Updike's Rabbit series is, quite simply, some of the best literature I have ever read.

This last book in the series takes the story to a whole new level.

Throughout the series, Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom has been a rather despicable character. In this book, he reaches new lows. The things he does are enough to make the reader loathe him.

And yet, he is so human. It wasn't his intention to be a jerk. He wanted to be the hero of his own story, but his selfish and needy nature prevented him from achieving that. He used others, especially women, to boost his self-esteem and ease his pain.

But what is the source of all this pain? Is it the loss of his daughter, his terrible mother, or the loss of basketball, the only thing he truly loved? It's hard to say for sure. Throughout the books, the losses pile up as the people in his life either die young or find a way to escape the chaos that is Harry. Meanwhile, Harry sinks deeper and deeper into despair, pulling those around him down with him.

The latter parts of this book, where Harry is alone and having an internal conversation with himself, remind me of the last luminous chapter of "Ulysses," Molly's soliloquy. Rabbit's soliloquy is more rambling, but no less heartfelt.

I spent all this time with a character I didn't really like, and yet, at the end, I felt a sense of empathy for him. I thought about all the mistakes I've made in my life, all the people I've hurt and disappointed, and I realized that in many ways, I am no different from Rabbit.

Harry ‘Rabbit’ Angstrom is a complex and relatable character.

He is a product of his era, a white American male born just before WW2. The years following the war saw his country leave its mark on the world, and Rabbit was influenced by this.

Throughout his life, as depicted in four brilliant books, Rabbit acts like a trusting and entitled child. He believes that if he follows the rules he was taught, everything will work out.

However, he also feels the need to break the rules sometimes, as long as he stays in his assigned place in society.

Rabbit's life is a mix of success and misfortune, love and hate. He has his fair share of good times and bad times, but he always seems to find a way to keep going.

He is not a spectacular character, but he is human, all too human. He has flaws and weaknesses, but he also has a good heart and a desire to be loved.

Updike's writing is masterful, painting a vivid picture of middle-class American life in the 20th century. The Rabbit books are a tribute to the ordinariness of life, and they show that even the most ordinary people can have extraordinary stories.

Overall, Rabbit is a character that will stay with you long after you finish reading the books. He is a reminder that life is full of ups and downs, but that it is still worth living.

While the average person might have been engaged in conducting online searches for holiday recipes this week, I was embarking on my own rather unique Google search.

I found myself typing in: which type of cigarettes did John Updike smoke? (My poor, poor children. They won't be getting any Waldorf salad or candied yams from me this time around).

The query did provide me with some information that I already knew, namely that Mr. Updike had passed away from lung cancer, a consequence of his rather nasty smoking habit. However, my actual question remained unanswered.

Which kind of cigarettes did he smoke??

Do you know?

I don't. But I have an intense desire to know. And I think about it... an almost unnatural amount. Virtually every photo ever taken of John Updike showcases a burning cigarette casually drooping from his mouth or held loosely between his two fingers.

And although I loathe cigarette smoking, I find myself envisioning that mischievous smile and that stupid cigarette hanging from his mouth. Before I know it, I'm like Olivia Newton-John in Grease, slowly pulling that darn thing from his mouth, throwing it to the ground to crush under my black heel, and whispering (real close like to his face), “Tell me about it, stud.” What follows from there is, well, none of your damn business.

WHAT KIND OF A REVIEW IS THIS???

This is my kind of review. It's my way of letting you know that I've read more John Updike than, say, 98% of the population. And although I'm not an “Updike expert,” I've gone so far as to have elaborate couch fantasies involving him.

And having inappropriately written all of that, I want you to know that you can trust me when I suggest to you that you ABSOLUTELY SHOULD read the Rabbit series (his most famous work), but just stop at Rabbit #3, Rabbit is Rich and call it a day.

Despite what Rabbit himself tells his grandson, Roy, in this book, when little Roy explains that he left the movie theatre early because the Dumbo movie had upset him: “If you don't stay to the end the sadness sticks with you,” I respectfully disagree. It simply wasn't worth it to stay to the end. The ending was lackluster. This novel was an overly wordy, overly written, tiresome slog. Rabbit and John should have both quit while they were ahead.

