Rabbit, Run by John Updike
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Book Reviews of Rabbit, Run
Book Review: Rabbit Angstrom : Born to Run?
Summary: 5 Stars
I am somewhat embarrassed to admit that, prior to checking out "Rabbit, Run" from the library a few days ago, I had never read ANYTHING in my 38 years by John Updike. What a mistake! First, as many other reviewers (here and elsewhere) have pointed out, Updike is an amazing, powerful, beautiful prose stylist. In my opinion, and admittedly having only read one Updike book ("Rabbit, Run") now, I would say that he ranks up there as one of the greatest American fiction writers of the 20th century. In some ways (stylistically and thematically), Updike reminds me of another great (albeit problematic) American 20th century writer, Norman Mailer (his masterpiece, "The Naked and the Dead," specifically comes to mind). Second, I'm just in awe of how clearly, accurately, and powerfully Updike - at only 28 years of age (!) - was able to say so much in "Rabbit, Run," capturing the zeitgeist of a time and place (drab, grey, conformist, late 1950s suburban American hell, as epitomized by Brewer, Pennsylvania), and presenting his characters with such nuance, balance, wisdom, honesty, and - most importantly - truth. Incredible. Finally, I don't feel that it's an exaggeration to say that "Rabbit, Run" (and its sequels, which I haven't read, but have read about) is one of the most important achievements in American literature EVER.So, what is "Rabbit, Run" about? In terms of themes, we've got a huge amount of material here (this is one big, meaty "rabbit" of a book!). Life, death and sex -- in fact, lots of sex ("Rabbit" is certainly an appropriate nickname in this context!!). Courage to face life (and marriage, children) vs. giving in to "rabbit-like" fear. Commitment/responsibility vs. freedom/running away. Religion vs. true faith (and what, if anything, such true faith might consist of). Sin vs. redemption. The fate of an individual attempting to find meaning and identity while fitting in (or not) to a stultifying, stifling, conformistic society (and ones' particular place/role in it). The romantic fantasy of busting loose, hitting the road, and finding a better place. (Personal note: as a huge Bruce Springsteen fan, I was strongly reminded in "Rabbit, Run" of "Born to Run," "Darkness on the Edge of Town," etc. with their many similar themes). Physical perfection/athletic achievement as potential sources of meaning, especially when you're past your "prime" ("Rabbit" was a high school basketball star, but now mainly relives his fading "glory days," as Springsteen would say). Growing up vs. remaining an eternal youth. Order vs. chaos. And, ultimately, the difficult balancing act between ones' quest for PERSONAL happiness and fulfillment vs. the needs of family, friends, employers, society. And much more.
Is this book, as some reviewers here have stated, "depressing?" Well, actually, I'd have to say yes. For one thing, Updike presents no definitive answers to all the important, dark, disturbing questions he raises here (nor could he, nor, as an artist, SHOULD he, in my opinion!). Meanwhile, almost everything his main character (Rabbit) touches somehow turns out wrongly, or tragically (the misery and alcoholism of his wife, leading to the book's climactic tragedy, being the greatest example). Plus, the setting of "Rabbit, Run" is inherently gloomy (dreary, "dung" colored apartment buildings which smell of "cabbage cooking" or "something soft decaying," a deserted ice plant with "rotting wooden skids on the fallen loading porch," etc.). People are mainly unhappy, or trapped, or scared, or confused, or looking for a little excitement to brighten up their dreary existences, or all of the above. So why read such a depressing book? Here are just a few reasons: to learn, to experience the world through the eyes of a great artist (Updike), to challenge yourself, to enjoy the sheer beauty of top-notch writing. Finally, a philosophical question: is the point of reading (or any other activity) simply "pleasure?" Should we run, like a rabbit perhaps, from anything that might scare us, or threaten us, or even depress us? Or should we stand our ground, look those things straight in the eye, and - unlike Rabbit Angstrom - NOT run. Personally, I vote for the latter option!
Book Review: A Literary Gem
Summary: 5 Stars
I suspect that many people don't know how to approach or evaluate a work of this type. Updike is a realist, which is to say that the fiction he writes is a reflection of the way things are, not a parable of the way the writer thinks things should be or a construction of an imaginary world. The reader will look in vain for an honorable protagonist, a fascinating mystery, many laughs, world-shaking events or major crimes. Updike's books are pretty much limited to tales of ordinary people doing ordinary things. This has brought complaints from both readers and the critics, throughout his long career, that his subject matter is trivial. But limiting the subject matter like this means that the books have to succeed based on their literary merits, and that is a very difficult thing to pull off.
