Rabbit redux

Nocover-blank-133x176

Rabbit redux

by
John Updike

book data

1259 ratings, 3.77 average rating, 75 reviews (more data...)

edit

published

1971 by Knopf

binding

Hardcover, 406 pages

isbn

0394474392 (isbn13: 9780394474397)

description

"A triumph."

NEWSDAY

The assumptions and obsessions that control our daily lives are explored in tantalizing detail by master novelist John Up...more

find at: Amazon | Half.com | Barnes & Noble | Abebooks | compare prices…

Sign in to Goodreads to see your friends' reviews of this book.

new topic
discuss this book

There are no discussion topics on this book yet. Be the first to start one »

friend reviews

To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up.

lists with this book

This book is currently not featured on any Listopia lists. Add this book to your favorite list »

other reviews (showing 1-20 of 1633)

All ratings | 5 stars (272) | 4 stars (452) | 3 stars (337) | 2 stars (88) | 1 star (20) | avg 3.77

all | this edition

brian

brian rated it:

(review of isbn 0449911934)

11/29/08

not as powerful as Rabbit, Run but more ambitious and does perhaps go deeper. rabbit finds himself on the left behind side of the generational shift of the 60s and honestly tries to understand the other side. the problem is that updike himself doesn't seem to have a firm hold on the ‘progressive’ characters.

what i do appreciate about this book is updike's take on the utter complexity of sex. he's part of that first generation of american writers who was - for better or worse - a...more

Like this review? yes (8 people liked it)

3 comments

Dropkin

Dropkin rated it:

(review of isbn 0449911934)

01/04/09

Read in January, 2009

This is the second novel in the Rabbit tetraology, written in 1971. John Updike is without a doubt one of the best novelists of the past 50 years. Some authors like Updike and Philip Roth write with such ease it is obvious when you read their prose.

Ten years after the first Rabbit novel, this book is about many things - marital infedilty and the challenges of middle-age, the 1960s, Vietnam and of course the furher development of Harry Angstrom, an anti-hero whose best times seem to b...more

Like this review? yes

add a comment

Stephanie

Stephanie rated it:

(review of isbn 0449911934)

12/01/08

Read in November, 2008

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

Rabbit has done it again. In Rabbit, Run, his unthinking, unconscious cruelty and his willingless to let trivial events buffet him about directly led to the accidental death by drowning of his infant daughter. In this second Rabbit book, Rabbit Redux, I originally thought that Rabbit had changed. He had, somewhat. From being an essentially good-natured passive person in the first book, he became a bombastically angry man, vitriolically in favor of the Vietnam war and insulting to the people ...more Rabbit has done it again. In Rabbit, Run, his unthinking, unconscious cruelty and his willingless to let trivial events buffet him about directly led to the accidental death by drowning of his infant daughter. In this second Rabbit book, Rabbit Redux, I originally thought that Rabbit had changed. He had, somewhat. From being an essentially good-natured passive person in the first book, he became a bombastically angry man, vitriolically in favor of the Vietnam war and insulting to the people around him. Yet as I read further I saw that despite his strong feelings about the war, politics, and civil rights, that Rabbit still possessed the same passivity and willingness to let the events -- not so trivial, this time -- that are transpiring around him control his life and actions. By failing to choose to act, by letting events control him, here, too, his unthinking, unconscious cruelty leads to the death of another young woman, this time by fire.

In reading these four books (two down, two to go), I am reminded of Anthony Powell's A Dance to the Music of Time, likewise a series of four books. While each Rabbit book ostensibly stands on its own as a discrete novel, it is not so much my supposition as it is my hope that the books are in fact not discrete, and that I will find some solace and some resolution in the last book, Rabbit at Rest. I am starting to suspect that I will find no solace and no resolution, unless it is the solace of seeing a deserving character get what's coming to him. I am starting to suspect that the oracular predictions of Ruth, Rabbit's prostitute-turned-lover in the first book, and of Babe, the black cabaret singer in the second book whose music, if not whose character, reminds me of Nina Simone's, that Rabbit is death will prove to be true.

One way in which these first two books absolutely beg to be read separately, and not merely as two parts of a very long novel, is very much to John Updike's credit. The first book was set in the innocent times of the late fifties and very early sixties, when the vast majority of Americans were snugly cocooned in a nice insular nest. The second book is set in 1969 -- smack in the middle of the Vietnam war, the moon landing, and race riots. Updike does an excellent job in the second novel of showing how these gut-wrenching events shook even the residents of Rabbit's fictional town of Brewer, Pennsylvania, while keeping national and world events entirely at bay in the first novel. And this observation begs the question: what is the difference between four novels like these, that are linked but separate, and a very long novel like Tolstoy's War and Peace, which is an indivisible whole (though sometimes published in two or more volumns, for the sake of the reader's arm muscles more than anything else, I suspect)? Why does a novelist choose to write one but not the other?

