In John Updike's fourth and final novel about ex-basketball player Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, the hero has acquired heart trouble, a Florid...
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Dec 14, 2008
brian
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we believe that with time comes wisdom, that by the time we’re older we’ll have acquired a natural sense of life and other people and our own self and how to live -- how to cast aside the pettiness and do away with the small things that mean nothing more than cancerous nibblings at our gut. but no. it doesn’t just happen. we don’t leave that stuff behind unless we make a serious effort to do so. and it’s hard work. we don’t wanna turn into one of those morons that’s always happy and even (y’know
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Jan 06, 2012
Frank
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I didn't expect to be sad at the end of this. But after four novels, each gradually getting deeper into the character, moving from about 300 pages in the first to almost 500 by the last, I've logged in a lot of time with Harry Angstrom. And so when this one brought his story around to the end, I got a little sad.
It's an accomplishment to write a character essentially from birth to death. And so much of Rabbit's story involves all of the mundane details of small-town life -- watching More...
It's an accomplishment to write a character essentially from birth to death. And so much of Rabbit's story involves all of the mundane details of small-town life -- watching More...
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Jul 11, 2010
Kate
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I have really enjoyed re-reading Updike's Rabbit series over the last year. I first read Rabbit, Run in high school (some 10 years after it was published); Rabbit Redux in college; Rabbit is Rich and Rabbit at Rest as soon as I could get my hands on them. But Harry Angstrom is about 20 years older than I am, so now that he and I are the same age (his age, that is, in Rabbit at Rest)I understand him in a different way. All the books, and particularly the last two, are beautifully written. I c
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Oct 12, 2011
Stephen
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Just as the first hundred pages of RABBIT, RUN were written in a breathless pace to match their manic tone, the last hundred pages of RABBIT AT REST, which mirror the beginning moments of the series, linger on in a depressingly meaningless manner. Highway billboards, trite pop tunes from past decades, and trivial news headlines about baseball players blur with the names and minutiae of a history book, the snapshot memories of Harry's somewhat uneventful life, and the chronic ups and downs of hi
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Jan 30, 2008
Rebecca
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Updike's Rabbit series ends - suprisingly - softly. Despite a tumultuous 60 years full of controversial life decisions by the main character Rabbit, Updike decides, perhaps NOT suprisingly (since Updike himself was in his own later years when writing this book), that things should wind down gracefully. Updike did an amazing job in this series making plot and theme connections between books, and here in his waning days, Rabbit's character comes full-circle, with echoes of Book 1, Rabbit Run, an
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Feb 10, 2009
Cristina
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the end of the 'Rabbit' books = the end of my affair with john updike. don't want to read 'Terrorist,' read 'S.,' was disappointed. but the Rabbit books i will read over and over.
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Feb 15, 2009
Carole
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I read this at a suggestion from a book group. I had earlier in my life been unable to get through RABBIT, RUN, but thought maybe added maturity would help me appreciate Updike's writing more. I was wrong. Even his gift with words (the reason for the second star in the rating) wasn't enough to make up for the thoroughly unlikable characters and depressing picture of several wasted lives. Even the style of writing I often found difficult, making the reading of this novel a slow and painful ex
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Aug 31, 2011
Alex
rated it:
I hadn't read any of the others in Updike's Rabbit series, the much-acclaimed series documenting the life of a middle-class American everyman through the later half of the twentieth century, but that didn't stop me from instantly recognizing Harry 'Rabbit' Angstrom. Because he really is the American everyman, and his is the story of the American experience.
Rabbit at Rest joins Harry at the final juncture of his life. Having spent the previous three novels as a high school basketball st More...
Rabbit at Rest joins Harry at the final juncture of his life. Having spent the previous three novels as a high school basketball st More...
Jul 07, 2009
Stefani
rated it:
As Rabbit heads into his fifth decade, and last as far as the series is concerned, he is retired and living in Florida half the year. Florida being the land of the retiree and somewhat of a cultural wasteland, it is an appropriate setting for Rabbit's descent into semi-inertia. This book reeks of the consumerism, greed, and excess of the 80's to an almost nauseating degree. The near constant references to food, in gluttonous detail, that Rabbit consumes voraciously, despite his clogged arteries
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Jan 27, 2009
Stephanie
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Apr 27, 2009
Shannon
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My first Updike. I'm kind of hooked now.
I had never read anything by Updike, never really even contemplated it, until his passing this year. Updike was a frequent contributor of short stories to the New Yorker and a few issues featured articles devoted to the literary giant and his work. I was especially moved by the series of poems that he wrote while sick and facing his own mortality. I picked up Rabbit at Rest in a sort of spur of the moment whirl around Half-Priced Books in March More...
I had never read anything by Updike, never really even contemplated it, until his passing this year. Updike was a frequent contributor of short stories to the New Yorker and a few issues featured articles devoted to the literary giant and his work. I was especially moved by the series of poems that he wrote while sick and facing his own mortality. I picked up Rabbit at Rest in a sort of spur of the moment whirl around Half-Priced Books in March More...