But don't worry, John. This one may not have worked for me, but I've got a bad case of the feels for you. I've got a substantial stack of your work, sitting close to my bed, eagerly waiting for my attention.

Was it Pall Malls? Marlboros? I still wonder.

I have finally put Rabbit to rest, and I must admit some relief in doing so.

These books are not enjoyable in the traditional sense. They don't offer a wealth of new knowledge that you didn't already possess. However, there is an intangible something that draws you in and compels you to keep reading.

Perhaps it is the innate human desire to peek into the secrets of someone else's life, hoping that it will provide insights into our own. Maybe it's the realization that, despite our best efforts, we can't help but find aspects of ourselves in Rabbit.

This final book (at least for me) delves into Rabbit's middle age, complete with all the health issues and family struggles that come with the aging process. He looks around and compares himself to his friends and associates, longing to be faring at least as well, if not better. But deep down, he knows, as do we all, that time is running short and the unknown future looms ahead, just beyond our sight.

Rabbit has always been a self-centered bastard, but now he is forced to confront problems that are not his own. There's the perpetually dissatisfied son, Nelson, to deal with, the sharp-tongued Janice, who is hardly anyone's idea of a good wife, and the granddaughter who has captured his heart whether he likes it or not. As I look at Rabbit's life, I can't help but wonder what it all meant. And I suspect Rabbit is asking himself the same question.

The book comes full circle. This is a life we have witnessed in its entirety. It's messy, ugly, and sad. I couldn't help but think back to the original book and wonder what Harry Angstrom might have become if he had simply continued on that midnight journey away from Brewer and the life he had begun, away from the chaos it was destined to become. Maybe, just maybe, he could have discovered a better man within himself - a different, improved Rabbit.

The five-star rating is not associated with my initial reading in 1996 but rather with the [grand, illuminating] reread in 2001.

When I first read _Rabbit at Rest_, I was 18, completely unaware of Updike, and both bored and disgusted by contemporary literature (both the works themselves and the class English 140/TR 230 - 345, which was located somewhere on the second floor of Chambers Bldg). However, somehow Virginia Smith managed to convince the arrogant me that, regarding this Updike and/or Rabbit matter, there might be something that *I* was overlooking.

Four and some years later, thousands of miles away from University Park PA 16802, I recalled and initiated the experiment by borrowing _Rabbit, Run_. And there, in my small room in Oakland CA 94612, I read, one at a time and approximately one every 60 days, the Rabbit novels. The experiment was: do we actually develop greater empathy as time passes and we age? Of course, I could shed tears for Septimus Smith or H.H. or Jake or Werther or whomever, but for the unappealingly ordinary Harry Angstrom?! I did! I truly cried; 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 tender spot for Rabbit and for Updike himself (although not so tender that I feel compelled to finish any of his countless other novels).

I was not alerted about John Updike until a decade after I first delved into his work. As a contrary person, the very admonition I got in 2018 (“Don’t approach him”) had the effect of making me eager to further investigate his masterpiece.

The critiques of Updike, who passed away in 2009 (shortly before I was obligated to read his youthful short story “A&P”), were so widespread that it's understandable why most readers would completely avoid his body of work. “A penis with a thesaurus,” David Foster Wallace wrote in the 90s; “Your books are just dull,” a caller on C-SPAN told the elderly author during a live broadcast. But only a few select writers I admire have ever gone so far as to make an anti-Updike value judgment — even David Foster Wallace’s comment need not be solely construed as negative criticism. Joyce Carol Oates has long been a vocal advocate of Updike’s Rabbit series, stating that Updike is “a master, like Flaubert, of captivating us with his narrative voice.”