Updike has wonderful skills in characterization, a poet's love of words and a musician's feel for their sound. The artistry of his prose is superb, better than that of nearly all of his contemporaries. Some of his finest phrases, although they may start out sounding rather mundane, contain delightful unexpected semantic twists that bring them to life. Two examples from Rabbit, Run are: From the first page: "The scrape and snap of Keds on loose alley pebbles seems to catapult their voices high into the moist March air blue above the wires." From the first chapter, a sentence concerning Rabbit's intentions in his mad, aimless drive south: "He doesn't want to go down along the water anyway; his image is of himself going right down the middle, right into the broad soft belly of the land, surprising the dawn cottonfields with his northern plates."
Rabbit, Run is the first novel of the Rabbit series (there are five of them at this point by the way, not four as you might guess by the fact that only the first four have been published in the same volume) and in some ways I like it the best. Updike's trademark long run-on sentences, which can seem confusing or even annoying, are here cut to a minimum. Also I like the way he uses the mountain so effectively and consistently as a symbol of the line between innocence and vice.
As is the case in most of Updike's novels, this one has religion as one of its central themes. There is an ongoing debate in it about the existence of God. One interesting twist, though, is that the profligate, Rabbit, is the believer and the minister, Eccles, is the skeptic.
James Joyce, the pioneering twentieth-century English-language realist, whom Updike has acknowledged as one of his influences, once remarked that if the city of Dublin was destroyed it could be rebuilt from the information contained in the pages of his novel Ulysses. I'm not sure whether or not one could quite do that with the Reading, Pennsylvania area with the Rabbit novels. But I do know that, back in 1977, I was driving for only the second time in my life through southeastern Pennsylvania. I had read Rabbit, Run and Rabbit Redux, the only books of the series that had been written at that point. I didn't know where they had supposedly taken place. For all I knew there may really have been a Brewer, PA. But as I rounded a corner on the highway, I gasped: There, spread before me, was the flowerpot-red city nestled along the river and the mountain rising directly behind it with a hotel at the top. The city was called "Reading." When I saw on the map that the town directly on the other side of the mountain was named "Mount Penn," I was sure that it must have been the prototype for Updike's "Mount Judge." It wasn't until nearly a decade later though, after I had relocated to a city not far away, that I verified that I had been right.
All of the Rabbit books, which were written at ten-year intervals, are also fascinating encapsulations of the eras in which they were written and their effects on the characters. So it is with Rabbit, Run. If your impression of small-town American life in the 1950's is epitomized by Leave it to Beaver on the one hand and Grease on the other, this book will give you a more realistic idea of it.
Book Review: A Truly American Novel About Sex, Sports and Religion
Summary: 5 Stars
On this my third or fourth reading of RABBIT RUN, I was reminded once again that in Rabbit Angstrom, John Updike has created a truly American character. Whether or not you like him-- and there isn't a lot to admire in this selfish young man-- he is as real as the people with whom you attended high school and as much a part of our culture as Willy Loman. Anyone discussing American literature in the last half of the 20th century has to deal with Harry (Rabbit) Angstrom, who obviously has a transparent name.
When the novel opens in 1959, Rabbit is 26 and married to Janice Springer. They have a son Nelson who was born seven months after their marriage in 1956. Janice is now seven months pregnant and has a drinking problem. Rabbit demonstrates a kitchen gadget called the MagiPeel Peeler in five and dime stores. He got his nickname because of "the breadth of white face, the pallor of his blue irises, and a nervous flutter under his brief nose. . ." His big moment came in 1951 when he was the hottest thing basketball had ever seen in the town of Brewster, Pennsylvania. His life has beeen downhill since then. He tells Reverend Eccles, the Springer family's Episcopal minister, who befriends him after he leaves Janice: "I once did something right. I played first-rate basketball. I really did. And after you're first-rate at something, no matter what, it kind of takes the kick out of being second-rate."