Jul 23, 2011
Jo
rated it:
An ironic title for the last Updike's Rabbit quadrology. The last days of 1988, Harry 'Rabbit' Angstrom is retired, morbidly obese and waiting at the Southwest Florida Regional airport for his son Nelson to arrive with wife Theresa, known as Pru, and his grandchildren Judy and Roy. Pan Am 103 has just exploded over Lockerbie. Rabbit and his wife Janice now retreat to Florida during winters, returning to their home in Brewer, Pennsylvania for summers. Rabbit spends his days on the golf cours
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Jul 06, 2011
Jogle
rated it:
The final novel in the series (Updike later wrote a 180 page novella as part of the Licks of Love short story compilation), and Rabbit is semi retired and is living partly in Florida (I think you Yanks call these Snowbirds?). In the late 80’s His wife has found new drive and energy, his son is reborn into a social counsellor career… but Rabbit is still drifting along. His past life is dying all around.
Rabbit is not likeable, but after four books I feel an affinity with him, almost ver More...
Rabbit is not likeable, but after four books I feel an affinity with him, almost ver More...
Apr 02, 2011
Jee
rated it:
Rabbit eats and eats to fill the growing emptiness of his life as he ages. The taste of things, the last flickering appetite for life, is vividly described in this final installment of John Updike's Rabbit tetralogy, as well as the invasion of medical technology into one's decaying body. Rabbit has an angioplasty, and the scene is humorous, terrifying and unforgettable.
Unlike Ian McEwan, who casts a coolly satirical eye on modern-day consumerism in his novel, Solar, Updike sizes up not More...
Unlike Ian McEwan, who casts a coolly satirical eye on modern-day consumerism in his novel, Solar, Updike sizes up not More...
Jan 16, 2011
Just purchased this from my Kindle! I almost fell into this book with relief at the seemingly effortless prose, compared with Lisa See, Shanghai Girls. It is tempting to stop everything & read, read, read this. I am very much enjoying it & almost feel back at home with Updike.
Finished this yesterday & would have stopped everything to read if I could. In the end Rabbit comes full circle, running away for the last time to Florida where he comes face to face with the emptiness of life i More...
Finished this yesterday & would have stopped everything to read if I could. In the end Rabbit comes full circle, running away for the last time to Florida where he comes face to face with the emptiness of life i More...
Oct 05, 2011
Nate
rated it: 
Kind of a let-down. The dude dies when he's 56? He keeps talking about how old he is, as if being over 55 means your life is over. I felt this was the weakest of the Rabbit series. Things just don't resolve. I guess that's the point. It's supposed to mirror real-life. I was a little bit bothered about how codependent his wife was toward their son Nelson, who bilked the family auto business out of thousands of dollars to feed a cocaine addiction. Then, after a few months in rehab, he's fin
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Aug 28, 2011
Fabian
rated it:
Q: Where oh where will Rabbit go to rest? Where will it all (all four decades worth of this, an all American life) culminate-- and how? A: In Florida, and boringly.
This is a tremendously slow trek through Harry Angstrom’s last year and we see the guy eat himself to death and burn bridges with family and friends. (Eh… what’s new?) The sick sad life of the American Male: the fourth novel is overkill; while it is nice to revisit some of Rabbit’s highlights and (mostly) lowlights, how can a l More...
This is a tremendously slow trek through Harry Angstrom’s last year and we see the guy eat himself to death and burn bridges with family and friends. (Eh… what’s new?) The sick sad life of the American Male: the fourth novel is overkill; while it is nice to revisit some of Rabbit’s highlights and (mostly) lowlights, how can a l More...
Mar 07, 2011
Mike
rated it:
John Updike closes out his quartet of Rabbit novels with what can only be described as a masterpiece. He won his second Pulitzer for "Rabbit at Rest." Only Booth Tarkington and William Faulkner had previously won the Pulitzer more than once.
Rabbit is semi-retired. He has a condo on the Gulf side of Florida. He maintains his historic Pennsylvania home. But things are falling apart, literally and figuratively. HIV has become an epidemic. A jet disintegrates over Lockerbi More...
Rabbit is semi-retired. He has a condo on the Gulf side of Florida. He maintains his historic Pennsylvania home. But things are falling apart, literally and figuratively. HIV has become an epidemic. A jet disintegrates over Lockerbi More...
Aug 27, 2010
Andrew
rated it:
Start with an embarrassing admission that I had not any Updike until this year. In fact, I started with a short pamphlet size book about Ted Williams.
I decided to start at the end of the Rabbit series. For those familiar with Updike, it comes as no surprise that I found Rabbit to be a vivid, if highly negative character. The funny part is that Updike mananged to create a nacissitic and irritable character that the other characters love. Rabbit ends up isolated more of his own accord More...
I decided to start at the end of the Rabbit series. For those familiar with Updike, it comes as no surprise that I found Rabbit to be a vivid, if highly negative character. The funny part is that Updike mananged to create a nacissitic and irritable character that the other characters love. Rabbit ends up isolated more of his own accord More...