A couple of years ago, I was perusing a section of shelves at Wisconsin’s largest used book sale, a biannual event that attracted used bookstore owners from the tri-city (Madison, Chicago, Milwaukee) area. The sale was held in a long, rectangular room with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves lining each wall. Rows of wide tables restricted movement in the space but provided ample places to stack books or boxes. Maps, indicating what type of book would be found where, hung every four or five feet on the walls — Cookbooks: table 14; Biography: tables 2 and 3; Hardback Fiction: northwest-corner shelves. It was there, within a vertical sea of glossy book jackets of Stephen King and James Patterson, that I discovered a first edition of Rabbit, Run. Its cover bore a pattern of thin, light blue, yellow, and green lines that changed color toward the middle of the image to form an optical illusion of a sphere. The reader surmises by the first page of the novel that the cover image is likely a minimalist, pop-art rendering of a basketball.

Rabbit, Run was published in the 1960s, but its plot is firmly rooted in the mid-50s. Updike would release a new Rabbit novel at the start of each subsequent decade as a means of charting the previous nine-to-ten years of American history. So, as the Rabbit novels progress through American history, the reader witnesses just how much the residents of this Rust Belt town are unwavering products of their time, an era with intense racial tensions (Rabbit Redux charts the 60s and the rise of Nixonites) and dwindling local economies. Today, we would likely envision Rabbit and those around him wearing red MAGA hats — a conclusion that becomes evident after the opening of Rabbit Redux when Rabbit goes on a tirade in the middle of a restaurant about the merits of Richard Nixon, the destruction of society at the hands of radical anti-America ideologues, and the strain of minorities on American culture.

Rabbit Redux is arguably the weakest of all the Rabbit books, but it happens to be my favorite, mainly because I didn't know what to make of its explosively racist, homophobic, and misogynist language — elements that actually made it the most memorable, uncomfortable, yet exciting. Not only is the reader confronted with the frequent use of the n-word and violence toward African Americans, but also Rabbit’s neglect of his child(ren) and physical abuse of his wife.

The Rabbit series's female characters have more agency than many of the women in the works of Updike’s contemporaries (such as Philip Roth or Saul Bellow). Their realized sexual agency increases with each successive book. However, an interpretation of these characters could go in one direction or the opposite. By voicing their own sexual demands, the female characters can be seen as either unhinged fetishizers of the taboo or simply fulfilling the trajectory of female self-actualization, fully embracing their own sexuality and power.

While this shift to females taking the lead during sex scenes in the later Rabbit books serves to put the fictional men and women on an equal footing, Rabbit’s imagination and fantasies in his mid-/older-age counteract these intimate scenes. For example, at the start of Rabbit is Rich, the protagonist is the manager of Springer Motors. A teenage couple enters the shop and Rabbit convinces them to take a test drive with him. In his mind, Rabbit notes and analyzes every physical feature of the girl.

His first question to his (male) co-worker, after the three return from the drive and the couple leaves, is “Whajja think of the girl?” Throughout the book, his mind frequently returns to the unnamed girl either in infatuation with the fantasy of bedding her or, strangely, because he believes her to be his daughter.

Thus, whether or not Updike intended to feature the rise of female empowerment and revolution in post-war American history in his Rabbit series, there is plenty in the book that lives up to his “mid-century misogynist” reputation. However, similar to other artists labeled “problematic,” it is difficult not to cherry-pick a series of lines, for fear that my thoughts could devolve into a somewhat tired discussion of the separation and/or union of a man and his art.

In my reading of the Rabbit novels, I was struck by the level of doom and disappointment. Nearly everything Rabbit has built or helped to create ends in destruction. At the end of the final novel, Rabbit has potentially destroyed not only his own marriage but also his son's. When new life is brought into the world at the close of Rabbit is Rich, Rabbit does not react with a sustained sense of wonder or humility. Instead, in the final lines, he sees the child as a sign of his own mortality.

