Customer Reviews

Rabbit Redux

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(14)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

When I finished "Rabbit, Run" I was so engrossed in the life of Harry Angstrom I could hardly wait to begin this one. He remains the perfect anti-hero, not very likeable yet someone the reader cannot help pulling for. This book takes up 10 years after the first, and if you are expecting Rabbit to have straightened up and be living a good life, you will be sorely disappointed.

He is living the humdrum existence of a printer, sharing drinks with his dad after work, watching his wife leave and begin an affair with a co-worker, and generally letting life come at him without showing much emotion or spunk. His sister Mim, now a California call girl, quite succinctly tells him, "Everybody else has a life they try to fence in with some rules. You just do what you feel like and then when it blows up or runs down you sit there and pout."

Rabbit loses most everything possible in this book---wife, home, job, lover---but seems complacent as ever and does not noticeably grieve. If fact, he seems quite content to be curled up in his parent's home, eating peanut butter sandwiches, and wearing his old high school letterman's jacket.

The book incorporates the real-life events of the time---the VietNam War, Neil Armstrong's walk on the moon, the racial riots that swept across America---and makes strong political and racial statements. However, this is the part of the book that dragged due to the verbosity of Skeeter, the angry black character who insinuates himself into Rabbit's life. Also present is Jill, an eighteen-year-old hippie who has run away from her wealthy parents and becomes daughter/lover to Rabbit.

As in "Rabbit, Run," a bizarre tragedy occurs three-quarters into the book. Rabbit, however, emerges relatively unscathed and plods along in his everyman's life.

Ruth and Jack Eccles make cameo appearances and there is a more in-depth look at Rabbit's parents, his sister, and Nelson. This is a great character-driven novel as the aimless and almost pathetic Rabbit moves through middle age. With all lost at novel's end, he has nowhere to go but up. Therefore, I am definitely looking forward to the next installment in this tetralogy.

I think Rabbit Redux is a more accomplished book than Rabbit, Run, and a stronger novel. What looked new and experimental in Rabbit, Run (e.g. the present tense narration) seems in this novel more established - less self-conscious and posturing. The cast of characters also comes across as more solid. Rabbit's parents and his son, Nelson, are in particular well-realised - so that one gets a stronger sense here of Rabbit's role within a family than one did in the first novel. (Who, by the way, portrays adolescents as well as Updike?) And Rabbit Redux is also more of a social history than the more literary Rabbit, Run, faithfully reflecting the racial and political climate of 1960s America. I would read Rabbit, Run first, but I would certainly then recommend reading this one.

Rabbit Redux is by far the worst of the Rabbit series and for one reason - the character of Skeeter. Never have I read a book where the author allowed such an annoying character to hijack his story. What Jar Jar Binks (that annoying character who never shut up)was to Star Wars-The Phantom Menace, Skeeter was to Redux. After a while of putting up with the boring and endless rantings of this character, I began skipping pages. I hate doing that but I had no choice. I found that it didn't matter much anyway - nothing Skeeter said brought anything to this story, nor does it to the following two Rabbit books

The book was good overall, but why did Updike have to devote so much of the story to Skeeter and his mindless rantings.

Updike is good at balancing the perspective of characters, so that we figure out what is happening through their heads sometimes, and at other times, we hear it in the third person. When inside a head, Updike also doesn't let a linear transgression occur through objectified and common facts, but instead shows us a kind of stream of consciousness, though patterned, way of thinking, and of being wrong about a physical and social world that is constantly changing. This book is a clarion call for class/race/gender analysis--these issues do not exist independently, and cannot exist independently. We get Americana at its finest, but here, things clash, and people talk; instead of any kind of dreamy removed abstraction, we have Updike challenging the social roles: is Jill a prostitute? Is she Harry's daughter? Is she at once Harry's daughter, a prostitute, a white rich girl from CT and Nelson's girlfriend, a heroin addict, a good role model, and a wise philosopher? Well, yeah! That's what makes Updike so good. People are boxed in the way that we traditionally box them, as is Harry, but they are simultaneously moving through space and time, so that the boxes are also moving around them. Through this kind of everyday analysis, Updike moves to tackle major social issues, and he does so, what, two decades ahead of many elite social scientists? And, in my opinion, he does so in a more accessible way--because looking at some of the issues presented in this book cannot be separated away from living a middle class lifestyle; race riots, urban sprawl, gender equity, coming of age adolescence, capitalistic monotony, family breakdown, love affairs, boredom, elitist, racism, the freedom of the road, the neutrality of whiteness, etc.--They are all intermingled and mashed up together, so that we get some kind of more realistic view on how things happen. That's the bottom line I guess. This book is like a moving snapshot, and Updike parses out enough details and specificity to tell us a story, but without losing some of the complication and ambiguities of how life is experienced on multiple levels, from multiple angles, and from simultaneous, but traditionally opposing, viewpoints.

