bbit touches ... the protagonist in Salinger s Catcher in the Rye, whom he resembles, Rabbit runs. Coming home from work he stops to play basketball in an alley. Characteristically, he is not concerned with the reactions of the kids to his intruding himself. He likes to show off his skills. He finds his wife Janice, swollen in pregnancy, sitting behind a locked door, watching the Mousketeers on TV and drinking an Old Fashioned. She has many anxieties, and he no longer finds her pretty. She asks for a cigarette. He says he has given them up. She asks whether he thinks he sa saint. A quarrel develops. He goes out, to pick up their son who is at his grandparents, Rabbit's own parents. Disgust and frustration have been building in him. From outside his parents house he sees the boy, his parents, and his sister. Not seeming to have come to a decision, Rabbit takes off down the street. He finds his car, bought from his father-in-law, for $ 1000, a real bargain, because old man Springer didn t want the embarrassment of a son-in-law driving around in a 36 Buick. Rabbit drives off, out of town, from highway to highway, experiencing the twilight, mountains, fear over being pursued, exhilaration, eating a juicy hamburger, then hours later he parks in front of the apartment of Mr.Tothers, who had been his basketball coach. In the morning he catches Tothers coming out. Tothers, half-homosexual, defeated, and full of sententiousness, lets him sleep in his warm, unmade bed. That evening they go out with two tarts, and Rabbit goes home with one, Ruth, who needs $ 15 to pay the rent. On it goes, with Rabbit running. At the end, after he has unintentionally contributed to his son s death - Janice, in an alcoholic stupor, has allowed the child to drown - Rabbit is still experiencing, still feeling. His hands lift of their own and he feels the wind on his ears even before his heels, hitting heavily on the pavement at first but with an effortless gathering out of a kind of sweet panic growing higher and quicker and quieter, he runs. Ah: runs. Runs. The novel catches many little ironies - Rabbit s notion that he is praising his coach when he is praising himself, or the Minister s wanting a glass of water while consoling Mrs.Springer, and many others. Human motives and actions show a welter of inconsistencies. For example, Ruth, the prostitute, is quite capable of loyalty and devotion, and in her own way, maintains her self-respect.widely read Updike s novels are The Centaur (1963 ), partly an evocation of the author s father, a high school teacher, and partly a retelling in modern terms of the myth of Chiron, the tutor of Achilles, for which he earned the National Book Award; Of the Farm (1965), Couples (1968), a novel about wife swapping in a suburb of Boston; A Month of Sundays (1975), The Coup (1978), Roger s Version (1987). The Witches of Eastwick (1984) was made into a motion picture.1990 John Updike published another bestselling novel about the life of a contemporary American everyman , Harry Rabbit Angstrom - Rabbit at Rest, for which he received his second Pulitzer Prize. It solidified his reputation as one of the most astute observers of the American middle class.his prose and poetry, Updike s essays rank with some of the most perceptive criticism of our day. Several of his critical essays have been collected in a volume entitled Hugging the Shore (1983) which won the 1983 National Book Critics Circle Award for criticism.accepting the American Book Award in 1982, Updike said to young writers: Have faith. May you surround yourselves with parents, editors, mates, and children as supportive as mine have been. But the essential support and encouragement of course come from within, arising out of the mad notion that your society needs to know what only you can tell it. his short stories and novels John Updike vividly captures the essence of life in contemporary America. Through his depiction of ordinary situations and events, he explores many important issues of our time and offers insight into the underlying significance of everyday life. John Updike had a great influence on the generation of writers who were born after him. He was one of the finest short-story writers at work in the twentieth century, with a tender, delicately descriptive style and sharp eye for...
