Rabbit at Rest

Sometimes there are books that, while you are reading them, you wonder why you're taking the time to do so. And then when you get to the end, you're really glad you did. For me this book is one of them. I am very grateful to my husband for repeatedly encouraging me to read Updike's "Rabbit" books. At the end I felt a sudden and unexpected surge of sadness... Harry, as flawed as he is, had become very special to me, someone I cared about, someone who spoke to me in personal and universal ways.

I read the first Rabbit book and then this one, the last in that series, thirty years later. My younger self liked Rabbit, Run a lot--five stars worth. But then I was put off, over then years, by essays written by Updike in NYRB and some general things I read about him, including the opinions of others--including moves based upon his books, like The Witches of Eastwick--which influenced me, which is to say I foolishly formed some secondhand preconceptions.

At any rate, recently I've been reading authors whom I've had these nebulous, prejudicial attitudes about--often contemporary or almost contemporary writers, like Philip Roth and Saul Bellow (I discovered I don't care for Bellow, whom I find turgid, and can only take a few of Roth's show more books, because of his sexual o0bsessions). And then I came to this one Rabbit at Rest, which I thought superlative. show less

Without a doubt, "Rabbit at Rest" is the best of the series. I did not want it to end.

In the opening scene Harry Angstrom is 55 years old and is feeling tired and used up. He is no longer remembered as Rabbit- champ of the local high school basketball team. In fact, he and Janice are spending the cold winter months in Florida, and it’s a trying challenge for Harry to play a decent golf game with the older Jewish crowd. Harry is overweight, out of shape, and ornery as ever.

Aside from his health issues, Harry is still having family problems. Janice has outlived the chauvinistic rituals and insists on having a career. And 32 year old Nelson? I don’t want to give away the entire plot but will say that Nelson is a mess. He’s running show more the Toyota dealership... that is- running it into the ground. And he is heavily into doing drugs.

"Rabbit at Rest" beautifully reflects the late 1980’s. There are lots of references to current events and cultural norms: the Florida snowbirds, shopping trends for cars, clothing and housing, drug use, and the medical industry.

Harry has a heart attack. His treatment and recovery- told from his own perspective- is both profound and amusing. And I imagine 25 years ago when the book was first published, and the angioplasty was a relatively new procedure, it made for interesting reading.

The most impressive thing about Updike’s writing is the dialogue which encompasses a huge portion of the story. His conversations with his grand-daughter are funny and insightful. They show a very caring, human side to Harry. He really does have a big heart under all his smutty, abrasive observations and the crude arrogant interaction he has with others.

His sexual appetite is the one thing that is consistent throughout the series. Harry is a man of uncontrollable urges and little self control. A lot of Harry’s behavior is shocking and unforgivable. He is so far out of control that it is hopeless to advocate for his redemption. By the end of the series, however, you can almost feel sorry for him.

It was a fascinating experience reading all the intimate details of a man’s personal life.
Looking back on the entire series, the first two books "Rabbit Run" and "Rabbit Redux" offered colorful images, but vague details. It was almost as though the older Rabbit was looking back on his past. The final two books, "Rabbit is Rich" and "Rabbit at Rest" seem to be in the here and now- alive and vibrant- bigger than life. Perhaps that is because Updike’s writing skills improved with each new story. Or maybe Harry Angstrom took on a life of his own… with intensity and passion the plot builds to a crescendo. Harry Rabbit Angstrom is one of the most authentic fictional characters I’ve ever encountered.

Thank you Mr. Updike.

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for fiction, and the National Book Award. show less

the five star rating is linked not to my first 1996 reading but to the [grand, illuminating] 2001 reread. when first I read _Rabbit at Rest_, I was 18, ignorant of Updike, bored and grossed out by contemporary literature (the thing itself and the class English 140/TR 230-345/somewhere on the second floor of Chambers Bldg). but somehow Virginia Smith managed to persuade arrogant me that, insofar as this Updike and/or Rabbit business was concerned, there was something maybe *I* was missing.

four-and-some years later, thousands of miles from University Park PA 16802, I remember and begin the experiment by checking out _Rabbit, Run_. and there in my little room in Oakland CA 94612, I read, one at a time and something like one per 60 days, show more the Rabbit novels. the experiment: do we actually grow in empathy over time, with age? of course I could cry for Septimus Smith or H.H. or Jake or Werther or whoever, but icky ordinary Harry Angstrom?! I did! I did cry; it worked, and all I had to do was read and reread. it's like an episode of How to Become a Better Person Without Doing Anything Difficult (not a real show)!