To conclude, I would like to adopt Updike’s own view of himself, as expressed in the book Conversations and on The Charlie Rose Show toward the end of his life. There is no doubt that Updike was endowed with and developed poetic gifts that remain unrivaled. His mastery of描绘 the sensual world demands patience from readers and, when juxtaposed with the more shocking elements of his plots, tends to be overlooked. But more often than not, I was struck by the sublime quality of his descriptions. Like my first reading of “A&P” in 2009, I find Updike’s thematic ideas captivating, his sentences a perfect blend of improvisation, restraint, and formalization. His view of himself as a craftsman resembles self-reflective remarks made by Igor Stravinsky. In his plan for the Rabbit series, it is easy to envision that Updike understood the full impact that American history, as mirrored through art, would have on his own legacy. Philip Roth is remembered for much of the same mapping of America’s most significant political and cultural events. I believe Rabbit’s story depends on these upheavals in society, and the characters stage their own upheavals against one another through infidelity and negligence. Most strikingly, the portrait of Rabbit’s self-upheaval — the idea that any hint of a sense of foreboding symbolizes a universal fear of dying, if not death itself. Through conflict, nostalgia, description, and exploration of the ordinary in the Rabbit novels, Updike fulfills Saul Bellow’s famous proclamation that all great works are really only about one central idea: what happens when you die.

If you have been following my reviews of Updike’s Rabbit books, which I have spent a year reading as the third and fourth volumes won Pulitzers, then you know I have been reading them with a cynical eye.

Initially, I approached the series with an open mind, but I soon realized they were either bad or simply not to my taste. The characters were selfish and hateful, and there were endless inventories of newspaper headlines, movies playing, and women Rabbit had slept with. The racist, sexist, antisemitic, and homophobic slurs were offensive, and the tawdry and outrageous sex scenes were off-putting.

By the end of the third volume, I was ready to write that the Pulitzers owed us all an apology for awarding these books not one, but two Pulitzer Prizes. However, surprisingly and frustratingly, I did not hate the fourth book, Rabbit at Rest. While I’m pretty sure it’s not the best book of 1990, a year that also saw the publication of classics like Tim O’Brien’s The Things They Carried and Charles R. Johnson’s Middle Passage, it wasn’t as offensive a selection as the Pulitzer committee has made in other years.

Now in their fifties, Rabbit and his wife, Janice, divide their time between Pennsylvania and Florida, where they’ve bought a retirement condo. But their attempts to lead a peaceful final chapter are constantly thwarted by their son, Nelson, and his family, which, unsurprisingly, experiences the same chaos the older Angstroms brought to their household when they were young parents. In the previous books, Rabbit/Updike painted Janice in a cruel light, but here she stands on her own, making this reader, at least, reconsider whether she was really such a terrible person all along. Her conversation with Nelson about his cocaine addiction is beautifully written and perhaps the most tender few pages Updike wrote for these books. I also found some enjoyment in seeing the author reference old characters, make jabs at the silly word “redux” (in the title of book #2), and force Harry to finally face the consequences of his lifetime of irresponsible actions.

After finally reaching the end of my time with Rabbit and his dysfunctional family, coworkers, and friends, I’m oddly surprised to report that I don’t feel completely angry about spending such a significant portion of my reading life with them. Did the series finally win me over? Or did I develop Stockholm Syndrome from reading it? Only time and therapy will tell.

In this final installment of the series, Rabbit is more unlikable than he has ever been. He has been an interesting character to track throughout the previous three books, mainly because he embodies the bigotry, pessimism, and ambivalence that might be deeply concealed within all of us. However, I give it 3 stars as I didn't feel a connection to this character. The writing was truly spectacular.

Yet, Updike left Rabbit rather one-dimensional for me. Perhaps it was simply due to the lack of a detailed personal description, aside from being tall and overweight. I do enjoy the stream-of-consciousness, first-person writing style, but Updike was overly intertwined with Rabbit. A skilled writer does this, but after a while, and without a proper personal description, I started to see Updike as Harry Angstrom himself.

I also thought that the sexual references were a bit too blatant and forced. Despite these critiques, I find myself rereading individual sentences and paragraphs because they are written so impeccably - the metaphors, the texture, and the rhythm of the words are truly remarkable.

Overall, while there are some aspects that didn't quite work for me, the beauty of the writing still shines through.

As this is the book I'm reading at the moment, I thought I'd use this space to underline how ridiculous I find the idea of the Reading challenge.

