Rabbit Is Rich (original 1981; edition 1996)

1 of 18 books for $10 today 5.12.2012

Après ##Coeur de lièvre## et ##Rabbit rattrapé##. Le héros est maintenant presque quinquagénaire, prospère, respectable, avec quelques problèmes domestiques.

Less fascinatingly horrible than Rabbit, Run, and not even as just plain horrible as Rabbit Redux, Rabbit Is Rich is simply rather dull. At first, I wanted to find out what was going to happen to these characters out of a sort of morbid curiosity, like watching a train wreck...but as the series progresses it becomes increasingly difficult to care. The writing is comparatively bland, and the story is incredibly predictable. I knew everything that was going to happen before it did, with the exception of what Updike seemed to be leading up to as the climax. As it turns out, it was more of an anti-climax. (I should probably give a spoiler warning here, in case anyone cares, not that it matters.)

The entire book seems to be building up to Rabbit's son Nelson having an affair with a girl who he doesn't know might be his half-sister, Rabbit's illegitimate daughter from his own affair back in Rabbit, Run. And then, it simply doesn't happen (and the book leaves unresolved whether she is in fact Rabbit's daughter or not). And it's not just that these were the characters' perceptions that Updike was reporting and they turned out to be misapprehensions...during the scenes between Nelson and the girl, they know nothing about what's going on. So basically, Updike is just screwing with us. On the one hand, it's kind of a relief that he doesn't go there, that he draws the line at incest (though he doesn't stick at much else, including wife-swapping and golden showers). But since he was making us think it anyway, he might as well have gone there, and not to do so is artistically dishonest. It's the same kind of stunt hacks like Dan Brown pull...and yet, Updike wins a Pulitzer for it (though I can't say I'm surprised).

Updike quotes from Babbitt in the epigraph, but he is no Sinclair Lewis. My recommendation is, if you enjoy this sort of literary naturalism, it might as well be good naturalism, so go and read that instead...or better still, one of Lewis's even better novels, like Arrowsmith, Dodsworth, Elmer Gantry, or It Can't Happen Here. Those still have something to say, even though they were written almost a century ago...while Rabbit Is Rich, written less than half a century ago, doesn't. ( )

Rabbit is Rich is the 3rd in a 4 part series centering around Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom.

I did not enjoy the first book in this series at all. The 2nd book, Rabbit Redux, I found myself really enjoying. The main difference between those two was that while the first book left me feeling no empathy towards Rabbit, the second made me really come to appreciate this admitted asshole, and his bizarre life.

The third, Rabbit is Rich, picked up 10 years after the second left off. In it, Rabbit has become a middle aged man, who finds himself virtually adventure-free. His problems center around his annoying mother-in-law, with whom him and his wife live, and his aggravating and dull son, Nelson.

I'm halfway through the final book in the series (well, there's also a novella that sounds sort of like an epilogue, but it's not technically part of the series) and I can say that I did enjoy Rabbit is Rich much more than any of the other books in the series. Updike has this amazing ability to give so many fucking details that I should be pulling my hair out, yet he does it so effectively that I smile through most of the pages of his books. Though the story is told through the 3rd person perspective, the level of detail and metaphor really make me feel that I'm reading Harry's thoughts and seeing things through his eyes. ( )

More involving than the second book in the series but never matching the exciting urgency of the first, perhaps because the protagonist is carrying so many more years - and so much more timber. The final section is particularly brilliant, with a satisfying pay-off to the rest of the novel's warning signals. ( )