Ah yes, how nice to settle in with another Rabbit novel by that patron-Saint of adultery John Updike. Here we meet a Rabbit (how sad that no one remembers or cares about his beloved nickname except Updike and us) ten years older, just as gloomy and perhaps more irascible and conservative.

But I always stand by my belief that Rabbit is more intelligent than everybody around him even when he is spouting nonesense. I have talked to a few people who think him stupid but i feel that he has a naturally expansive nature, and is not afraid to look at life at its ugliest and most awful.

Of course Janice is back, and is presented as more complex and enigmatic, as she herself is involved in an affair with someone else. I thought Updike wrote of the relationship between Rabbit and his son wonderfully; one could sense acutely the admiration Nelson had for him, though at times it was difficult for them to relate. The relationship between Nelson and Rabbit reminded me of that of Peter and Caldwell in The Centuar.

Beyond this there is a mad cast of characters and some scenes of absolutely high drama. Sad fires in the middle of the night, lessons dictated to Rabbit about the history of racism in America, stress between Rabbit and both his wife and his son, the troubled teenage girl who happens to fall into the picture and much more.

I did not think this book a dissapointment at all (in fact I applaud Updike's courage for attempting to follow up the brilliant Rabbit, Run at all) and also feel that this book has more narrative explosiveness and drama than did the earlier novel.

It goes without saying that this book is written beautifully and filled with tons of images which my unartistic brain would never have dreamed of. From the enchanting opening scene of workers freshly emerging into the overwhelming daylight that renders them all looking like ghosts coming into focus, Updike proceeds to sprinke the dialouge and narrative with bizzare images which compel one to stare at things anew, with wide-open eyes. It is in such little details that Updike exhibits his genius and original mind. If this were merely a novel "about life and love in America" I would have no interest in it whatsoever. The real beauty of the novel is simply Updike's shimmering prose and originality of textured thought (who else would describe a couple holding hands and walking away in the night as "a starfish leapt in the dark as they walked away" - such images make a novel).

Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom is the epitome of the guy who peaked in high school. His days of glory as a high school basketball star have dissolved into a mundane adulthood. "Rabbit Redux" opens in the summer of 1969, and while Apollo II is on its way to the moon, Ted Kennedy drives his car off a bridge on Chappaquiddick Island, nightly newscasts report death tolls in Vietnam, and race riots and war protests are blazing throughout the nation, Rabbit works solemnly as a typesetter at a printing plant. (Amusing samples of Rabbit's work are shown, including his occasional distraction-induced mistakes.) We see the development of Rabbit's relationships with his growing son Nelson, his dying mother, his doting father, and his aspiring actress sister Mim.

Rabbit's wife Janice, stifled by their stagnant marriage, moves into the apartment of a man with whom she is having an affair. In the wake of her departure, Rabbit meets Skeeter, a militant black Vietnam vet, and Jill, a spoiled rich 18-year-old runaway. Jill moves into Rabbit's house and takes on an ambiguous daughter/lover role. Rabbit also reluctantly allows Skeeter, who has jumped bail on a drug possession charge, to take shelter in his house. An interesting set of archetypes is now thrust into close quarters: Rabbit's suburban apple green clapboard house representing middle class America; Rabbit, traditional average white American values; Jill, the younger white liberal (hippie) faction; and Skeeter, the black power movement.

Skeeter engages Rabbit in heated debates about racism, slavery, and Vietnam, with Jill acting somewhat as a mediator. Rabbit spouts his opinions authoritatively but without much conviction. Possibly lacking the mental endurance to keep up with Skeeter's rhetoric, Rabbit's ideological conflict with Skeeter gradually gives way to concession. He learns to enjoy the presence of these two strangers in his house; it could be that Nelson, Jill, and Skeeter comprise the family he's always wanted.

