Rabbit, Run Book

I'm sorry I think I might have to pause before the start of this review and scream discretely into a pillow:

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRRRRRGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!

Phew, that's better, very cathartic. This is yet another book from the 1001 books list which has made me question whether or not the people who write the list actually like people who read books or if they are really secretly intent on torturing us all for their own amusement?

The review will now proceed in the style of Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom...

Hello everyone, I'm Harry Angstrom, but you can call me "Rabbit". The name is totally applicable in two ways - in high school basket ball games (I was a sporting ace don'tcha know?) a rabbit is a runner who sets the pace, and since leaving high school I appear to be breeding in a way which is prolific and almost rabbit like too. Some might say I also have a tendency to bounce from thing to thing without really thinking about it. No twitchy nose or whiskers though.

So I had this girl since high school, Janice Springer, and I knocked her up and well, damn it, I'm a fan of the idea of domesticity so I made an honest woman of her and her old man hooked us up with an OK place to live and all and no one was too suspect when little Nelson was born 7 months after the wedding. After all, I'm Rabbit, I'm a breeder... that's what we do!

But y'know how it is. Maybe I'm just not ready to be tied down. Janice drinks, man oh man she drinks and she can be a misery. Nowadays she's so busy looking after the kid she's not interested in me (ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME ME), not like she should be. I mean, I'm great... a regular swell, the cats pyjamas sewn up around the bees knees. I'm a catch and any woman would be lucky to have me.

So one day I decided that rather than go home to my pregnant wife and two year old kid ,I could pretend that I was still the Rabbit of old, and set out to remove myself a suitable distance from adult responsibility. Turns out that a suitable distance involves moving about ten blocks away in the same town and setting up home with a retired hooker with chunky ankles, while reacquainting myself with a load of people who thought I was great ten years ago. When alls said and done its a nice little ego boost! Don't get me wrong, I think I love her. I mean I am pretty sure I do and she lets me talk about myself a whole lot. Plenty in fact and really that's what it boils down to - self indulgence on a grand scale. I'm a bit uncertain about my direction in life, possibly because of an immature, shallow perspective which doesn't allow me to appreciate other peoples outlooks - maybe I'm a Sociopath? I have no empathy. I like to please myself. End of.

Obviously poor old Janice went and had the baby and man, did it cut me up to think that I might miss out on a whole extra helping of double domesticity so off I went back to Janice without a thought for chunky ankles and my newest domestic set up. After one short night I realised that when the going gets tough then rabbit gets going and promptly bailed again, this time with disastrous consequences. Still I manned up and came home to face what was coming to me, but really I didn't enjoy that much and now I've strapped on my running shoes and am sprinting off into the sunset again as fast as my lucky rabbits feet can carry me. You can catch me in the sequels Rabbit Redux and Rabbit is Rich if you feel like playing with the boundaries of your own sanity, but the subtext will always be that I'm a selfish loser with low self esteem and the attention span of a kitten filled with e-numbers.