Rabbit Angstrom: A Tetralogy (Everyman's Library, No. 214)

The protagonist - Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom - is perhaps the most self-centered, selfish person I have encountered in literature.This is a collection of the four "Rabbit" novels. Each novel was written at the end of a decade and reflects the environment/tone of that decade.***** (five stars) The first novel - "Rabbit Run" - made Updike a best-selling author. The style of the novel was somewhat unique, with the writing consistently in the present, active tense, and with virtually all the novel written from the "live" point-of-view of Rabbit Angstrom (except for a critical section centered on his wife - Janice). This is the strongest of the four IMO, but some of that may be the novelty of the material and the "active tense" writing. This one feels like one of those exceptional novels where the writer invented a set of characters and turned them loose, then followed them as they became real and experienced life. Characters behave unexpectedly, but do so with a core truth to their characters.*** (three stars) "Rabbit Redux" came out a decade later, towards the end of the 60's. This is the weakest novel. It seems to be Updike's apologia for racism and includes too many monologues devoted to slavery and racism in American history. It seems forced, and Rabbit's interaction and motives seem out of joint with the character from the other three books. Instead of writing what happens to his characters, Updike seems to be telling them what they must do, and it makes this book much less satisfying than "Rabbit Run".**** (four stars) "Rabbit is Rich" came out another decade later. While not really rich, Rabbit is now comfortably in the middle class and can afford some of the trappings of money - membership in a medium-level country/golf club, a nice house in a suburb, a new Toyota sedan (he works/runs a Toyota dealership). This book has unsettling shifts with Rabbit's son, and the conflicts are slower to develop. I found myself more than once looking forward to getting to the final book, as this one has points where things just take too much time. However, at least I didn't encounter the same jarring situations where characters behaved inconsistently with their intrinsic natures, as in "Rabbit Redux".**** (four stars) "Rabbit at Rest" is the final book, another decade later. This one moved along at a good pace, the characters were consistent (even though more than a bit frustrating - many times I wanted to slap some sense into a couple of the characters, but they were behaving consistently with how they had developed through the four books). The ending felt a bit too much like Updike wanted to go out with a bang rather than a whimper, but getting there was worth the read.Overall - I am glad I finally read the "Rabbit" novels. The first one's consistent "active tense" writing and characters' development and actions was well worth reading, and once you get into the series it is hard to decide to stop before the end.Updike creates such a feeling of reality in the locations and settings that it made me feel like I could find "the towns" in which most of the books' actions occurred. When the characters are walking or driving around the town, you can almost picture the scene and know what street/bridge they will cross shortly.Recommended - but be prepared to sacrifice a lot of hours for a lot of pages...

Amazon tells me, at the top of the page, that I ordered this book back in 2002. It's nice of them to remind me. It's not often that I reread something this thick so few years after the first go-through, but the memory of this book remained engraved in my mind. I had recently been thinking of rereading it, and Updike's death prompted me to pull it out and crack it open.While the first reading was a kind of epiphany, the second reading is much more: bits of enlightenment shine through the pages as the four novels go by. Watching Harry Angstrom's life go by, in such a short time - it took me maybe two weeks to read the second time through - is, in a way, like watching my own. Not that my life is like his, but bits of it are. Seeing Rabbit in his mid-20s, then mid-30s, mid-40s and finally, at the end, in his mid-50s, just a few years older than me, makes me think that has life is a template for all our lives. Sure, we don't have the same experiences - few people have as many affairs or such close knowledge of death - but so much of this book speaks to me deep down.Reading about any life is profound, but reading about one this rich is almost cathartic. Rabbit is the quintessential American, with the same desires, fears and insights of so many of us. Yet he stands above us in his manner of observing the world - Updike's manner, of course. While what happens in this book is certainly interesting, it's Updike's asides that make it such a classic. His almost Proustian observations of Rabbit's life and times - any American's experience of these four decades - is subtle and haunts the entire 1500 pages of this book. I can think of no better book to sum up the American experience of the late 20th century. I miss you, John Updike. Thank God you wrote so much.

John Updike does better what most all great novelists do: he looks at life so broadly and deeply and carefully and patiently that he goes beyond convincing, to become illuminating, and moving. Updike stated that he wanted to "meditate" at length on "middles," and by that he meant middle America, and with Rabbit Angstrom and his thirty years' course he certainly has accomplished it. Superhumanly determined, Updike has captured real life and put it in a glass.Updike is the only novelist who shocks me. I have actually been shocked by this realization. I have figured out that the shock comes from the genius Updike's deep, spot-on realism. I love bad language, and I want to be kind to myself by thinking that it is because bad language is so frequently what people use, and certainly, the way people so often think to themselves. It is real, and so it registers, and it is shocking and fantastic at the same time when it is encountered. Here, I think, is a key insight into Updike: he sees with crystal clarity, and he reports fully, and he is afraid of nothing.For me, the ultimate moment in the "Rabbit" tetralogy is when Harry Angstrom lays his daughter-in-law. Here is the thoroughly believable Harry at his nearly unbelievable. For me, Harry stretches here but does not break the bounds of plausibility. It is the limit of the characterization of the great protagonist Harold C. Angstrom. It is also something much less profound at the same time, and something all readers of Updike will instantly recognize, and a central part of Harry. As Harry himself might announce to all of us, "A stiff prick has no conscience."

Diese Rezension bezieht sich nur auf den Druck, nicht de Roman. Etwas enttäuschend da der Schrifttyp für Hardcoverausgabe sehr klein ist. Daher nur bedingt empfehlenswert.

アメリカ現代作家、John Updikeの代表的作品『ウサギ四部作』（「走れウサギ」「帰ってきたウサギ」「金持ちになったウサギ」「さようならウサギ」）の書籍。この4つの作品は、10年ごとに書かれているため、その間に変化する主人公ウサギの成長はもちろんのこと、妻ジャニスや、彼を取り巻く他の人々の描写は注目に値する。また、10年ごとに書かれているため、その間に変化する、アメリカ社会の諸相も垣間見える(フェミニズム、ベトナム戦争など)。現代アメリカを知る上で、意義深い一冊。また、価格的にも、ペンギンなどのペーパーバックで4冊買うよりも、3000円程度のこれ1冊を買ったほうが、きっとお得。現代小説研究者必携。