I will always have a very soft spot for Rabbit and for Updike himself (though not so soft that I feel obligated to finish any of his gazillion other novels). show less

As the title suggest, Rabbit at Rest is about death. It is obsessed with death, Updike's love song to it. He lovingly details Rabbit's aging and increasing frailty, from his clogged arteries and heart disease, to his decreasing sexual appetite, to his bathroom habits and his nostril hairs. He makes snide remarks about bodily functions practically every other sentence (which would be almost funny if it weren't just kind of sad and pathetic). He harps on such mundane aspects of life as if they had some metaphysical significance---or perhaps to insinuate that nothing does, which comes to the same thing. He writes things like (in this case, describing radio): "We are noisy vermin, crowding even the air." (Updike is basically a misanthrope show more with a flair for turning a phrase.) He writes that all material existence is sad because transitory, and there is no other kind.

While this is all very wrong and unpleasant, there is a kind of internal unity and artistic integrity to it, and in places he seems almost as sincere as he did back at the beginning of the series in Rabbit, Run. Unfortunately, as the series progresses, it becomes increasingly about Rabbit's son Nelson, who is an even less sympathetic character and not nearly as interesting. I spent most of this book just waiting for Rabbit to die. But, if you've made it this far, all the way through Rabbit Redux and Rabbit is Rich, you may as well read this and finish the series off, as this is better than those were (but still not as good as the first). show less

This was my favorite of the whole quartet, at least from what I can remember of Rabbit, Run. Nelson is still as annoying as he was in Rabbit is Rich (My review here) , but Harry is much less horrible than he was in Rabbit Redux (My review here). In fact, he seemed to mellow out a whole lot more and actually start to stand up for what he thought should happen instead of sitting back and taking it all.

Janice started to redeem herself in my mind in this book, but kind of threw it all away in the latter part of the book. I didn't like her in Redux because she put herself before the welfare of her son, and she was just really, really dumb in Rich. She was still far too indulgent of Nelson and his immaturity, but she actually stood up to him, show more which he needed.

As always, Updike was one of the masters of prose writing. Some of these passages are amazingly brilliant and detailed. Here's an example:

Up, up; the air thins, the barometer registers, the timer begins to tick as the plane snugly bores through the darkness and the pilot chats on the radio while the cockpit lights burn and wink around him and the passengers nod over their drinks in their slots of pastel plastic. This image, like a seed at last breaking its shell in moist soil, awakens in Harry the realization that even now as he lies here in this antiseptic white fog tangled in tubes and ties of blood and marriage he is just like the people he felt so sorry for, falling from the burst-open airplane: he too is falling, helplessly falling, toward death. The fate awaiting him behind this veil of medical attention is as absolute as that which greeted those bodies fallen smack upon the boggy Scottish earth like garbage bags full of water.

I'm still failing to see where this quartet is a "valentine to (Updike's) country" as Joyce Carol Oates said, but I think this is a book, if only for the prose alone, belongs in the American canon of great books.

My rating: 8/10 show less

Since I read the first Rabbit. He is selfish and self- absorbed. He commits selfish betrayals of wife, friends and family, and seems to suffer no remorse. Still,I read on, to complete the unfolding of a despicable character. Spoiler alert: There is no redemption for Harry Angstrom.

How could this series gain so much acclaim? The disgustingly vivid description of bodily functions and mundane observations of life and surroundings did not, in my opinion, warrant the accolades it received. Harry was, until the end a racist and misogynistic fool. Updike threw in many unnecessary details about t.v. shows, radio broadcasts, and other popular culture references to make the book seem relevant when published. These references now seem to make the show more book more dated and out of touch. show less