Oct 17, 2010
Mark
rated it:
I dreaded reading this book and I have to admit that it took me two weeks to get through the last 50 pages. I miss Harry Angstrom not as if a dear friend has died, but as if I have died myself and yet somehow remain around to mourn my own loss. What's odd is that I didn't really like Rabbit. I did understand him though, in a way that I that I've never understood anyone aside from myself. That, to me, is Updike's true gift: chipping away to an unvarnished life to expose the raw emotion and th
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Sep 12, 2010
Beerjacket
rated it:
Over the course of the four 'Rabbit' books, I grew to love Harry Angstrom like an errant uncle, in spite of (or perhaps even because of) his flaws. Seldom have I encountered such a real character within a single book, let alone one whose distinct flavour was sustained over a whole series.
In this, the final novel, Updike places Rabbit in a seemingly comfortable context - edging towards full retirement, leaving troubled son Nelson in charge of business at Springers Motors. Harry's health is i More...
In this, the final novel, Updike places Rabbit in a seemingly comfortable context - edging towards full retirement, leaving troubled son Nelson in charge of business at Springers Motors. Harry's health is i More...
Apr 05, 2010
Misty
rated it:
I decided to read the last book in the Rabbit series after learning about the Beats. Updike and Rabbit were in their mid-twenties in the early 60s, making them just slightly younger than the Beats, and Rabbit shares the same revolutionary spirit -- the desire for freedom, resistance to conformity, resistance to settling down -- but like me and you Rabbit is rooted deeply enough in the middle class American culture to not take that revolutionary spirit to its furthest extent.
I guess More...
I guess More...
Jul 04, 2010
Tim
rated it:
Updike does it again. This is the fourth and final book in the Rabbit series. I had read the third book, Rabbit is Rich, and had to come back for more. Not only does Updike show his outstanding sense of Americana and the American psyche, he also does an excellent job of examining the human condition as we age and deteriorat, preparing for a death that is steadily beats in our chests like a ticking bomb waiting to explode. This book was a page turner for me. I highly recommend reading it, but wo
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Aug 11, 2009
Katherine
rated it:
At 512 pages, Rabbit at Rest might just be literature's longest death scene, and also one of its most ambivalent. War and Peace made me cry... Rabbit at Rest made me want to eat a salad. Just like the macadamia nuts, bacon double cheeseburgers, and beers Harry continues to pound after his first heart attack, you get the feeling that he's brought everything on himself. And yet, this is a guy we've followed like an omniscient ghost through 1600 pages, and just because he's living a fishbowl life d
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Aug 04, 2010
Martha
rated it:
Updike's prose is sparkling. Every sentences surprises me. Having said that, the story is pretty much plotless. This is not a book to read only for fun. Also, Updike is spectacularly true to his characters. There are times, however, that I don't want to hear about every deviant thought or desire. And Updike does not subscribe to Stephen King's famous adage, "the road to hell is paved with adjectives." I've never seen so many adjectives linked up together as there are here. Updike deser
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Jun 01, 2010
Michelle
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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May 02, 2010
David
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No spoilers really, but it took me two months to get through this one, and I noticed that I had started this series a year ago this month. It's amazing to see that the Angstrom family has stayed together through all this they've gone through in 40 years, and through the duration of 4 books. Rabbit, while not the best husband, nor man, is a sympathetic character still and I find myself understanding why.. why he's cheated in the past, why he's stubborn, why he runs..
The first book ende More...
The first book ende More...
Jul 27, 2011
This was the best of the Rabbit novels I think although i'm not sure if that is because it is the best objectively or because of the attachment the reader has built with the main characters by this point. I laughed out loud at one point reading this novel and even wept a couple of tears at the end, which I can't remember ever happening before.
In an afterword an author I can't recall compares Rabbit to the unreasonable 19th century Russian characters like the Underground Man and I think that's More...
In an afterword an author I can't recall compares Rabbit to the unreasonable 19th century Russian characters like the Underground Man and I think that's More...
Dec 17, 2011
Barry
rated it:
12/16
Amazing. The last 75-100 pages or so intensify the greatness not just of this book but also the whole series preceding it. It's funny that I'd always been prejudiced against Updike and Rabbit as odes to 80s Baby Boomerism, but in actuality Rabbit is a generation just before the Boomers and none of the books are that type of 80s per se (this is set in 88-89 and like the other 3 books' end-of-decade elegiac stances, it more functions as the 90s would: as a long bittersweet mixed-emo More...
Amazing. The last 75-100 pages or so intensify the greatness not just of this book but also the whole series preceding it. It's funny that I'd always been prejudiced against Updike and Rabbit as odes to 80s Baby Boomerism, but in actuality Rabbit is a generation just before the Boomers and none of the books are that type of 80s per se (this is set in 88-89 and like the other 3 books' end-of-decade elegiac stances, it more functions as the 90s would: as a long bittersweet mixed-emo More...
