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5.0étoiles sur 5
I shall return only in glory, Mai 30 2004
The line above is not spoken by Harry 'Rabbit' Angstrom, but by another character named Skeeter in John Updike's follow-up to his "Rabbit, Run", "Rabbit Redux". Nevertheless, it perfectly fits the protagonist. In this second installment of the tetralogy, everybody's favorite rabbit is back in full glory, well, sort of.The sixties have arrived and it caught Rabbit and his family by surprise. There is a brand new moral being followed, and he, as good as any product of his time, is caught by it, in spite of still being very attached to the fifties' way of thinking. But everything is about to change. Janice, Rabbit's wife, leaves him for a Greek colleague, and his mother is sick and dying. To make matters worse, the protagonist takes a young girl to live with him --and replace his wife--, while his mind is clouded with the troubles of his time, like Vietnam War and the man landing on the Moon. But Rabbit's reeducation is about to begin. His new girlfriend brings along an African-American --but, of course, by that time nobody used this word-- called Skeeter who has some very extreme point of views. Actually most of what he thinks --if not everything -- is totally opposed to Rabbit's believes. Living in a constant fight these two men interact in such a way that will change both of them forever. "Rabbit Redux" --just like the previous "Rabbit, Run"-- is more than a novel about the education of a man. Actually it is like a huge painting about North America in that period. Full of pop culture references -- early in the Rabbit family goes to the cinema to see "2001 - An Spacey Odyssey", for instance-- the book shows the environment in which the sexual revolution spread in USA, among other things. It is interesting to see how Rabbit's beliefs are so wrong and how they change throughout the narrative. Just like in the first novel, John Updike is a gifted writer. Not only has he talent for developing characters in plausible situations, but he can also write sharp razor and witty dialogues. The words come to life from the paper when his creations are dialoguing. Another highlight of his writing is the eye he has for the times of change. The sixties were as crazy as he portrays in "Rabbit Redux". Those were time of radical change and the have a strong reflection in the Angstroms' lives. I believe that Updike's work shares some resemblances with Philip Roth's. Both are important critics of North American society, but if for the second the society transforms the family institution, for the first the family is a reflection of its times and social transformation. And these two different approaches are very interesting, and can only increase the reader's critical sense. All in all, Rabbit will again return in glory in the upcoming two novels, "Rabbit is Rich" and "Rabbit at Rest". And I can wait to read and find out what will come next to my favorite American anti-hero.
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4.0étoiles sur 5
An improvement from the first book in the series, Mai 26 2004
This book is a significant improvement over the first book in the series and a clear marker of the writer's development. He makes the protagonist, Rabbit (or Harry Angstrom) into a a true anti-hero, someone we really don't like, yet can't help caring what happens to him. Rabbit is 36 in this book and his son is 13. Still struggling with marriage, sex, family and himself, we see a new phase in his life's development. There are strong sexist and racist tones to the book, especially at the beginning, some of which are dealt with by the characters by the end, others which reflect the unfortunate but real attitudes of the times. The middle section of the book gets a bit bogged down in dialogues on political theory, but the rest is fresh and engaging. This book is the best of the three Updike books I've read so far.
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3.0étoiles sur 5
Weak but not a total loss, Juil 7 2002
Having moments ago finished reading "Rabbit Redux", my immediate impression is of a highly flawed book that, just barely, saves itself in the end by bringing the two most interesting characters in the series back together. Rabbit IS a rabbit, he twitches his nose and moves wherever it tells him, and even when it takes him through a Disneyland of unbelievably cliched characters like Jill and Skeeter (a deadened teenaged runaway and psychotic black veteran, respectively, who Rabbit takes into his house when his wife leaves him) it's at least worthwhile to follow. Janice, his estranged wife, is generally undeveloped because Updike spends so much more time on Rabbit, but when she enters the book in any form she attracts attention. I hope Updike gives her more "page time" in the next two novels, she deserves it.
What Updike seems to be trying to do is create a condensed Sixties in this book, particularly the middle section: we have the Conservative (Rabbit), who has a lot to learn, we have the radical (Skeeter), who has been driven insane through oppression and needs to vent, we have the searching hippie (Jill), who needs love and understanding because the world has let her down, and we have the child (Nelson), who could go in any of three directions. There's a love-in, a be-in, a history lesson, a fight or two, and a trip through the countryside to see how the nation is faring. And it ends in conflagration, as the real Sixties did; substitute a burning house for Altamont, and there you have it. The problem is, Updike once called the Sixties "a slum of a decade", and his ode to the Sixties is kind of a slum of a novel. Too bad.
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