Updike's Everyman Flees Responsibility.

Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, former highschool basketball player, is an unhappy resident of Brewer, Pennsylvania. His wife Janice, whose father is a successful businessman named Fred Springer, is pregnant, and the generally self-absorbed Rabbit feels he is trapped by this development. Never mind the fact that the married couple already has a three-year-old son named Nelson, it is this one pregnancy that Rabbit feels is cementing him to commitment. Being still with the burdensome nuisance of irresponsibility, Rabbit Angstrom decides one day after work, while on the way to pick up his son from the Springer household in the wealthier district of Brewer, that he is going to leave it all behind and drive away to the Gulf of Mexico to bask in the surf. He takes the family's only car, and without saying a thing, drives off. Needless to say, he doesn't make it far before turning back, but instead of going back to his young pregnant wife and son, Rabbit instead drives over to the gym where his former coach Marty Tothero spends most of his time. Instead of telling Rabbit to go back home to his wife, Tothero allows him to stay (the old coach obviously doesn't have everything together enough himself to try and convince Rabbit to do the right thing), then takes him on a double date, where Rabbit meets Ruth Leonard, a husky woman about Rabbit's age, and with whom Rabbit will spend the next three months of his life of infidelity to his own wife, who he leaves to fend for herself and their child.

An Episcopal Reverend by the name of Jack Eccles comes in to serve as mediator between the husband and wife who, despite having no contact with them since the day Rabbit fled, are irregardless at odds. At first, Rabbit despises Eccles, but then, he comes to appreciate the man's concern for Rabbit's own marriage, as it helps serve as an ego booster, and also helps him avoid any responsibility (which is important above all). The rest of the novel basically centers around Rabbit and his love/hate relationship with Ruth Leonard, and the persistent Reverend Eccles, whose own marriage starts to suffer due to his concern for the marriage of Rabbit and Janice. Two surprises are ahead, however, one expected, the other not, and it is a testament of Updike's skill as a writer that both scenes are envisioned masterfully.

Speaking of Updike's craft, the whole novel reads like poetry, and despite the fact that my conceit for the actions of Rabbit Angstrom is evident in my above description, I nevertheless could relate with the man. He seems so at odds with everyone else in the novel, so in it for himself, whereas every other character is trying to help piece together the broken union between Rabbit and his wife. He is unrepentantly obsessed with himself, and yet constantly pondering the larger forces of the universe (probably because he feels such dynamic forces are of comparison to himself in importance). Such a multifaceted and so different from any other literary figure. He is antagonistic and narcissistic and in it all for himself, and yet he is a compelling and enchanting literary creation.

And this isn't the only novel featuring this antihero, either. Anyone familiar with great fiction knows of the Rabbit series, all of which were penned by John Updike and written in ten-year intervals. In 1960, it was Rabbit Run, and every ten years after that came another book, including Rabbit Redux, Rabbit is Rich, and Rabbit at Rest (also a novella published in 2000 called "Rabbit Remembered"). All of them follow the life of this man, and though his wife and son mature and change in different ways, Rabbit never really does. He is also the conceited clod that he was in the first novel, hopelessly incompatible with the responsibilities that adult life commands, out of sync with life ever since he had to quit playing basketball as a kid, the only thing he was ever really good at.

Rabbit, Run isn't a flawless novel. In fact, it is my least favorite of the four rabbit books. And yet, it is a necessary read when approaching the series of novels in that it is a primer for the rest of the line of books. It gets you ready for Rabbit's future of narcissism and sin by introducing him when he is at his worst, that is, doing exactly what he wants to do. And yet, it is also him at his freest. Updike was wise to start his epic series with this novel, for it preps the reader for all of Rabbit's future wrong doings, while also capturing him when at the last moment of freedom from all of life's capacities, soaring past each sagacious boundary with reckless abandon, and without a care except himself in the world. Never mind that this isn't my favorite Rabbit book, for regardless of that, this is still great literature.