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Sep 2023
4:35pm, 26 Sep 2023
64,081 posts
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LindsD
OK. I've waited quite a while before reviewing this. Firstly, thank you to Dio for choosinating it. I have been meaning to read it for decades and I'm glad I have.
I didn't like it, though. I can see how he's 'a great writer' and I can see how every word is carefully chosen, but so much of it is description which does nothing for me. I'm not a visual person and books don't paint pictures in my head. I'm interested in people and characters. And all the people in this book were vile. Every last one of them, except Nelson, who was just damaged. I found I felt unsettled and unhappy after reading it. The women are all extremely one-dimensional and basically only exist to illuminate parts of Rabbit's personality. And I knew something awful was going to happen and then it did. To be fair, I really struggle with bad things happening to people who are drunk, because it's too close to the bone for me.
My edition had an afterword which said something about the 'soliloquies of the women'. I struggled to remember where I'd heard anything from the women that wasn't filtered through Rabbit. That said, I am quite intrigued by the idea that the next books come every ten years (I think that's what he said) so might give the next one a go.
Will read back now.
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Sep 2023
4:36pm, 26 Sep 2023
64,082 posts
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LindsD
I gave it a 5 because it made me feel icky.
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Sep 2023
4:46pm, 26 Sep 2023
4,067 posts
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jacdaw
The second book is about race relations / drug abuse / civil rights and other really weird stuff. Everybody is horrible in it, but I found it unputdownable. A bit like picking a scab. Recommend. But don't blame me if you hate it; you almost certainly will.
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Sep 2023
4:47pm, 26 Sep 2023
64,083 posts
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LindsD
Interesting. After reading the LRB article Dio linked to, I don't think I want to read it. Now you say that I'm really not sure at all.
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Sep 2023
5:01pm, 26 Sep 2023
53,157 posts
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McGoohan
You've crystalised why I didn't get on with it Linds. It seems to me that Updike is typical of a number of acclaimed male writers of the 50s, 60s, 70s whose subject is usually 'a man in crisis'. (See also, e.g. Philip Roth). Quite unpleasant male protagonists who are nonetheless the hero of the piece because the women are either nags or idiots.
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Sep 2023
5:04pm, 26 Sep 2023
53,158 posts
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McGoohan
I'm also personally finding it harder to read fiction from, say, the 50s to the 80s because I'm less forgiving of their datedness than something from, say, a century ago. I can 'forgive' to an extent the attitudes of a novel set in a time when 'they didn't know better'. I find it much harder to do when it's something that was written in my own lifetime.
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Sep 2023
5:10pm, 26 Sep 2023
4,068 posts
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jacdaw
I didn't think there was any suggestion the Rabbit was anything other than deeply flawed.
I doubt if I would agree with Updike or Rabbit about anything, but I'm still fascinated by them. I'd rather read books from the 50s and 60s than, say, Martin Amis, from the 80s.
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Sep 2023
5:19pm, 26 Sep 2023
64,084 posts
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LindsD
The comparison with Martin Amis is really interesting, because I've always found I either love or hate his books and the ones I hate make me feel like this made me feel.
Love: London Fields/Money/Success
Hate: The Rachel Papers/ Dead Babies.
And I agree, McG.
@jacdaw, do you think Updike invites us to judge or criticise Rabbit? I didn't get that at all.
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Sep 2023
6:39pm, 26 Sep 2023
81,608 posts
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Diogenes
May I just say that Westmoors chose this one 
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Sep 2023
6:45pm, 26 Sep 2023
29,143 posts
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Serendippily
I choosinated her specially
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