2386 Rabbit Is Rich, by John Updike (read 17 May 1991) (Pulitzer Fiction prize in 1982) (National Book Award fiction prize in 1982) (National Book Critics Circle fiction award for 1981) Even though I have read nearly all the Pulitzer prize fiction winners, I avoided reading this one because I dreaded reading the filth Updike spews out. I have now read it, and my foreboding was right. It is full of ickiness and is so repulsive and the hero is such a pot that I cannot see how anyone in his right mind could say it is a worthwhile book. Rabbit is running his mother-in-law's Toyota agency and is finally well-off. His son Nelson is worthless and disgusting and hates his father. When Nelson's wife has his baby he runs off to Kent State to finish college, and Rabbit and Janice come back from a Caribbean vacation--the account of which reaches a new low in disgustingness--and at the end Rabbit is sitting watching the 1980 Super Bowl with his granddaughter in his arms. Now I'll have to read the last Rabbit novel and then I'll never read another word by Updike again as long as I live. [However, I did later read something more by him, but it was not as nauseating as the Rabbit books.] ( )

The third in the series of Rabbit books, Updike has glorious fun with Rabbit as the prosperous owner of a Toyota dealership. Flush with money, Rabbit navigates the world of upper-class America in his usual bumbling and yet insightful way. Updike has lots of sly fun with 80's style Reagan values of "greed is good." A classic. ( )

A work of pensive maturity--Rabbit is still dislikable, but this one is richer, contains more Nelson ( )