UPDATE: In an earlier version of this article, I used the word “conflicting”; I’d actually meant towrite “conflicted”. I have made the correction now.
Until recently, I had never read any of John Updike’s work. Essays? Nope? Books? Ditto.
Then I read Rabbit, Run.
If I had to sum up my reaction to this book in one word, it would be:
Conflicted
Here are my reasons:
I thought Rabbit was a waste of space and good oxygen, like an adolescent in a grown-up body. My reaction to him if I’d met him in real life would have been to say “For God’s sake, man, grow up, shape up, and get a grip.”
I’m not a prude (I listen to blues music, for heaven’s sake, and just about every lyric is a euphemism for sex), but I found his constant need for sex rather tedious and tawdry.
He seems to think he is God’s gift to women. Maybe he is: why else would Ruth or Janice hook up with him?
I think he’s a misogynist. I don’t like misogynists.
And yet…
Much of the writing is superb:
There are passages in which the disjointedness seems to epitomise and encapsulates the inner chaos of Rabbit’s mind, and the outer chaos of his life.
I very much enjoyed the characters, each of whom has, er, character. You read some novels and the people are either caricatures or like cardboard cutouts, with no life, and no distinguishing features. Each of the characters in this book is a real individual.
I liked being carried along by the story, even though it’s not like a thriller or anything like that.
Will I read the next three books in the Rabbit series? More than likely. But not yet: my to-be-read list just grew exponentially thanks to a nonfiction writing group I belong to.
Oh well, it’s a nice problem to have I suppose.