Rabbit, Run
by John Updike
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Book Reviews of Rabbit, Run
Book Review: Run, Rabbit, Run
Summary: 4 Stars
Has life ever seemed to much for you? Do you sometimes just want get away from it all? Well, here is a man that does it all for you, Mr. Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom. He is the man for running away from just about anything that is a conflict for him. Updike investigates this unfortunate soul of the suburban middle-class with the use of many similes, metaphors, motifs, and imagery. In "Rabbit, Run," John Updike's simple language brings reality to the central character of Harry and his boredom and disgust with his present life. In his early years at Mt. Judge High School, Harry was the star basketball player and this game was his life. In the beginning scene of the novel, Rabbit tries to recapture his ex-hero illusion of himself as a basketball star by playing basketball with a group of teenagers on the court. In this scene, we get a taste of Updike's use of rabbit imagery to enhance the rabbit qualities of Harry. When he arrives home, he regains the sour reality of his unfulfilled marriage, and his animal instinct tells him to flee. Like an animal, he can be gentle, but when he goes off on his own, he is the cause of all problems. In fleeing from his home, he experiences marital infidelity (a cental theme of many of Updike's books), the death of his baby, and ends up not a born-again-hero, but a man fleeing in panic from the realities of life. The quest motif is an important part of the novel in that Harry escapes from the imperfections in his life in search for a higher purpose. Because he is extremely sexually driven, he finds himself in the arms of Ruth, a prostitute that fulfills his need for an experienced cook and lover. Some of the scenes with Ruth are graphic and X- rated so I don't recommend this book to young children. Throughout the novel he possesses rabbit twitching and nervousness that causes others around him discomfort and pain. At the end of his quest, Harry does not find his higher purpose in life but ends up running aimlessly into the night. Even though Harry was quite depressing , I found this book very enjoyable because of Updike's detailed use of imagery and motifs. This is just the first of the Rabbit trilogy books by Updike, and this novel drives me to read the other Rabbit books just to see what happens to Harry next. This is a must read on my reading list, and I recommend this book to all high school students and adults.
Book Review: Rabbit cannot outrun life's complications (3.6 *s)
Summary: 4 Stars
Weren't the 1950s supposed to be the era of the organization man: a man who leads a life of prescribed normalcy without questioning? But Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, a high school basketball star of only minor repute just eight years ago, now at age twenty-six, circa 1959, a demonstrator of vegetable peelers and married to Janice with whom he has lost a sense of connection, is unable to find equanimity in his life. One night, instead of picking up his young son, he runs; his all-night automobile journey is almost directionless but he returns by morning to his small town in Pennsylvania, where he struggles over the next few months to understand his situation and get his life together.
Rabbit at first seeks refuge with his old coach, through whom he finds Ruth, a rather down and out young woman - the anti-Janice - who wants nothing to do with him, but who finally provides Harry some stability. He also encounters a youngish Rev Jack Eccles, who sees core goodness in Harry, prods him during weekly golfing sessions, and builds bridges between Harry and Janice and her family. A reconciliation with Janice is short-lived with tragic consequences, leaving Harry still, literally, running at the end.
The book has the author's typical highly nuanced descriptions, which can at times be very awkward and difficult, making the book a bit of a slow read. Despite lengthy descriptions of the fictional towns of Brewer and Mt. Judge, they remain rather muddled. Harry is not a reflective person, but the author subtly captures his appeal, especially to women. Characterizations are a strength of the book. Eventually, the actions and thinking of Ruth, Janice, her parents, etc come to be appreciated and understood. With Harry left in such a state of uncertainty at the end of the book, it is by no means predictable where Harry will be physically or mentally in the sequel to this book.
It may be debatable as to whether Harry is worth writing about. Perhaps he can be viewed as an everyman of the 1950s, especially one who fell through the cracks. It would have been interesting to see the author address the options that Harry had out of high school. What was he actually prepared to do? Why did he slip to being a vegetable-peeler demonstrator? But then maybe authors in the 1950s didn't question much more than their characters. The book barely slips in as a four-star.
Book Review: Updike's answer to "On the Road"
Summary: 5 Stars
The first time I read "Rabbit, Run," I didn't much care for it: although I admired the prose and found the story interesting enough, I didn't know anyone like Harry Angstrom (I was exactly his age at the time), and it seemed a little unreal that a 26-year-old would have what seemed to me to be a midlife crisis.
Well, two decades have not only expanded my horizons but also have wiped away a lot of my earlier idealism. Reading this novel now, I realize how exactly right Updike got everything. Harry (Rabbit) Angstrom isn't any more sympathetic than he was twenty years ago, but he's certainly believable.
