Rabbit, Run
by John Updike
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Book Reviews of Rabbit, Run
Book Review: Reader, Run
Summary: 2 Stars
I was glancing through a time-life "history of the last century" book during a job interview and came across john updike in the 1960's section. he was praised for his great american novel " rabbit, run". they went on to explain how it's about alienation and confusion of suburbia etc, etc. being a musician, i love stuff about alienation and following your heart and freedom and all of that stuff. i love springsteen and dylan but i didn't enjoy this book. it took me nearly 2 months to read a book that is only 280 pages! that's how slow this book is. it started off great. i'm from a small town in PA so i can relate to the setting. harry angstrom was just far to marose. it was like he was a complete pessimistic, childish, cry baby. i can understand leaving an alcoholic wife who's not your intillectual equivilant, but leaving your 3 year old son? what did he ever do? what was wrong with Ruth? he treated her like a common whore and complaining about her weight and acting like he was entitled to do whatever he wanted to to her. updikes prose is way to convaluted and trying to dazzle the reader with his style. the sentences were to long and the descriptions were just far to out there. it was like i was reading science fiction at some points. the ending was also terrible. is harry forrest gump? is he just going to run across Pa to California? People think that Stephen King is a hack, but i feel the guy can tell a great story, develop interesting characters, and can get deep without being confusing. i don't like fluff, but i don't wan't to have to get cliff notes to understand what the author is trying to say. i think simplicity and directness is often the better road to take.Book Review: patience tester
Summary: 3 Stars
I read "Rabbit is Rich" last year, and I liked that one husband-swap scene so much, I decided to try the rest of the Rabbit books. Now that I've just finished "Rabbit, Run", I may well skip the rest. This book was excruciating. First of all, Hassy Angstrom is an utterly worthless character. I don't care whether he's 'profoundly understandable' or not, or that he represents most middle-American men--he's a lowlife. I cannot undestand what some of the characters saw in him, especially Ruth and Eccles the minister, because all he did was poison everyone around him. This book was like watching Married With Children, but without the laughs. Second, I've about had it with Updike's prose style. I just wish he would write clean lines and quit cluttering it up with metaphors that don't work. I found myself re-reading sentences over and over again and just not getting them. Some of the stream-of-consciousness passages were extremely aggravating to read. I'm sorry if grammar and punctuation are in the way of great art, but you have to use a friggin' comma to separate some of your clauses now and then unless you want to wear down the eyes of your reader. And lastly, Updike the 'over-a-Cheever' should maybe start reconsidering an old idol of his. Here's a quote, Mr. Updike: "If I am writing narrative prose, and I sometimes am, I must content myself with these limitations. Every line cannot be a cry from the heart, cut in stone. But I do rebel against common speech, against the quality of filler I find in my work...". In other words, cut out all the unnecessary filler in your books. You needn't preserve all of life, or an era, in your work.Book Review: Hopping like a Rabbit
Summary: 3 Stars
To keep this as short as possible; I picked up the book because it won a Pulitzer prize, and the good reviews it had. I was in a period of reading a lot of non-fiction, and wanted to take a break with some fiction.
The rating of 3 stars is because it was not good or bad, my reaction was apathy. I was a bit disappointed with the structure and format. That lack of actual chapters was a bit boring.
The book seemed to drag on, had there been less unnecessary detail, it would have gotten a better review. Instead I feel I read much more about a particular thing than I needed to. I loved the way John Updike expressed the detail, but I think he went overboard in some cases. Especially since there is no real action in the book and are only a few main events that happen.
I'm not sure I would particularly recommend the book to somebody. I will mention it and tell them my lack of reaction to it. The characters can be interesting, and in some aspects I wish I could hear more about them. I do not think I will pick up the other Rabbit books anytime soon though.
Some of it can be a bit detailed about sex, if that is of concern to anybody. I had to chuckle at some of the euphemisms used.
If you want a book where the main character is indecisive, escapes, but does not really move away or change, then this book would be of interest. Every character has their annoying qualities, even Rabbit. Surprisingly my favorite character was the minister. There is some decent deep thought play that is spoken but never really discussed from him. Especially for the time period.
Book Review: One of the best characters in 'recent' fiction
Summary: 4 Stars
This book was not an easy one to get into. It definitely starts slow, with descriptions and monologues overrunning the plot for a time. But it doesn't take too long for the reader to fall in love with Rabbit. Rabbit is a young, married father who is unhappy with his lower middle class life and unexpectedly deserts his wife and son while on an errand. He moves in with the town floozie and plays house while trying to figure out exactly what to do. He is befriended by a priest who tries to set him on the right path during weekly golf rounds. Despite his selfishness and arrogance, Rabbit manages to be immensely likable; somehow i was rooting for this adulterer and liar to succeed in the end. This is mainly due to Updike's skills as a writer. He doesn't paint a pretty picture of his characters or make them bastions of morality. Instead, they are entirely human, which makes them incredibly easy to relate to. I underlined several passages in the book as being remarkably insightful. Updike is able to describe the human condition in three sentences when it would take three paragraphs for even the most skilled writers. At least in this respect, Updike is very similar to my favorite American author, Richard Russo.
Updike peppers his book with humor and tragedy, making "Rabbit, Run" a bit of a roller coaster and always surprising. His cast of characters (especially the minister's wife) are colorful and dynamic. Appropriately, there's no great moral at the end (again: Russo), leaving the way open for the other Rabbit books, which after this great opening salvo, I can't wait to read.
4 stars.
Book Review: Puts pressure on your chest
Summary: 4 Stars
"You don't think there's any answer to that but there is. 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." This is how Harry Rabbit Angstrom explains why he walks out on his marriage with no warning one day. He was a star in high school, and now he's just a mediocre salesman of MagiPeel kitchen devices. Unable to handle this pressure, he runs. He drives through the night into Virginia, then turns around and returns almost home to a neighboring town where he looks up his old high school basketball coach and eventually moves in with a prostitute. RABBIT, RUN is a gritty, ugly story about an unlikable protagonist who always considers doing the right thing but in the end always acts out of selfishness or fear. Like other characters in the story, we're lured in again and again by Rabbit's charm and promise only to be burned by the reality of his decisions. Updike weaves a dramatic, emotionally involving, and ultimately heartbreaking tale with inventive, often poetic prose.
One Amazon reviewer called RABBIT, RUN the American version of Camus' THE STRANGER. While the characters certainly share a certain immorality, or amorality to be more precise, Rabbit is a much more involving book for the reader. And while Camus' protagonist is eventually held responsible for his decisions, Rabbit, as the title says, always manages to run from his. I'll be interested to read the next books in the series and see how Rabbit's decisions affect the rest of his life.