...less

Like this review? yes

add a comment

Liz

Liz rated it:

(review of isbn 039447273X)

08/06/07

bookshelves: library

Read in July, 2007

recommends it for: people who HAVE to read things through in order

Ugh. I'm committed to reading these through, but this had better be the low point of the series (ahem, tetralogy). Updike is compelled to use the word "cunt" as often as possible, and the Skeeter character is boring and obnoxious. The third section dragged (all those quotes from "Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglas"?!) and there wasn't enough of Updike actually writing the beautiful descriptions of landscape and feeling that he's capable of.

Like this review? yes (1 person liked it)

2 comments

Mike

Mike rated it:

(review of isbn 0449911934)

12/07/08

bookshelves: just-finished

Read in November, 2008

So this is what people raved about.

I wasn't blown away by Rabbit, Run. It seemed like a product of the times with a character that wasn't that likable. Woulda been better as a short story.

Rabbit's character and his choices are more interesting, his interactions with others are far more compelling and the story as a whole seems far more complete. Maybe it's that Updike became better as a writer or maybe he had a new editor.

Or maybe I'm just more interested in p...more

Like this review? yes

add a comment

Lawrence

Lawrence rated it:

(review of isbn 0449911934)

11/13/08

Read in November, 2008

There are parts of this book that make you want to jump off a bridge and maybe even slit your wrists on the way down--but in a good way. I think.

Rabbit Redux is an intense, microscopic view of the disintegration of marriage and other institutions and values in 1969 as white men go to the moon, black men riot in the cities, and both die by the thousands in Vietnam. The main character, a blue-collar worker in a dying industrial Pennsylvania town, tries like hell to understand the chaos...more

Like this review? yes

add a comment

Steve

Steve rated it:

(review of isbn 0449911934)

09/18/08

Read in September, 2008

Compared to the beginning of Rabbit, Run, Rabbit Redux starts off with a bleaker tone. I don't know if I can really add anything else to the earlier reviewers except that it really leaves a bad taste in your mouth. I think the reason for that is because Harry is hard to sympathize with. He really treats a lot of people in his life pretty badly. What's interesting, though, is that he doesn't totally start that way in the novel. In the beginning, he's trying to conform to society by holding a regu...more

Like this review? yes

add a comment

Steven

Steven rated it:

(review of isbn 0449911934)

11/10/08

bookshelves: 1001, suburban-angst, updike

Read in June, 2008

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

Perhaps the harshest and most convoluted of the Rabbit series, Rabbit Redux was also perhaps my least favorite. Just like the 1969 setting of the book, the tone is often violent and confrontational. At times, reading this book gave an almost uneasy feeling, you knew that tensions were everywhere, either about to blow up or actually blowing up. I was not around in 1969, but for all I have read, seen, and heard, this book captures that time period exceptionally well.

In this novel, t...more Perhaps the harshest and most convoluted of the Rabbit series, Rabbit Redux was also perhaps my least favorite. Just like the 1969 setting of the book, the tone is often violent and confrontational. At times, reading this book gave an almost uneasy feeling, you knew that tensions were everywhere, either about to blow up or actually blowing up. I was not around in 1969, but for all I have read, seen, and heard, this book captures that time period exceptionally well.

In this novel, things are really not much better for Rabbit Angstrom. He is nearing forty, works in a blue collar job in his hometown and does not much like the world around him. Rabbit is both a fan of U.S. involvement in Vietnam and not a big fan of the social activism all around him. He is greeted rather early on with the news that his wife Janice will be leaving him for a Greek named Stavros with whom she works with at her father’s car lot. Rabbit and his twelve-year-old son Nelson are left at home to deal with things.

In a rather convoluted plot twist, Rabbit and Nelson are joined first by a wealthy white eighteen-year-old hippie named Jill. Because it is the Summer of Love and Jill is quite used to using her body as capital, a sexual relationship is eventually consummated. They are then joined by the cynical drug-dealing Skeeter, a Black man and Vietnam vet. The entire relationship between Rabbit, Nelson, Jill, and Skeeter is toxic on so many levels. While Rabbit’s positions about race and Vietnam are softened, you just know that things will not end well. Things eventually fall apart when there is a massive house fire that ultimately kills Jill and causes Skeeter to flee.

