Country: USA
Genre: Literary/Drama
Pages: 264
I had this pre-reading beef with John Updike. I thought he smiled too much. To me, a writer that smiles all the goddamn time is a writer who's very content about his body of work. Fellow writers will agree that total contentment is the beginning of the end. I started reading Rabbit, Run with a knife between my teeth and the firm intention to find holes in the multiple prize winning author's game. Well, surprise surprise, Rabbit, Run is not perfect, but it's a gutsy novel that has the courage to dig deep where everybody always simplifies.
To understand the novel, you have to understand the character. Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom is twenty-six years old and he's having a hard time. He was a basket-ball star in high school and eight years after graduation day, he still can't adjust to the reality of working class. His wife Janice is an alcoholic that frequently drinks while pregnant of their second child and one day Rabbit freaks out and leaves. For no destination in particular, but he has one goal in mind. To find back this feeling of freedom and bliss he had in high school.
Rabbit goes to visit first his basket-ball coach Marty Tothero, who got kicked out of his position for an unexplained scandal, but since he introduces him to part time prostitute Ruth Leonard, you can only imagine. From there, starts a series of encounters that Rabbit will start running from each time he's asked to behave with selflessness and take responsibilities. Ruth, Reverend Jack Eccles, Janice, her parents, his parents, will all beg him, then tell him to take his responsibilities, but each time, Rabbit runs off. He's quite the frustrating character, but here's here Updike's genius lies. Rabbit proves a point. He's not a hero, but more of an example. The feeling of blissful freedom of your teenage years disappear as you enter real life and it's never coming back.
Rabbit Angstrom's sorrow is real and understandable. In high school, he was on top of the world. A very small world it is, but he controlled it. That feeling of power is gone and he's scrambling to find some meaning. His attitude throughout the novel is reprehensible for sure, but it's also quite human. Feelings of fear and inadequacy in front of life's responsibilities afflict many people who try to forget the existential dread of the working class condition with alcohol or try to make their world so small that they can control everything again. I can hardly condemn Rabbit from wanting than the dead end he arrived in. His behavior is the one of a confused child more than a true attempt at hurting people. He's pitiful more than despicable.
That said, Rabbit, Run is everything but easy. If you're willing to look at John Updike's ballsy attempt at understanding the problem of irresponsibility, you'll first have to wrestle with an austere text that has little regards for chapters, paragraphs or most conventions of fiction writing (past tense, causality, story arc, etc.) It's definitively not a read that everybody can enjoy, but you can only admire the ENORMOUS risk he took by creating such a character at the start of the sixties. Rabbit, Run dares you to like it, and that makes it my kind of book.
