Epic American Trilogy of a high school football star and what happens over the course of his life; his post high school disillusionment followed by a sort of happy suburban success.

Rabbit is Rich is the third novel in the Rabbit series. Harry Angstrom is always running away from something (death?) or wanting to run away from something (responsibility?), hence the moniker, “Rabbit.” He was once a high school basketball star, who has now reached a paunchy middle-age. He still lives the small town of his birth, Brewer, Pennsylvania. Harry has inherited the Toyota dealership belonging to his wife’s Janice late father and they are now living quite comfortably with Janice’s mother in Ma Springer’s home. He has problems with his son, Nelson who also has a problem staying put and facing responsibilities. Updike specializes in skewering the American small town life and the Protestant middle class. In Rabbit is Rich, Updike continues in this vein. In the series we follow Rabbit has he runs through the decades of the 60’s, 70’s, and 80’s. Although the novels were written contemporaneously, read now, they have an air of nostalgia about them. It is interesting that the problems of the late 70’s and early 80’s are eerily similar today’s problems: rising gas prices, foreign competition, the economy, and the Iranian hostage crisis.
Updike’s work has been described as bourgeois-pornographic fiction that glorifies adultery. While it true Updike's fiction is full of sexual encounters and ruminations, I would not agree to the charge of pornography or gratuitousness. I think, rather it is an exposition of what Updike thinks is the way American males think and how American couples act with each other in this particular milieu. I must say, I agree with him and find this evocation part of the genius of his writing. The other part of his genius is his wonderfully crafted sentences, each one a joy to behold and to read. Rabbit is Rich was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Updike has been on the short list for Nobel Prize consideration for years. ( )

I've just read the first Rabbit Run so far, I just want to record my thoughts for later comparison once I get through the others.

From the start I was somewhat put off by Updike's style. Every little moment seems to be dissected into a thousand peices, with each characters motives and actions a prism into their psyche. I became somewhat impatient and actually overwelmed as page upon page of these absoutely stunningly insightful paragraphs kept coming at me. I was struggling for breath!

As I adjusted to it I decided to just go with it and follow him into the depths and folds of this story, plumet to the depths of consciousness every second paragraph. Because the plot did actually move on. The closely set type of this edition probably doesn't help and I find myself often rereading paragraphs several times.

Now into the second book Rabbit Redux I'm totally hooked on Updike and I think he is truly a genius.

From the beginning of Rabbit Run I was struck by the presence of the mountain. It looms large over the city and seems to loom large in Rabbit's mind, not that he would be aware of that, which is actually the point. Rabbit just takes his life in little impulses, letting them guide and following them, the reason behind it and mass of his self that is unexplored and wild, like a looming wild mountain of his psyche. He runs from one side of the mountain to the other, pushed and pulled but never in command, never sitting in judgement of himself. Which makes the name Mount Judge just so poetic. At the end of the novel as he finally starts to reconcile himself his trip into the wilds of the mountain and emergence out again, a changed man, now truly reconciled with his own self.

So now I've almost finished the second book, Rabbit Redux. I'm still entranced by Updike's utter genius. I just love the reflections running through the books. Rabbit is the taker, what you have he'll take, Jill is the giver, what you want she gives. So of course they end up together. Their meeting in the club so like the meeting of Rabbit and his first girlfriend (forgot her name). Again one outing, one meeting and he's hooked up. Everything in the book just seems to bend to Rabbit, he just glides through life taking what he wants and people just keepin on giving. But he is just sliding through, not actually deciding or acting just floating on through. As is Jill. What can happen to a life like this, the empty space left by all that lack of will has to get filled with something, and whoa here he comes - Skeeter. So out of control he fills their life like a maelstrom. It's going to take something like this to shake Rabbit out of his slumberful life - I'm just waiting for him to wake and see what happens - don't let me down Updike!

So now I finally have Harry Angstrom off my back, well I've finished this volume anyway. My early thoughts about the density of the text were gone by the third volume, not sure if I got used to it or the style changed somewhat. I'm putting this series up there with my all time favourite books. Harry doesn't get any more attractive as a character as the book goes on but you are still compelled to find out how his life pans out. Ever the passive rider in his life, things just unfold in front of Harry and he takes them as they appear. The final volume I may put on my read later list, but I'd be more interested to sample some more Updike just to see if he really is Harry Angstrom, can he really write any other character as real as this one? ( )