There is a lot going on here that has to do with religion. Rabbitt spends a lot of time with the Springer family's minister Reverend Eccles of the Episcopal Church, getting advice and counsel, not always solicited. Rabbitt "believes" in a higher power although not much in his actions would support such a belief. Reverend Eccles does much good in his role as a minister although his heart isn't much in a lot of what he does. He is much better as a good shepherd on the golf course with Rabbit than from the Sunday morning pulpit. His wife is a nonbeliever. Rabbit's parents are severe Lutherans. There are references to religion on practically every page of this novel. Rabbit's mistress Ruth lives across the street from a church where Rabbit can watch the congregation coming to and from the church on Sunday mornings. So is this 1960 novel dated? Not when a large majority of Americans believe in literal angels and President George Bush is considered the leader of fundamentalist Christians in this country. Also, Rabbit and Janice in 1959, given their background, would have sought the advice of a minister, rather than a psychologist for help with their marital problems.
No writer in America creates more complex, three dimensional characters than John Updike. We know hundreds of details about everyone in this novel. Ruth doesn't break the back of books when she reads them. Janice cannot cook weiners without their splitting open. Her mother-in-law has never cared for her. "I never liked that girl's eyes. They never met your face full-on." Rabbit always folds his trousers carefully before having sex. Minor characters are as richly developed as he is.
We also never forget that Updike is a poet. (William Maxwell said he wouldn't read a novelist who didn't write poetic prose.) So we have "the wreckage of the Sunday paper". A waiter goes away "like a bridesmaid with his bouquet of unwanted silver." There is the description of a "true" pink rhododendron in Mrs. Smith's garden where Rabbit works briefly. The Smiths had driven their Packard to New York City to get the plant off the boat and had put it in the back seat of their car "like a favorite aunt or some such thing."
Updike has written about a little piece of America. We know what products are in the grocery stores, what movies are playing, (Janice, for example, goes to see SOME LIKE IT HOT, what television programs people watch, and what cigarettes (Newports) they smoke.
RABBIT RUN is as timely as it was in 1960. And, of course, it was to be followed by three more novels, RABBIT REDUX, RABBIT IS RICH and RABBIT AT REST and a novella RABBIT REMEMBERED.
Book Review: The first - a burst of intensity
Summary: 5 Stars
I always find it interesting that in a lot of extended series of novels, the first book tends to be compact and to the point, while later novels tend to be more sprawling and expanded. Glancing over my line of Updike's Rabbit novels, of which this is the first, that seems to be the case, but time will tell whether those later books successfully trade the taut intensity of this novel for a more spacious feel. The Rabbit novels take up four books, all tracing the life of Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, a man growing up in the latter part of the twentieth century, with each book taking place in a different decade, highlighting not only the changes in Harry but the changes in the country itself as it winds through the crazy years of the 1900's. This book takes place in the early fifties or late sixties and introduces us to the man himself, Rabbit, who does his best to fulfill the verb embedded in the title and run as far as he can. Harry feels trapped in his marriage, with a three year old already present and his wife heavily pregnant and drinking all the time, he takes a look at his dreary life and wigs out, trying to drive as far away as he can before coming back and attempting to find himself, with increasingly flailing results. His quests lead him to encounter a priest, a prostitute, an old coach and his parents and in-laws, all of whom have advice and none of which seem to have the right advice. So Harry tries to forge his own way but that might not be right either. The book doesn't have so much of a plot as it consists of shifting stream of consciousness impressions, all told with Updike's carefully controlled prose, lunging from beautiful descriptions of the outside world and the people in it to searingly brutal internal monologues that are only matched by the terrible things people say to each other. There's hardly a likeable character in the entire novel and that's where the real truimph comes in because even when you have all these imperfect people you keep reading anyway, watching them trying to find meaning in their grey lives, with nobody really sure what to do. And in the center of it all runs Rabbit, serving to cause everything even as he's only reacting against what's happening to him. People throw the word "anti-hero" around when describing him and it's not too far off, he's selfish and hypocritical and impulsive and utterly self centered but yet there's a fascinating sincerity about him, a tragic sense that he's certain he's doing the right thing even as he brings