Books aren't like chilies. I can't see the point in trying to consume as many as possible within the year, as if this was some kind of idiotic competition. In fact, it seems to trivialize and undermine the whole point of reading. Especially the kind of deep reading that is only possible in books as opposed to the surface skimming which we dedicate to the Internet or other types of screen-based reading.

Take Rabbit at Rest as an example. It's actually the weakest of the Rabbit books it seems to me, a coda that sings the sad hymn of decline, and witnesses the collapse of tough man America from the perspective of the skittish, jumpy Harry. Despite that, it's an absorbing read and I intend to keep going at it as slowly and for as long as possible. Savouring each plodding scene on the golf course, each devastatingly honest examination of Janice's shortcomings, each deeply offensive rumination on anything from AIDS to women to homosexuality or the particular abilities of Mediterranean immigrants.

Instead of reading challenges, we need more of the mindset that inspired the slow food movement. We should approach reading with the same respect and patience, taking the time to truly understand and appreciate the words on the page. Reading should be a journey, not a race to the finish line.

"Rabbit at Rest," the final novel in the Rabbit Tetralogy, which is arguably the defining work of John Updike’s career, sat on my bookshelf for months before I opened it.

It wasn't due to a lack of curiosity about how Harry “Rabbit” Angstrom’s life would end. Instead, it was because for a while, I couldn't imagine living without him. I had become so close to this character, the most recognizable and universally reviled of Updike’s creations. He served as a barometer for me, a funhouse mirror reflecting my cynicism and impulsiveness, and the closest thing I've ever had to a living, breathing affirmation of my existential anxiety. As long as the final volume remained unread, Rabbit and I could stay together, suspended in a state of sort-of-grace, existing between the invulnerability of childhood and the decrepitude of old age.

But who was I kidding? Just as surely as I had to read about it, Rabbit had to die. Death was his prophecy, his unwanted companion, and he realized this very early in life. Towards the end of the first novel, "Rabbit, Run," when 26-year-old Harry returns home to his wife after fleeing domestic responsibilities and shacking up with a prostitute for a few months, he confronts his mortality for the first time.

Updike conceived "Rabbit, Run" as a response to Jack Kerouac’s "On the Road." But Updike does more than just provide a rural conservative counterpart to Kerouac’s urban liberal protagonist. He peels back the veneer of suburban domesticity, revealing the terror within the ordinary aspects of daily life.

In the second novel, "Rabbit, Redux," Harry’s subconscious obsession with death erodes the remnants of his innocence and fuels his cynicism and bigotry. This time, it's Janice who leaves, and Harry finds himself in a strange commune with a young runaway prostitute and her drug dealer.

"Rabbit is Rich" sees Harry reuniting with Janice in exchange for a partial inheritance of her father’s Toyota dealership. Here, money seems to quell his rapaciousness and dull his wit.

"Rabbit at Rest" is a somewhat misleading title. Harry isn't resting but rather helplessly watching the world pass him by. His health declines, and Janice finds her own independence, leaving Harry in a lonely convalescence. Even his grandchildren seem to be harbingers of death.

In conclusion, "Rabbit at Rest" is a complex and thought-provoking novel that explores themes of mortality, domesticity, and the American dream. It is a fitting end to the Rabbit Tetralogy and a testament to Updike’s literary genius.

The fourth and final book of the tetralogy featuring Harry “Coelho” Angstrom as the protagonist. It's true that there is a fifth and short novel in this literary universe, but there he is no longer a character. I intend to read it in the next few months.

\\tAnyway, here the adventures of the common American man come to an end. John Updike begins the series with the young Coelho, 26 years old, newly married, full of doubts on the cusp of the 1960s. Then, on the cusp of the 1970s. In the third book, there is the cusp of the 1980s and, here, finally, the beginning of the 1990s. Each book is an opportunity to also look at the transformations of the country and how the generation born in the 1930s developed.

