work. This is a special case, though. I almost feel like Wilbur didnât write the book he wanted to, either. The book he set out to write, or the book as he pictured it in his mind.”