Feeling trapped in his marriage and his job, Rabbit longs for the wild excitement of his glory days as a basketball star in high school. Already the boys on the street playing hoops regard him as an old man, and he goes home grouchy, to a wife equally grouchy from pregnancy, and discovers his son and the car are both at his in-laws' home. On the way out the door to retrieve son, car, and a pack of cigarettes for his wife, "Rabbit freezes, standing looking his faint yellow shadow on the white door that leads to the hall, and senses he is in a trap. It seems certain. He goes out."
And he runs.
His subsequent adventures lead him in quick order to an aimless overnight drive, to the haunt of his old basketball coach, to an encounter with a world-wise woman who moonlights as a prostitute, and to a friendship with an oddly endearing, if clueless, minister. While Rabbit hesitates in choosing whether to return to his old life or remain carefree, his indecision leads to an unspeakable tragedy, and even though I'd read it once before, the seamless construction and the crescendo of this pivotal scene still managed to take my breath away.
In a later essay, Updike acknowledged that he wrote this novel in response to Jack Keroauc's "On the Road" (without having ever read it); he wanted to show what really happened when people just dropped everything and "cut loose." In short, "the people left behind get hurt." And this novel is about that hurt and how it threatens the fabric of the family and the community. While the openness of the ending acknowledges "our heart's stubborn amoral quest for something once called grace," his story's seemingly "prim" morality forces the reader to recognize the importance of responsibility.
Book Review: Very well written, somewhat flawed
Summary: 3 Stars
Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom is a young married man with one child and another on the way. But he's feeling overwhelmed. His wife spends her days drinking and there is little affection between the two of them. He realizes that in fact, he doesn't love her anymore. He can't stop remembering when he was in high school and was the star of the basketball team. Life was easier then, he was a big shot and everyone loved him.
So Rabbit runs. He takes off to go down south but only gets to West Virginia before turning back for home. He doesn't go back to his wife, though, he goes to his old basketball coach for advice. The coach is a pathetic character who ends up taking Harry on a double date with two some-time prostitutes. Harry ends up moving in with this new girl, Ruth. When his second child is about to be born, Rabbit goes back to his wife only to run again after a tragic accident.
It's easy to understand Rabbit's feelings in this book. Updike does a good job of getting you inside his head and feeling the pressure of being trapped in a marriage that makes you unhappy with an unfulfilling job to top it off. Rabbit is, however, an unsympathetic character. He rarely thinks about anyone but himself and what he wants. In the time he is apart from his wife before he returns to her, he never tells her where he is or if he's ok. He never goes to see his son, even once. The new woman he is living with changes many things about her life for him, but Rabbit remains Rabbit. He gets by in life due to his charm, but that charm rarely comes though the pages of the book.
I couldn't figure out why Ruth lets him move in because she never says a kind word to him. They never have the kind of conversation that two people in love would have and yet they live and breath as a couple. It just never makes any sense. This is the first Updike book I have read and he certainly has a way with words. Some of his sentences will make you stop and pause, they are so beautiful. There are times, though, that he becomes too enamored of his own ability and strings together alot of lovely words that signify nothing. It then takes him awhile to get back to the story.
Rabbit, Run is very well written and interesting to a point. Your obstacles are dealing with an unsympathetic main character and long stretches where not much happens.
Book Review: Reality Bites
Summary: 5 Stars
A star basketball player in high school, Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom comes to the realization that his life 8 years out of high school is a meaningless existence, even with a wife and son. His success on the court has not translated into success in life, perhaps making it harder to accept his current situation. Once adored as a top athlete and hero at his high school, Harry has evolved into a mediocre salesman living in a decrepit apartment with an apathetic wife. With this drab existence, Harry spurns his commitments (and responsibility to his family) and decides to run. Run where? Run for how long? These do not enter the bewildered mind of Harry Angstrom.
John Updike delivers a masterful job of telling the story of this ex-jock and his current struggles with everyday life. He presents the raw emotion and feelings of a drifting young man. Harry is no hero. He is narcissistic, selfish, and immature, to say the least, yet Updike manages to elicit sympathy for Harry and his situation. Equally as intriguing as Harry Angstrom, is the character of Jack Eccles, a local Episcopal minister. Updike delves into the complexities of this man of God, as he struggles not only with "reforming" Harry, but also of his own doubts and inferiorities, as well as his embittered relationship with his agnostic wife.
Religion and sex emerge as the dominant themes. Religion, neither lauded nor condemned, proves a pivotal role in shaping the lives of Updike's characters. The ideals of God's role and God's will perplex Harry and Jack. Even the existence or non-existence of God becomes a central role in the novel. Sex, undoubtedly, is the catalyst behind Harry's abandonment of his family. Updike does not describe sex as a sacred or meaningful, but instead describes it in rather graphic detail as a physical act without meaning or purpose. Indeed, for a book written in 1960, the sexual details are explicit, much more than the much-aligned "Catcher in the Rye.", written a few years earlier. However, Updike's portrayal of sex lends more realism and more potency to his novel.
It's easy to see why this is Updike's most successful novel. I will be reading "Rabbit Redux" soon.