As I mentioned, a couple of the things I did not like about the book was that it seemed like there was always this tension coming through, sometimes manifesting itself in violence, sometimes not. Whereas most of the secondary characters in the book were tremendous, I did not feel like the characters of Jill and Skeeter were as interesting or multi-faceted as I would have liked. I think perhaps the thing that bothered me the most was that you just knew that the atmosphere was not a good one for a twelve-year-old boy (Nelson) and that made me rather uncomfortable.

In sharp contrast to the Jill and Skeeter characters, which really disappointed, was the tremendous growth of the character of Janice. As mentioned, the book begins with her leaving Rabbit for her co-worker, Stavros (who winds up being rather redeeming in this book, as well as others in the series). Janice makes it a point to let Rabbit know that Stavros turns her on both physically and emotionally in a way that Rabbit does not. Things aren’t as simple as all that, though, she also wants Rabbit to fight for her, but he is just not that type of guy. I say this from the perspective of a male, fully aware of how sexist it sounds, but Janice’s infidelity seems just so much more jarring. I’ve read that it is much more damaging for a man to hear that the infidelity was just “a sex thing” with no love attached, whereas women tend to generally prefer it to be “just sex” with no romantic attachment involved. In terms of pure numbers, Rabbit is clearly the bad guy in the marriage, he definitely has strayed more often, but I say this from the perspective of a man, Janice’s actions just seem a whole lot more devastating. Further, she also abandons her son, Nelson, in order to be with Stavros, something that is hard to forgive (and again I know that is sexist because we know that Rabbit abandoned his son in the previous novel to be with Ruth Leonard). However, in many ways, Janice is almost blameless and is the much more sympathetic character. Who could blame her for leaving Rabbit, however temporarily? I just think it is important to remember for posterity that Janice is not quite the saint and blameless victim that she is sometimes portrayed (often self-portrayed as) in future Rabbit books. Either way, the Janice character has a lot more heft in “Rabbit Redux” than she had in “Rabbit, Run” in my opinion.

Of course, the greatest aspect of the book was Updike’s tremendous portrait of the human condition. He writes the angst and disappointment and guilt of his protagonist so very well. This book has the same very deliberate style, with the same very decent sex scenes. Again, Rabbit is not a very sympathetic character, he is not only flawed, he is a pretty bad dude. Yet, Updike’s mastery pulls you in and in the same way that you pull for other great morally ambiguous characters, you pull for Rabbit Angstrom.

...less

Like this review? yes

add a comment

Rebecca

Rebecca rated it:

(review of isbn 0449911934)

12/15/07

Read in December, 2007

So far, this is the harshest book I've read in Updike's Rabbit series. With the characters he's created, it's so hard to say I LIKE them, or relate to them, or understand them, they are all so flawed, so pathetic, so often unredeeming. Yet there is some human connection Updike forces you to make, whether you sympathize with the characters or not. Set in 1969, a controversial time in U.S. history, this book is a challenge in many ways. While scenarios unfold like an over-the-top episode of Jerr...more

Like this review? yes

add a comment

Callie

Callie rated it:

(review of isbn 0449911934)

12/25/08

I was half way through this book and got to a speech that offended me so much I just put it down and never picked it up again. This is the second Updike novel I have tried to read and both were just too cynical and jaundiced for my taste. I couldn't feel any sympathy for Harry Angstrom--I couldn't stand him. Maybe that was the point, but who cares. The other book I tried to read was about a preacher who had lost his faith. blah blah blah.

Like this review? yes

add a comment

Cassie

Cassie is currently reading it (review of isbn 0449911934)

11/24/08

bookshelves: currently-reading

I wasn't exactly thrilled with the ending of the first one, however, maybe after reading the second book in Updike's Rabbit-series, I will start to gain an understanding why these books are so well-liked. If this one isn't that good either, I'm not giving the other two books a chance. Sorry, Updike, but I shouldn't have to read four of your books about the same character to finally say . . . "gee, I kind of liked this book."

Like this review? yes

add a comment

Misty

Misty rated it:

(review of isbn 0449911934)

12/26/08

Read in January, 2007

A lot of people think Updike is sexist, but there are some great passages written from the perspective of his wife. She's kinda an awful person who leaves her husband and neglects her kid, but you understand it in a way -- like this is the post-Feminine Mystique generation. There were some ridiculous passages in this book, but the conclusion is really satisfying. I can't wait to see what happens to Rabbit next.