\\tCoelho ages, changes, but so does his city and his country. Now, in a world full of misunderstandings (p. 89), we find the semi-retired Harry, at 56 years old. He just wants to lead a peaceful life in Florida, where he and his wife Janice spend 6 months a year. He is aging rapidly. He is fat, out of shape, with constant chest pains. In his hometown, his son Nelson takes over the Toyota dealership that is the mainstay of the family's wealth. His wife seems to be in better shape than him and announces that she will live without him and will even be in a better situation.

\\tOne of the themes is the approach of death. Harry isn't that old, but he is very physically worn out. Little remains of the old athlete he was in adolescence. Now, he only plays golf with people older than him on a course in Florida. He passes the time eating snacks and other industrial crap. He knows the harm he is doing to himself. And he seems to be happy.

\\tHe sees death in front of him and there are many passages where he talks about it. Here are some:

\\t“A person occupies a place for some time, then falls out; that's how it's done: make room for others” (26)

\\t“...for an instant he sees his own life as a folly that will be a relief to set aside” (102)

\\t“half of the houses in that shabby neighborhood shelter the ghost of someone he knew and who no longer lives here” (174)

\\t[Youth] “life was an inexorable ascent in front of him” (178)

\\t“[he thought of] the many dead people he knew. They are becoming more and more numerous.” (310)

\\tIt is also the reckoning he is making with the people he has lived with and often hurt: his son, his former lover Ruth (who is present through the daughter they had, but with whom he never lived), his dying lover Thelma, his wife, his son and even Ronnie Harrison, the husband of his lover. At one point in a discussion, Ronnie defines Coelho like this: “You son of a bitch. The great star. You are the coldest, most selfish, son of a bitch I have ever known” (355)

\\tWith Thelma, his lover, on the verge of death, he has a last dialogue. Consumed by an autoimmune disease, she says that “We arrange the punishment we deserve in this life, I swear to God I believe that. Life gives exactly what we deserve. God makes that happen” (190)

\\tHarry seems to get away with life. He makes a lot of mistakes, but he seems to get away with all of them. Only seems. The bill comes in the form of illness. Not that it is a divine punishment and I don't think Updike would defend such a thing. The illness symbolizes this constant abuse he makes of everything: the excess of food, the laziness and the desire to enjoy life without thinking about the consequences of his decisions. This is especially present in the final passages of the book and, in particular, in the way he treats his son. Actions have consequences.

\\tPerhaps Harry is the case of someone who shone very young, the great adolescent basketball star, and then gradually declined: “Harry flowered very early and, when Janice met him at Kroll’s, he was already in decline, although things started to improve when the money from the agency started to be theirs” (474)

\\tThe common American man is not a pretty sight. He is not Captain America. Without illusions, he is a man who lives in the suburbs of a city in Pennsylvania and who flees in dangerous situations. Harry is a jerk, especially in relation to his son. Harry runs suicidally towards death.

\\tGreat reading, perhaps the best book in the series. The dialogues are excellent. In particular, I liked the dialogue between Janice and Nelson when he reveals that he is addicted to cocaine and the dialogue between Ronnie and Harry at Thelma's wake. The basketball game at the end makes a beautiful connection with the beginning of the first book.

\\tFinally, a very beautiful book. Perhaps the best of the series.

\\tOther interesting sentences:

\\t“The good thing about history books is that they put you to sleep at night” (85)

\\t“Women don't forget, especially the things we would like them to forget” (185)

\\t“In a life, moments of revelation are rare” (405)

\\t

I read this book at a very slow pace. It wasn't because I lacked interest or found it hard to understand. In fact, I truly relished Updike's words and wanted to savor every single one of them. I had become deeply attached to the Angstroms and took great pleasure in checking in on their daily activities. I really appreciated how Harry's loneliness in this book paralleled that in the first book. Updike's ability to create sympathy for such a flawed character like Harry remained truly impressive. Harry's Big Horrible Mistake in this installment might just be the worst of all, yet it is extremely difficult not to feel sorry for him.

I also have to confess that the page and a half long sentences that initially deterred me had actually grown on me. After reading this book, it became quite challenging to read something else. The prose had a certain charm and rhythm that kept pulling me in and made it hard to let go. I found myself getting lost in the words and the world that Updike had created.