it crumbling down even further. None of the characters are angelic, all hide their own motives and quirks and it only makes them more sympathetic because they're dealt flawed cards to begin with and sometimes in trying to make the best of it they only muck things up further. The latter half of the book is remarkably intense considering it's about suburban life and the pivotal moment goes by like a slow motion car wreck, a horror far worse than anything Stephen King ever crafted unfolding before you. You know what's going to happen about halfway through and you keep reading in the hopes that your intuition isn't true. Updike's words masterfully give voice to the numbness inside all of them and even if he's wordier than he should be at moments it doesn't matter because the sheer tide of his telling carries us through. The book depicts people who are alternatively saints and monsters and really none and so fall somewhere in between, just like any of us. Rabbit runs, but it gets him nowhere and with a character this rich, readers have to know that we'll eventually see what happens beyond the ending. And yes there are three more books. But even if you can only read one, this is enough. That there's three more waiting is just an afterthought, a way to see what happens in the movie after the credits stop rolling and everyone else has gone home. Regardless of anything else, here's where it starts.Book Review: Rabbit stories from an old Updike fan
Summary: 5 Stars
RABBIT, RUN was the first Updike book I read "minny minny" years ago. I found it in the college bookstore at CMU when I was looking for something else, probably something "classic" at the time, like The Rise of Silas Lapham or The Octopus or The Sound and the Fury. While I think I did read all of those books eventually, they never stayed with me like Rabbit did. I was just 23 and engaged to be married when I read - no, devoured - Rabbit, Run. What was there in me back then, I wonder, that drew me to dark tales about other people's messy lives and misery? I dunno, but for some reason I loved the story of hapless Harry Angstrom, who, like a small fearful animal, "lived inside his skin." Was that a quote from the book? Maybe, it seems familiar anyway. I have read probably a dozen or more other Updike books since 1967 - certainly not all of his stuff, but enough. All four Rabbit books, of course, but I also loved Of the Farm and The Poorhouse Fair and The Witches of Eastwick. And I did a senior paper on COUPLES, a book which was thought to be quite scandalous at the time, what with all its combinations of multiple couplings, bed-hopping (and laundry pile) adultery, and a seeming obsession with oral sex. The paper I wrote was pretty awful, as I remember, but at least it gave me a valid excuse to read what was then Updike's newest offering without feeling too guilty. RABBIT, RUN became required reading in most of the English classes I taught in the early 70s. I found that many of my students didn't share my enthusiasm for Updike or his Harry creation though. I remember one male student once remarking, "Mr Bazzett, ya know how there are some books that once you pick 'em up, ya just don't wanna put 'em down? Well, this Updike book, it's like once I put it down, I didn't wanna pick it up again."
Well, I guess I understood his point of view, but I was a little hurt just the same that he didn't like one of my favorite books. And back then I was probably a little too much into exploring the "symbolism" of Updike's character names too. Eccles (Ecclesiates), Harry (a hare?), Angstrom (a tiny insignificant unit of measurement, or perhaps a "stream of angst"), Ruth ("whither thou goest - NOT!), Coach Tothero (t'other one), Mt Judge (self-explanatory), and on and on until my students probably just wanted to puke. I got out of teaching after five years, which was probably a good thing. I think I was one of those guys who ended up teaching English just because I loved literature and reading - which does NOT automatically make a good teacher. I don't cerebralize (is that a word?) the books I read much anymore. I just enjoy them. I re-read RABBIT,RUN again recently, after more than twenty years. It holds up well. It's still dark, tortured and an interesting look at the "human condition." But you know what? I don't like that kind of book so much anymore. I'd rather read a good love story, or maybe a memoir. At 65, maybe too much estrogen and not enough testosterone? Harry Angstrom is still a guy all serious students of American Lit should know though. And if you're a relatively new Lit student, here's something you might have missed. RABBIT,RUN was made into a pretty decent (if largely ignored) film around 40 years ago, with James Caan as Harry. If you haven't seen it, it's worth the rental price. Sadly, Updike finally put Rabbit to rest some years back (RABBIT AT REST) in the fourth book of the tetralogy. Personally, I think he shoulda kept him around a while. I'd like to know how he woulda been as a randy ol' septuagenarian. But that's probably just me. R.I.P., Harry. And many thanks to his master craftsman creator, John Updike. Write on, Mr. U! - Tim Bazzett, author of the REED CITY BOY trilogy and LOVE, WAR & POLIO