Like this review? yes

add a comment

Timothy

Timothy rated it:

(review of isbn 0449911934)

07/05/07

Read in April, 2007

Rabbit Angstrom is not a very sympathetic character - defends the Vietnam war (it's 1971), hits his wife, doesn't go see his mother. But Updike makes him and the other characters in this novel so real that you overlook his flaws and hope he gets out of his predicament, just as you would anyone you knew well. The predicament is that his wife has left him, he's going to be out of a job soon, race riots are taking place a few miles away from the small Pennsylvania city he lives in, and he's gotten ...more

Like this review? yes

add a comment

Nickie

Nickie rated it:

(review of isbn 0140249427)

12/12/07

Read in December, 2007

5 stars. Not because it's better than Rabbit, Run, but because, as a pair I think they deserve 5 stars and reading forward into Rabbit's life makes me understand his past better, understand what the first book was saying, and wish I'd given it 5 stars. I think John Updike is my new favourite writer. His style takes my breath away. Usually when I see descriptions stretching across a page I skip them, they feel like an unnecessary space-filler, or something that writers just do, but with Updike ev...more

Like this review? yes

add a comment

Jodi Lu

Jodi Lu rated it:

(review of isbn 0449911934)

01/07/08

Read in January, 2008

recommends it for: people who bought the 2-in-1 edition

12/20: i was wrong. it got good again actually. guilty-pleasure read. but not even SOOOO guilty. light but interesting. the writing...not so hot. i like the first one better in every way i think, but this was a quick read and one i didn't mind reading on the train even after reading crap all day at work.

12/14: it's pretty silly but really has gotten better too.

12/1: frankly i can't tell if i'm bored or not. maybe i should've read a book between this and rabbit, ...more

Like this review? yes

add a comment

Kirk

Kirk rated it:

(review of isbn 0449911934)

12/07/07

bookshelves: sentimental-faves

Read in April, 1983

This may have been the first book that really made me want to write. I remember discovering it first as a child among my mother's paperbacks---probably 1974 or so. I read it much more thoroughly during my senior year of high school and fell in love with both it and Updike. I think I read every Updike there was within a month. (And even back then there was A LOT). Years later, of course, I can see the imperfections: Jill is a bit of a hippie cliche; some of the historical tie-ins are a little too...more

Like this review? yes

add a comment

Kelly

Kelly rated it:

(review of isbn 0449911934)

01/01/09

bookshelves: family-issues, fiction, series

The second in the series. Again, I don't care about Harry and I won't be reading more. Yes, I know there are men like Harry and he's "true to life" for a character, but I simply don't like him.

Like this review? yes

add a comment

Adam

Adam rated it:

(review of isbn 0449911934)

01/06/08

Read in January, 2008

A bit more scattered than the first novel (e.g. the story/characters don't seem as tightly wound), as most sequels are. And, in fact, the narrative very accurately mimics both this period in Rabbit's life and the times (60s), which probably makes this a phenomenal achievement by Updike. But, as a reader, I found it a bit harder to get through than the first book and felt more distracted. Still, I love how Updike creates characters that are so real, in the sense that I still don't know if I adm...more

Like this review? yes

add a comment

Laura

Laura rated it:

(review of isbn 0449911934)

08/04/08

Read in August, 2008

Okay, I take back most of what I said about Rabbit, Run. I'm determined to make it through these books, but ol' Mr. Updike isn't making it easy on me. I'm not sure what was more annoying, the long sections of characters reading aloud to one another, the long sections of characters rambling on about nothing or the long descriptions of mediocre sex. I'd like to say it had its moments, but it didn't. When there was a patch of good writing I was quick to dismiss it because it felt so out of p...more

Like this review? yes

add a comment

Brandon

Brandon rated it:

(review of isbn 0449911934)

01/02/08

Read in December, 2007

recommends it for: people who love harsh reality

I devoured Rabbit Redux even more than the first book and I can't wait for the third. Sure the tone of the story is very depressing and some of the plot twists are insane, but Updike's insights into humanity made me laugh out loud and literally slap my knee several times. Most of all, Updike's poetic descriptions leave me pleasantly dizzy. And I've never read better descriptions of sex (like the real motivations for different encounters and the depression that often follows the momentary exh...more

Like this review? yes

add a comment

« previous 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 81 82 next »

recent status updates | recommend it | blog it

combine
other editions (15)

More editions...

groups with this book