The Thumbnail Book Reviews
by John Q McDonald --- 12 February 2007
by John Updike
This book is the third in Updike's series of novels (and stories in The New Yorker) that relate the tale of Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, a deeply flawed man living in suburban Pennsylvania, and encountering life with a placid sense of purpose, but with a gritty sense of the limits of his own existence. The previous two novels portrayed Rabbit as a pretty mean character. Here, he has mellowed a bit into middle age. It is 1979, the gas crisis is in full swing and Rabbit sells Toyotas. His son is dropping out of Kent State, and he suspects he has a daughter living in a nearby community. Overall, Rabbit is taking life in stride. He is somewhat passive, as the usual aspects of life seem to just come to him, like his career, his home life, and his modest wealth. But he still has that yearning quality. He wants things different for his son. He wants to discover something new in himself. He wants to make some kind of amends to Ruth, the woman he lived with 20 years ago, during the tragic events of Rabbit, Run. Almost, most of all, he wants sex. Rabbit, like most men, is obsessed with sex. Now, in his mid-40s, he senses that the variety of his sexual experience is only narrowing. Updike's writing is near brilliant here. He gives a powerfully gritty honesty to Harry Angstrom's thoughts. He feels deeply real, as a man. Though there is a certain pathetic quality to him, as well. After all, Rabbit isn't ambitious. He doesn't want to fly to the Himalaya to climb Everest. His Everest is his standing in his community, and whether he will ever see his friend's wife Cindy naked. Meanwhile, his son Nelson has come of age and is in the process of repeating Harry's own mistakes. Harry resents Nelson, while Updike carries Harry's story into a new generation. This is the third in the Rabbit series of novels, and, so far, the best. It is vivid and explicit (watch out for those bedroom scenes). It has an intellectual honesty that is rare in novels. Again, possibly unpleasant reading for female readers, though more accessible than the previous two books. And, as always, Updike's evocation of a time and a place (suburban Pennsylvania in 1979) is excruciatingly detailed and beautifully wrought.
(For this novel, Updike was awarded the 1982 Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and the 1982 National Book Award for fiction.)
Also by Updike:
[Rabbit, Run]
[Rabbit Redux]
[Rabbit at Rest]
[Licks of Love]
[Just Looking]
[Still Looking]
[The Centaur]
[S.]
[The Poorhouse Fair]
[Toward the End of Time]
[The Witches of Eastwick]
[Of the Farm]
See also: [Updike, by Adam Begley]