In his discussions with Rabbit and his lifestyle at the house, Skeeter emerges as the most complex character in the novel. Embodying the rage and confusion from centuries of oppression, he is alternately resentful, wily, domestic, pedantic, perverse, or paranoid, depending on the unpredictable trajectory of his disposition. He is as natural playing basketball with Nelson during the day as he is administering drugs to Jill in exchange for sexual favors at night. He caricatures himself as an ingratiating Uncle Tom in the presence of a cab driver, exhorts Rabbit and Nelson to read passages from his books aloud, and imagines himself a future messiah. As in "Rabbit, Run," there is a tragic climax, an event that brings this curious living arrangement to an abrupt end.

As a sequel, "Rabbit Redux" reflects the time in which it was written more emphatically than "Rabbit, Run" did; the language is more explicit, the pacing is more frenetic, everybody seems just a little crazier as the country seems to be on the verge of self-destruction. Updike uses this point in history as a brilliant perspective through which to view the development of the Angstroms as characters.

So now I've finished the first two books of the tetralogy," "Rabbit Run" (which I gave three stars) and "Rabbit Redux." Maybe I just got used to the questionable moral values of Rabbit (who, at times, reminds me of Archie Bunker), but I liked the second book better. For one thing, in "Redux" Updike really does provide us with a small time capsule of the end of the 1960's (i.e. the moon landing, Vietnam, drugs and racism) and once again illustrates the difficulties of living an ordinary, seemingly dead-end, middle class life. However, unlike "Rabbit Run," there are actually characters who have some redeeming qualities. For instance, Nelson (the 12 year old son of Rabbit and Janice) seems to have an unusual sense of morality and responsibility, at least in Updike's version of society. Clearly, Rabbit loves his son, and we thought maybe he was incapable of loving anybody, including himself. Further, Janice is a far more fleshed out pro-active character, as opposed to her vacuous self in the first book. Get around the fact that he's having an adulterous relationship with Janice (which Rabbit, at least outwardly, approves of), and you have to admit that George Stavros seems like a pretty decent guy (think Michael Stivic to Rabbit's Archie).

Alot of the reviewers mention the despicable actions of Rabbit towards his 18 year old lover/surrogate daughter, Jill, as well as the endless diatribes spewed by Skeeter regarding race in America. While I certainly wouldn't attempt to defend either, nevertheless, I was drawn in by the relationship between Rabbit, Nelson, Skeeter and Jill. Sure, it was dysfunctional and heading for disaster, but there was something compelling and tender about it as well (although I'm not sure why Updike chose to have Skeeter convince Jill to take heroin. Possibly, he didn't want the reader to get too emotionally attached to any of his characters, sort of like what David Chase does in The Sopranos).

I can't pretend that I know what John Updike really thinks about marriage, morality, love, sex, American "values" or the middle class. The same can be said about many other authors. I just know that the series is starting to grow on me, and I have eagerly begun "Rabbit is Rich." I may not like these people (other than Nelson), but Updike has made me curious as to what will happen to them. Of course, no one can deny that he's also one of America's greatest descriptive writers.

I am working my way through the Rabbit novels and have just started Rabbit is Rich. I enjoyed Rabbit Run a lot and was slightly disappointed by Rabbit Redux.

There are great things about Rabbit Redux. I think that 10 years later, Rabbit is more thoughtful and has become a somewhat nicer person. He has become more at peace with his existence. When he discovers his wife, Janice, is having an affair, he is fairly unbothered and tells her that she can keep the lover if she wants to as long as he doesn't have to see it. Of course, this drives her away.

The core of the book deals with Rabbit's interactions with 3 other people that begin living with him. Jill is an 18 year old runaway with addiction issues and is from a well to do family. She moves in with Rabbit and they have a sexual relationship much to the dismay of everyone who knows Rabbit since he is 36. Nelson, Rabbit's 13 year old also lives there and is infatuated with Jill. The real wildcard character is Skeeter the radical black activist Viet Nam vet who is also having sex with Jill. This group spends a lot of time discussing and debating the issues of the late 60s including race and Viet Nam.

I agree with a previous reviewer who described Skeeter as Jar Jar Binks. He is simply so annoying that his voice in the debate is lost. I simply lost patience and his voice became blah, blah, blah to me.

