Rabbit, Run by John Updike
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Book Reviews of Rabbit, Run
Book Review: wonderful writing
Summary: 5 Stars
Growing up is hard for everyone..there are people who still haven't given up on childhood omnipotence, even as they become middle aged. This has an advantage- it keeps your mind off death. Believing you still can do whatever you want, act as you feel...this keeps you young, at least in your head! This is what happens to Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, who cannot accept he's not the star of the basketball team anymore, cannot accept he's older, has responsibilities, has a less than glamorous job & a less than exciting marriage. Instead of coping with his life, making the best out of it, Rabbit choses to just follow his instinct & run. While running away, from place to place & from relationship to relationship, Rabbit never finds what he's looking for, always returns to this empty feeling inside himself, this fear of death, of things ending, of things changing, of time passing. Rabbit doesn't face this fear though...he just continues running away. Rabbit Run is a sad, sad story, with a tragic ending, a story that could appeal to anyone since it talks about our deepest fears & anxieties. John Updike writes beautifully, I'm really looking forward to reading more of his books.Book Review: Updike's first success
Summary: 5 Stars
John Updike is wonderful author, and one of the most esteemed literaty figures in the United States. He earned that respect by writing controversial novels about sex, adultery, suburban malaise, and unhappy marriages. His eloquence is marked by short, almost angry sentences contrasted with passages of simple beauty. His prose style is unique and yet difficult to describe. Rabbit, Run is the first of four novels about Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, a 26 year-old former high school basketball hero who comes to the realization that the rest of his small town life will never measure up to the glory days of his teenage years.
Rabbit, and the tragedy which befalls his family, make for a very complicated novel. When Rabbit walks out on his family, leaving his wife and child without a source of income, I almost cheered for Rabbit. After all, he was only escaping the trap which so many small-town men fall into after high school. Then I realized that I was cheering for a man who was doing something truly awful. And then I cheered harder. Only Updike could create such a complicated character and sustain him for four novel. This is a masterpiece.
Book Review: Rabbit runs from responsibilities
Summary: 5 Stars
John Updike's first in a series of "rabbit" novels is about a washed up high school basketball star that struggles to find success during his post-basketball crowning. Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom finds himself running from mostly everything - including his wife, child, job, and himself. He shacks up with a local whore, Ruth, and relates to Ruth really well in the sexual manner, but seems awkward during everyday situations. He inevitable becomes attached to both his wife and Ruth and has a hard time deciding which fate suits him better - or another alternative is neither lifestyle. This is the first Updike novel I have read, and I was so impressed by the impact of each sentence and the deep rooted meaning and symbolism in every passage. I think in a way, Updike has unfairly been labeled a misogynist, even though he has little respect for Rabbit's wife, Janice.
I found the book to be extremely sad, but quite touching. I imagine many men have gone through this agonizing ordeal of not knowing where there life is heading and if it is even heading in the right direction. Some just run from their problems - like Rabbit.
Book Review: Wonderful novel...
Summary: 5 Stars
This is the only book in the Rabbit Angstrom series that I have read so far. Although I would not call it a fast read it is a wonderful novel. Set in small-town America at the end of the nineteen-fifties, it captures an era in which boys went straight from high school into the military, and straight from the military into a marriage. They don't stop to consider the consequences of their actions until it is too late and they are trapped.
Rabbit Angstrom realizes that he is trapped. A former basketball star, he is prematurely middle-aged at twenty-eight. On impulse, he runs. The trouble is, he doesn't know how to run away or where to go.
The prose evokes a time and a place that no longer exist, and that is simultaneously a good and bad thing. No matter how unconscionable Rabbit's actions seem, his are the struggles of a fly caught in a web. He lashes out frantically because he's just realized he's been caught and can't figure out what he did wrong. It proves Socrates' dictum that the unexamined life is not worth living.
Book Review: An example of what good writing is all about.
Summary: 5 Stars
Rabbitt Angstrom was the star of his high school basketball team 8 years prior. Nothing in his life has been equally rewarding. In fact, he can hardly cope with life as a nobody. He stills has enough charm to warm over the local pastor or a widowed lady, and the coach is still there for advice, but his life is going no where. The novel opens with Rbbitt a salesman of a household device. His wife is a pregnant alcoholic and he already has a two-year old son. No crowds cheer anymore. His wife has left the car at her parents and the son at his parents, and while you're out Rabbitt pick up a pack of cigarettes. Angstrom has had enough and the run begins.
It has been said that there are no sympathetic characters and that is somewhat true, but the story is real. Some of my contemporaries still live their high school years over and over. They still want to tell you how someone they played ball with is doing. They still play ball. There lives change very little over the years otherwise they will lose that varsity feeling. This story represents that very well.