Rabbit Redux Book

DISCLAIMER: Rabbit, Run made me a John Updike fan-girl.

If Rabbit, Run was Updike's anti-1950's-American-suburbia book, then Rabbit Redux is definitely his rage against the 60's. Set in 1969 around the time of the moon landing, we find Rabbit, a little over a decade older, and he's not running. You could say that karma has caught up to him. Rumour has it that Janice (who has sobered up and is working at one of her father's car dealerships) is giving Rabbit a little taste of his own medicine, and has a lover on the sly. Though, not too sly, since everyone seems to know about it, including Rabbit's sickly mother who never leaves the house.

There are some pretty kick-ass scenes leading up to a big confrontation between Rabbit and Janice that confirmed to me how ingenious John Updike is. Then, Rabbit's life disintegrates into nothing less than a psychedelic shitstorm. The guy creates his own kooky commune when he takes home a teenage runaway and an unstable, kinda shifty black man who escaped probation from a recent drug charge. Don't ask me why he does this. The whole entire book, Rabbit is SO PASSIVE. Shit just happens to him, he allows it, with a truly laissez faire attitude, and of course, disastrous consequences.

What takes place during the time of supposed love and peace and grooviness is anything but. Updike shows the ugliest possible view of the 1960's: rotten and shallow relationships, selfish, unlikable people, racism, violence, almost constant drug use, and tons of unappealing sex. Or, should I say, nasty sex. It was so icky to be a fly on the wall for pretty much each and every copulation (failed or otherwise) that takes place in this book. It's so dark, and each participant is really so alone, it's beyond disturbing.

And while there was still much prose to swoon over...........

We contains chords someone else must strike.

The woman is old and wrinkled and smokes a yellow cigarette that requires much sucking in and holding down and closing of the eyes and sighing.

The universe is unsleeping, neither ants nor stars sleep, to die will be to be forever wide awake.

...........this book spiralled down to a level where even this fan-girl was appalled, I was ready for the book to END already. I couldn't stand a single soul. I was sick of the political ranting. I was sick of the nymphomaniacal activity. I didn't care who was cheating on who. It was so down in the gutter.

I was also completely bewildered at and frankly sick to death with the constant use of the word 'cunt' throughout the book. I should have started a count, because it must be at least a hundred or more times. Does it have some meaning, like the repetition of the phrase "So it goes" in Slaughterhouse-Five? I doubt it. It feels like another type of violence that is hard to take, a misogyny that gets real old, real quick. It highlights the utter distain the male characters have towards women - and the moral reprehensibility of pretty much all the women in this book. They are all 'slutty', or are prostitutes, including Mim, Rabbit's own sister.

I was warned that this is the nadir of the Rabbit series and I concur with that assessment. Despite my misgivings with this instalment, I fully intend to read the rest. Because, John Updike.