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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
24 of 25 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
I Love What You Do For Me, Rabbit Angstrom,
By
This review is from: Rabbit at Rest (Paperback)
Having become enamored with Rabbit Angstrom through this magnificent tetralogy, I was sad to see the end finally come. Rabbit with his highly unlovable ways, his crude sexuality, his ethnic slurs, his disdain for the "dumb mutt" he married, all would normally tend to turn someone off, and yet Updike has made this anti-hero an endearing and enduring creation. Rabbit is the 20th century man in all his dysfunctional glory, who in spite of his many shortcomings, is like an old friend we are immensely fond of and want to keep up with.Though all the books are well-written, it is in this fourth and final installment that Rabbit and Updike both reach their peak and mesmerize the reader. Rabbit at 55 is feeling the pains of a lifetime of beer-drinking and cholesterol-laden foods. While on an outing with his granddaughter, he suffers his first heart attack and thus begins his long trip into the valley of death and the nostalgic trip down memory lane that so often precedes that. Looking back on his life, he decides it must be a religious tie that kept him with Janice as he can think of no other reason. Rabbit and Janice are now leading "the good life" and while cocaine-addicted son Nelson runs Springer Motors, the senior Angstroms spend six months of the year in sunny Florida where Rabbit golfs and Janice plays tennis and attends a women's group regularly. It is Janice that has changed most, making the best of her life with Rabbit while enjoying the carefree existence of a snowbird. It is surprising to Rabbit when he discovers that, though outwardly together, to herself Janice will always be the woman who drowned her own daughter. Rabbit is still deeply interested in American history, but it is his personal history that haunts him-the daughter he thinks is his, the daughter he knows is his but died, the son he can never connect with. When Rabbit commits the ultimate betrayal of his son, he does what he does best, he runs. In classic Rabbit style, he ignores his problems, ignores his doctor's advice, ignores the laws of common decency, and becomes his one and only soulmate. Rabbit's final run and his last days are some of the most angst-ridden yet best-written pages in contemporary American literature. If anyone ever wants to know how it was to come of age in 1950's America and live through the 1990's, they have no better blueprint for tracing events than the story of Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom.
17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Life catches up with him,
By
This review is from: Rabbit at Rest (Paperback)
Rabbit at Rest is a wonderful book, what more can I say?During the reading of it, I continually wanted to pass judgment against Rabbit and characterize him as a "bad" person, but I couldn't. Rabbit at 55 years old isn't "bad" - he is a product of 55 years of life and sadly, he cannot seem to figure out how to change himself and get on a smoother road to peace & happiness, even though he wants to, he should, and knows he should. Rabbit is a man stuck in routine. He talks down to Nelson, obsesses about infidelity, disregards his health, and sees Janice as a "dumb mutt" because he always has and doesn't know how to live his life any other way. This book makes you think about how many of us there are who just can't figure out how to break out of our routines, even when those routines are unhealthy and killing us. We're all scared of change, just like Rabbit.
15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
They grow up and they never change,
By
This review is from: Rabbit at Rest (Paperback)
In this book, the Angstroms are semi-retired and living in Florida. Rabbit has a heart condition and he's not doing anything to improve his health. His son Nelson has grown into a wreck of an adult, to which Harry and his wife deserve the lion share of the blame. The parents are so old and respectable now, you forget what they put their son through, until he reminds them. You really want to root for Harry to overcome all of the obstacles he faces, like you root for charming outlaws to outrun the posse. You sense that Zeus and the Gods are sitting on Mt. Olympus using Harry Angstrom as their plaything. Despite the fact that Updike is given literature status (this book won the Pulitzer), it's very easy to get into. This isn't long and arduous James Joyce prose, but an easy to follow modern day story that will make you think. The series is either a scathing indictment of latter 20th Century middle-class America that invents their own agony or it's just Updike's view of how normal people live. Whichever, I would recommend it to anyone who enjoys serious fiction.
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