So, while I liked the character progression of Rabbit, I was really put off by Skeeter.

I still liked Rabbit Redux but not as much as Rabbit Run.

It has been said that one of the hallmarks of a great novel is that it grows with you over the years, offering up new and deeper insights with each rereading. If that's true, then Rabbit Redux is a great novel, and perhaps the best of the four Rabbit books. Taking place right at the end of the turbulent 1960s, Rabbit Redux tells the story of the total undoing of Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom's middle class life, an undoing that is largely self-inflicted. And as counterpoint to Rabbit's undoing, it also captures in vivid and often poetic language an America that is coming undone at the seams, torn apart by Vietnam, drugs, racial unrest, generational animus, and an all pervasive anything-goes attitude to morality.

I first read Rabbit Redux when I was sixteen. I can well remember thinking when I came to the end of the book back then that Rabbit, his life an ungodly wreck by the final page, was the embodiment of a loser, and certainly not a character worthy of my sympathy. I read the book again in my mid thirties, after having taken a few hard knocks of my own in life, and this time I felt more than a little empathy for poor ol' Rabbit; and also, surprisingly, a frightening chill at the realization of just how tenuious our hold really is on the so-called good-life. Well, as luck would have it, I came across a paperback copy of Rabbit Redux in a used book store not long ago, and, seeing the old familiar cover of a book I hadn't laid eyes on in years, I yielded to nostalgia and bought it. And then I read it.

Rabbit, of course, is still stuck back in 1969, still making all the same dumb mistakes, and still oblivious to his own stupidity. And I, of course, have moved on. Reading the book once more in middle-age was like stumbling upon a long lost friend fallen on hard times. I found myself wanting to grab hold of Rabbit and lecture him, caution him to think twice about what he was doing, warn him about all of the pitfalls that lay ahead of him. But Rabbit's fate, as envisioned by John Updike, is as irreversible as if it were set in stone. All I could do was witness once again a serio-comic calamity that passes for a life. And when it was all over, and I had set the book aside, I felt along with my previous empathy, a deep sense of sadness this time around: sadness for the waste that lies at the heart of so many live; saddness for a country that still hasn't regained its confidence after all these many years; and finally, sadness that an author capable of evoking so many emotions is no longer with us.

I can't recommend this book strongly enough. It may not change your life; but, if read more than once, it may well provide you with a yardstick against which to measure the changes in your life. Of course, in order to really get the full impact of Rabbit Redux, you'll have to read Rabbit Run first; and after that you'll no doubt want to read the two follow-up novels, Rabbitt Is Rich and Rabbit At Rest, as well. If nothing else, reading these books will lay to rest the falsity -- advanced largely by Gore Vidal -- that Updike was nothing more than a stodgy, provincial Protestant, who, out-of-step with his times, advanced in his books an outmoded, oppressive brand of morality. Trust me, no stodgy provincial could have created the likes of Rabbit Angstrom, and no one who was out-of-step with his times could have captured America so perfectly in the second half of the calamitous Twentieth Century.

I found Rabbit Redux to be the weakest book in the Rabbit tetrology, though by no means is it a weak book in and of itself. Rabbit Redux's plot takes a detour in the middle and never quite gets back on track, though the writing itself is just as masterful as that of Rabbit, Run. Updike is good with beginnings. In Rabbit, Run, the reader was hooked by the description of Harry heading south from Brewer, Pennsylvania on his first ill-planned quest. In the sequel, the family's conversation with Charlie Stavros in the first part of the book is an excellent mix of sharp dialogue and witty description. We can quickly see how far (or, as it were, NOT far) Rabbit has come since the first book, and it's interesting to watch his wife Janice and son Nelson change along with him. Rabbit Redux introduces a host of supporting characters. Charlie Stavros tends to be the most believable and familiar (with enough quirks to make him stand out in Updike's landscape of idiosyncratic people). Jill and Skeeter, Rabbit and Nelson's two houseguests in the book's middle, are more stereotypical than I would have hoped. Updike seems to descend a little too far into social commentary in the middle of the book as Jill the Poor-Little-Rich-Girl Hippie and Skeeter the Mysterious Black Man exact their influence on both Rabbit and Nelson. Rabbit Redux feels most a part of the Rabbit series when the two aforementioned characters are no longer in the book.